Chapter Text
Returning to the Standard is surreal; Erik is hyperaware that he left here just this morning. Not even twenty-four hours ago, and since then, so much has changed. The folded steel tables just outside the hotel stand out for him more than ever, beckoning his attention. If he were alone, he'd be drawn that direction.
But he's not. He's not alone.
He nearly manages to trip on nothing, he's so fixed on Charles, so completely absorbed in watching him as they push through the revolving yellow door and go inside. Charles stayed focused on him in the cab, just as rapt, and he's glancing toward Erik every few seconds now, his gaze quickly sweeping over the lobby and landing on Erik again and again.
And every time Charles looks at him, Erik feels it all over again, the same complicated mix of emotions washing over him. Relief, anticipation, wonder, need... it's too much, his hands are shaking with it.
Erik spent the past year bracing himself to find his soulmate in an institution somewhere. He was prepared to take on the responsibility of caring for him. He steeled himself for the worst, dreading he might find his soulmate staring into space and mouthing every word in unison with Erik, if he was capable of speaking at all.
"You must've lost your keycard in all that," Charles murmurs to him, concern putting a little crinkle in his brow. His soulmate. Not wasting away in "assisted living" somewhere, not damaged the way Sebastian claimed, that bastard. Not dead, the way Sebastian told him when he lied about it the first time.
He's alive, he's fine... he's beautiful. Erik's been attracted to men who resemble Charles for years, and yet he's never seen anyone like him.
He's shorter than Erik, exactly the right height to tuck under Erik's arm, if only they could get that close, the perfect height to let Erik bury his nose in his thick, wavy brown hair. He looks young; Erik was startled at first when the police officer who interviewed him referred to Dr. Xavier.
Closer, now, he can see that Charles could be near his own age. Charles has the sort of boyish face that wears the years well, with a rounded brow and a forthright nose dotted with freckles, and a mouth so red and perfect that it almost looks painted on. His fair complexion has a healthy flush, his blue eyes bright and alert, lingering on Erik, glancing around them. As they pass near the lattice wall, Charles reaches out and touches it absently, and when they walk by an unoccupied chair he lets his hand drift over the leather upholstery. Erik wants those hands on him so fiercely that he nearly forgets why Charles is looking at him with raised eyebrows.
"I didn't take a keycard with me," Erik answers belatedly. "I didn't want him to know where I was staying. I can work a lock with my ability."
"Even an electronic one?" Charles asks, eyebrows raised. "The circuitry doesn't make that more difficult?"
"It would, if that were all I had to work with." He can't help thinking of his mother's ability; she would have loved the move from traditional pin-and-tumbler locks, which she worked so effortlessly, to something like a modern hotel lock with all its complicated gadgetry. "But I don't use the circuitry. The handle on the inside is metal; I just pull on that."
Charles nods a little and licks his lips. He kept doing that in the cab, too, as if Erik weren't maddened enough just by being near him.
"It's this way," Erik says unnecessarily, as they head for the elevator. Being so close to Charles in the backseat of the cab was hard; standing next to him in a metal box has him sweating. It doesn't help that Charles crowds so close to him, cleaving toward him til their hands brush painfully and they startle back from each other again.
"Sorry," Charles says, looking at his hands, at Erik's. "What could be causing that?"
"I don't know," says Erik. "Something about Sebastian's ability...? Or--" But he doesn't want to delve into the bond and what Sebastian did to them, not here in this trendy hotel elevator with its inlaid LCDs, an obnoxious abstract video flashing in the corner of his eye.
Once they reach his floor, he guides Charles to their-- his-- room-- and, miracle of miracles, the lock pops obediently open for him right away.
The moment the door shuts behind them, Charles meets Erik's eyes and lifts his hand, making certain Erik sees what he's doing, moving slowly enough that Erik could object, as if he would. He lays his hand on Erik's shoulder, on his shirt. It might hurt a little less, but it's not much of an improvement, if any, and Charles flinches back from the burning sensation after a moment.
"I thought maybe," he grimaces, shaking out his hand.
"Don't stop trying. Please-- if we just--" He'd wanted to wait until he'd scraped Sebastian off his skin. He'd thought he could wait. He was wrong. With Charles here, knowing it's only the two of them in this room, feeling so drawn to Charles-- eleven years of waiting, that's long enough, too long already. Erik leans in, leans down, he needs this so much, God, just being this close: it's him, it's him.
Charles comes up to meet him, the speed of his motion speaking of shared urgency-- he must be feeling it too, this pull between them, the need to finally be one. His hand slips up to Erik's joining spot, where Erik's felt nothing but pain for the past eleven years, but somehow it seems completely natural, perfect and right that Charles should be able to hold him there--
But he can't. They barely get a moment of contact before the sting between them makes it too painful to go on, and the throb of pain at soul's-home leaves a bitter taste in the back of Erik's mouth. He catches Charles's hand and draws it away, as gently as he can, but the pain stings there, too, it hurts everywhere they're touching. "I'm sorry," Erik pants. "I'm so sorry, soul's-home hurts..."
Charles lets Erik hold onto his hand for a few seconds, but the burn gets to be too much for them both, and Charles pulls away with a wince. He shakes his hand out, reaches up to touch his mouth-- God, his mouth, Erik was kissing him, for the briefest moment Erik got to kiss him-- "Maybe if we leave hands out of it," Charles tries. He sounds every bit as desperate as Erik feels.
If there's even the slightest chance-- Erik leaves his hands at his sides and just leans forward again, his lips parted, ready for another try. This time, he sends out thoughts, too-- the way he used to, the way he did for years when they could still feel each other. «I missed you so much, can you hear me, can you hear me at all--»
Leaving hands out of it doesn't help shield them against the pain, and Charles doesn't send any response to those thoughts, if he even hears them. The kiss goes deep almost instantly, Charles moaning into Erik's mouth, a warm longing sound passing between them-- from Charles, Erik thinks, but it could be either of them, he's never felt need or desire like this before, never--
He can't hold on. His lips are going numb, the pain sinking in, somehow, a clawing, itching quality to it that makes it unlike any pain he's ever been able to enjoy. He draws back, breathing hard. "Fuck." His hands knot into fists at his sides, his jaw clenches.
"We'll sort this," Charles says, reaching forward and then pulling just as quickly away, a sort of warning buzz building between them before he can even make contact this time. "We'll figure it out."
The rhythm of those words is familiar. The tone, as well. It feels like it did when Erik was sixteen... he remembers the way his soulmate used to send calm to him, comfort and reassurance, steadying against a world full of frustration and injustice.
All these years later, and he's still trying to calm Erik down. Erik sags back against the nearest wall, trying to catch his breath. "I can't touch you," he whispers. "It's been so long, you found me, and I can't touch you."
"But you're here." Charles waits him out, lets Erik meet his eyes. When Erik does, Charles offers the smallest of smiles, and even that sets Erik's heart to racing. It's him. It really is. He's right there. "Maybe when you've told me what happened, once we compare notes, we can suss it out."
"Compare notes," Erik repeats. He's imagined meeting his soulmate so many times in the last year, but he never rehearsed this. How do I tell you what I let him do to us? How do I ask you to forgive me?
Charles's voice is still calm, still soothing. Erik wonders if it might be soothing no matter what he was saying, if he could listen to Charles telling him anything at all and just sink into it. "If we just sit down," Charles says. "You can think it through, we--" His voice breaks, and Erik watches as Charles stares at him, trembling-- equally affected by meeting Erik as Erik is by meeting him. Erik never imagined that, either, or the reassurance and relief in Charles's voice when he says, "We have time."
Eleven years gone, but now they have time. There are a thousand things Erik wants to say, but in the end he can't think of anything but this. "I've loved you for eleven years. I loved you for five years before that."
It makes Charles's jaw drop. For several seconds he can't speak, and Erik freezes, hoping he hasn't made a mistake. When Charles scrapes up words, he gets out a strangled, "Yes, I-- Erik." After another breath, "I've missed you--" his eyes close, and Erik wants, more than anything, to go to him, hold him, and he can't. "I've missed you so much, every day, for so long... I--" He looks up at Erik again, their eyes meeting. "Please tell me."
The adamantium-silver alloy around his neck feels like it's choking him again. Erik reaches up to it, pulls at it with his ability. Please. He's here. Let go of me. Let me go...
"Could I--" Erik takes a breath. He doesn't have to start this by pleading. "I need to take a shower. It's been hours since I've felt--" he grimaces-- "clean."
Charles takes a step back, drawing in a breath. "Of course," he says quietly. "I'm sorry, you said that before-- a shower, clothes--" He looks around the room, and when he spies the window seat in the corner, he nods toward it. "I'll just... be here, then. Yes?"
"Yes." Erik heads for his suitcase, dragging out jeans, a turtleneck-- there, at least he'll have something to cover the collar, if he can't get it off. Gathering them up in his hands, he looks over to the window seat. Charles walks over to it, sits there, offering another little hint of a smile. It seems so far away-- it isn't more than ten feet from Erik, and it still seems impossibly distant.
He's here, though. After a year of searching and all Erik's hopes fading to nothing again and again, his soulmate is here, in his hotel room, waiting for him to come back.
"I'll be fast," Erik says, his voice rough. "I promise-- I won't be gone long."
Charles nods, and Erik walks into the bathroom. After a moment's hesitation, he pulls the door nearly closed, but not enough to latch, let alone to lock. If Charles needs to remind himself that Erik's here, that he's real, Erik doesn't want to rob him of the chance. He's not too sure he won't be doing that himself.
Erik steps out of the shower and dries off, scrubbing with the towel as hard as he did with the bath brush and washcloth. It's like this every year. Half a bottle of body wash-- soap is too slow-- and scouring his skin under the hottest water he can stand, twice over. The steamed-over mirror shows a blurry broiled pink shape in his place.
The next part of his ritual has always been a silent apology to his soulmate. For what happened to them; for going back to the man who tore them apart, no matter how much Erik hated him, no matter how hard he tried to stay away.
He could give that apology to the man himself now. He should. He owes Charles so much more than that. But it's hard to grieve for his lost soulmate when that soulmate is right there, waiting in Erik's hotel suite, if not closer by now.
The collar's still on Erik's neck, for all that he's been pulling and tugging at it, with his ability, with his hands. Being near Charles has sharpened his sense for metal, but that's a double-edged sword, to put it mildly. Erik can feel the collar around his neck, down to the smallest imperfections in each link... and he's more aware of it than ever, the weight of it nearly choking him.
Fuck it. He's spent long enough in here; he wants to be dressed, to be done with this-- he needs to lay eyes on Charles again.
He dresses as quickly as he can, pulling the turtleneck up over the collar, and steps out of the bathroom.
The instant the door opens, Charles gets to his feet again, turning to face Erik. Erik's halfway across the room before he can even register that he's moving. Is that bond intuition? Is that what sent Charles into the water after him? He has so many questions, he knows Charles still has all those questions from before, but here and now, all Erik wants to do is look at him.
Charles's eyebrows go up, and Erik takes a deep breath, sweeping his gaze over Charles from head to foot. He really can't help it. Even in a t-shirt and those borrowed sweatpants, Charles is incredible; his shoulders, his collarbone, his pale speckled forearms. Erik's been struck by his appearance over and over tonight, but now he just blurts out the first thing he's noticing: "You have freckles."
For an instant, Charles breaks into a beautiful smile. Just as quickly he's shaking his head, answering ruefully, "Millions." But it gives him an excuse to step the slightest bit closer and add, "You have some as well. Much more faint."
He looks a little self-conscious as he reaches up to the bridge of his nose, where those two prominent freckles are, but Erik is a little faster, his fingertip glancing over them before the tinge of pain has him drawing his hand back. "I never pictured that detail," Erik admits. "But now that I'm looking at you, of course they're there. Of course you look like this, you're exactly what..."
He trails off, hoping Charles won't ask what he meant to finish with. All he can think of are the clichés: You're exactly what I wanted. You're who I've been looking for all this time. You're the other half of me. You're the part of me that was missing.
"You are..." Charles swallows as he looks Erik up and down-- and Erik's been feeling that gaze all night, but with no one else in the room and nothing to distract them from one another, it's so much more intense. Charles seems to blink himself back to awareness. "I'm sorry, it's just, people always say your own bondmate looks more beautiful to you than anyone... I didn't expect to experience it like this."
"I was so afraid I'd never find you," Erik says. Charles stares at him, and when he reaches out, Erik tries to meet him halfway. The snap of pain when they touch leaves both of them shaking out their hands. Erik looks down at his fingertips, exhaling roughly.
"You were looking for me," Charles says. He flexes and extends his fingers, rubbing his palm against his thigh. He sounds surprised, somehow. "You said you were looking for me."
"I tried. I couldn't feel you." He reaches up to soul's-home. He knows it's Charles, he knows it must be Charles that the damaged end of his bond is reaching out for, but soul's-home still aches, and pressing against it only sends blinding pain through him, enough to have him hissing and dropping his hand to his side. "I still can't. Not the way we used to..."
Looking at Charles makes him stop in his tracks. Charles's lips are parted slightly, his eyes focused on him-- no, his neck-- no, God, Erik just felt up his joining spot right in front of his soulmate, what was he thinking? If things were different, Charles could be grabbing him and ordering him onto his knees for a move like that, and Erik would... Erik would want him to...
"I'm sorry--"
"No, please don't be sorry," Charles tells him, voice hoarse. "I can't... I can't feel you, either." He straightens, his shoulders squaring-- Erik can read the confidence in his posture, and it does nothing to quell Erik's urge to take the floor. He doesn't do that anymore, he can't do that, but if he could... "I started to feel bond intuition nearly a year ago," Charles goes on. "Our bond must be coming back."
"A year ago. Was it just after--" Last year. The helmet. The energy drain. Sebastian, whole and healthy. "The last anniversary?"
Charles nods. "A few weeks after. It seemed as if last year was different." Not quite a question, though his eyebrows lift, troubled.
Erik can't look away from Charles, and even if Charles isn't asking again, Erik knows he can't put this off any longer. He looks around the suite, trying to figure out where-- the bed, the seating area-- he finally settles on the bed, taking a seat at the edge of it. "I think it's time to have that talk."
Sitting next to him, Charles folds one leg under him to face Erik more fully. "You thought I'd died...?"
"I held out hope for a long time. But I was told by everyone I talked to about it that there was no way you could have survived. It wasn't until last year that I finally had any evidence you'd made it through the--" Erik inhales deeply. The moment's come, he can't delay any longer, but he still has no idea how to talk about this. "The separation."
"Last year," Charles begins, but he shakes his head, peering at Erik with such intense concentration it's almost unnerving. "No, I should let you start where you need to begin."
All the metal in the room seems to stand out in sharp relief for him; Erik hasn't felt anything like it in years, not since he was a teenager. The bedsprings, the rails in the drawers, the wiring, the plumbing in the next room... he feels it all, and if he were even slightly stronger, it would probably all be shivering with him, shuddering in time with his trembling hands. He clenches both fists and closes his eyes, forcing himself to look at Charles again. "I don't know. You tell me. Tell me where you need me to start."
Charles opens his hands. "April 22nd, 2000."
"When I was seventeen," Erik begins at last, "my foster parents took me to a 'bond specialist'. I was... scaring them." He shakes his head quickly, his mouth twisting. Frustration, maybe, or impatience. Charles has seen that look on any number of mutants when they've spoken about their experiences dealing with humans in authority. For an instant it reminds him of Alex, of Angel, of Raven, but just as quickly the connection dissipates. This is Erik, his bondmate, sitting in front of him. He's not like anyone else. "They didn't know how to deal with raising a mutant. They thought I was having trouble with my bond."
"Why the bond...?" Charles asks. It's sadly common for human parents to struggle with raising a mutant child, but if their worries concerned Erik's mutation, bond therapy seems a strange approach.
Erik plants his hand on the bed, leaning against it heavily. "Their own bond was defective. It was all they could see when they looked at me. I tried to tell them-- I tried so hard-- but after my mother died, no one listened. No one who could help me."
Swallowing, Charles asks quietly, "Was it soliximide?" Years ago the drugs that suppressed the bond had side effects that could damage the bond past all hope of repair. They might have been prescribed as recently as eleven years ago, when more modern drugs like Xinitac were still awaiting FDA approval.
But instead of confirming that, Erik bursts into a shallow laugh, quickly closing his mouth, his eyes filling.
Charles reaches for him, that awful buzz of pain flaring between them again. "I'm sorry. Erik..." He turns to the bedside table and comes back with tissues, pressing them into Erik's hand, unable to resist that moment of connection despite the mutual flinch.
"Sebastian was my bond therapist, starting a few months before he separated us. For whatever reason, the Stones trusted him." Erik shakes his head grimly. "I know they regret that now."
In the hours they were apart at the hospital, Charles racked his mind for connections; he's certain he's encountered Shaw's mind before, but Shaw was in such a singular state tonight, so unhinged, that Charles can't match the memory. If he'd thought to look through the eyes of the pilot to see Shaw's face, it might've helped him place the man. He can't read Erik for it without hurting them both. But now he realizes he was going at it all wrong, the connection clicking. "Sebastian Shaw. He's written books...?"
"You've seen them?" Erik asks. He seems startled. Though as always, it's a trial for Charles to try to discern emotion solely from the vagaries of face and voice.
Quickly Charles explains, "I wrote my thesis on the bond, I've tried to at least glance over everything related to bond damage and manipulation. I saw his books, but when I learned Shaw had lost his medical license and none of his material was peer reviewed, I didn't look further."
Erik wads up the tissues in his fist, his face darkening with something Charles can only read as fury. "It doesn't work. The procedure that he's known for. That he describes in his books. It doesn't work the way he says it does."
"You've experienced it," Charles blurts, going cold.
"It was performed on me. Without my consent." He looks at Charles again, finally, meeting his eyes. "On April 22nd, 2000."
Charles can only stare for long moments. It's so much worse than nearly anything he's imagined. Of course in those years apart, he dreaded that his bondmate might have died, might have been grievously injured or ill. But his bondmate felt-- Erik felt-- so strong to Charles, right up to the end, that Charles held onto the hope that his bondmate hadn't come to harm.
Without my consent. And Erik was with Shaw again tonight, hurt by him again tonight. He's come to so much more than merely harm.
"God... Erik... I'm sorry," Charles says. Erik winces, but when Charles reaches toward him, Erik leans forward, trying to get as close as he can to Charles's touch. Charles hates being forced to draw back, hates that he can't offer more than those pathetic, useless words... how is hearing I'm sorry going to help at all? Especially when Erik looks at him searchingly, perhaps distressed again at the prospect of pity.
He rests his hand next to Erik's knee, as close as he can get. Erik puts his hand down beside Charles's; there's a low thrum of warning discomfort until Erik moves his hand another fraction of an inch away.
"You're alive," Erik says softly. "I was so afraid... it was the first thing he told me, when I woke up. That you must have died."
Charles feels chilled and numb as he thinks back to those first few days after the loss. "I thought so too at first." And again, just last year... though that was different, everything blurred over, not the terrible absence of the weeks after the bond went. He shakes himself quickly, though; he doesn't want to dwell on those days, and he certainly doesn't want Erik shouldering any guilt any of it.
Years-- years, Charles has thought his bondmate abandoned him, renounced him. He's blamed himself, yes, but he's blamed his bondmate too. He knew for so long that his bondmate was increasingly unhappy, more and more afraid, and he did nothing. Assuming he was renounced, painful as that was, still gave him undeserved absolution for that failure. The guilt is shattering; he clenches his hands to quell the tremors. "I don't understand why he'd do something so drastic, why anyone would allow that. Why didn't they have you renounce, teach you to block?"
It's the first time he's ever wished his soulmate had renounced him. But maybe that could have saved all this suffering. Maybe if Erik had renounced as a teenager, they could have found each other when they reached seeking age-- or, at the very least, maybe now they could touch.
But Erik's sagging, curling away as his eyes shut tight. When he finally gets them open again, he still doesn't quite face Charles; he's in profile, his face lined with exhaustion. "I wouldn't," he whispers. He closes his eyes again, his head falling back for a moment, exposing the line of his throat-- a line that's marred by a ridge beneath the fabric of his turtleneck, the outline of that hated chain. Charles can do nothing but stare, all but torn apart by how badly he wants to stake his own claim to Erik, how badly he wants Shaw's claim off him.
Erik straightens and turns back to Charles. Once again Charles is struck by this man's beauty. All his elegance, all his grace... in motion or at rest, angry or grieving, Charles is drawn to him.
"They tried," Erik says quietly. "They spent years trying to convince me to block you. I refused."
Refused, Charles hears, the words burning into his mind. I refused. The answer to the question why?, the question Charles has hoped to find an answer for all these years. Why did you renounce me?
And there he is, sitting beside him, regret and longing coloring his face and his voice while he tells Charles I refused.
"Erik..." There's no fighting it now; Charles bends his head, eyes welling over with tears.
He tries to wipe them away discreetly, but he has to turn back to Erik. Angry as Charles is with himself, Erik deserves to know the truth. "I knew something was wrong." He's failed Erik in every possible way; it's unfathomable. "Everyone kept trying to tell me it was just teenage angst. I knew better. I never should have listened. I should've come seeking."
Erik's voice is thick when he says, "I should've run. I could have run. Even at the last minute, before the-- the operation--" Charles's gut twists; even he can hear the pain and horror in Erik's voice, he doesn't need to read Erik's mood for that. "I could have gotten away. I should have run. I could have found you."
"I wanted to come," Charles tells him. "I took enough money. I was out of the house. They said if I just finished out my freshman year, I could have permission to go that summer. But the night before it ended, you were so conflicted and panicked, I'd made up my mind to leave that week. I was trying to tell you to hold on a little longer when it was already too late." He can't stop the tears rolling down his face; he's believed for so long that it was his fault, that he drove his bondmate away somehow. But it's worse than that. He failed Erik by a matter of days, all because he believed they had time.
It hadn't always felt so urgent. There were moments of happiness scattered throughout those last few years. The week before the end, there'd been a long Saturday night when Charles felt happiness, excitement, pleasure, when his bondmate reached out and Charles could nearly hear all the promises he was trying to make. Every glint of hope like that, every respite, had Charles believing he could wait a bit longer, wait for permission to seek. But he was wrong.
He knocks tears off his cheeks, impatient, but he's jolted by the pain when Erik tries to put a hand on his shoulder. Erik, trying to comfort him, even when it hurts him to do it. Charles doesn't deserve that.
"You need to know," Erik says, his voice shaking. "I have to tell you. Why then, why it happened then--" Charles looks back up at him, instantly, breath strangling in his throat. For a moment, Erik stares, but he goes on, "I hurt someone. I hurt more than one person. I got into a fight with humans. They were attacking a mutant girl. I couldn't let it happen."
The days before the renunciation-- the separation-- come back to Charles in a rush. "The twentieth. You were so angry."
"There were four of them. Four." The bed shakes underneath Charles, bedsprings squeaking. "She was only fourteen, she was tiny. Her power was a form of invulnerability, they couldn't touch her, but she was so scared. I couldn't--" He turns away, but not before Charles sees his eyes filling with tears again. His voice breaks as he says, "I couldn't let them--"
Charles touches his arm and flinches back again at the pain. It seems as if there's no end to the ways he's hurting Erik. He takes Erik's sleeve between his fingers instead; anything to connect with him. "It was years ago. It's not a choice you ever should've had to make."
"They told me I had to go in for tests. To see if my bond was influencing me into violence. I tried to tell them, you were there for me, you were helping me, you tried to keep me calm... it was no use. I was Phi-level. I used my ability all the time. I could lift cars. I scared everyone back then." He looks at Charles, brows slanting up. "Everyone but you."
"I loved you," Charles says helplessly. Of course he was never afraid, never could be.
Erik's expression creases for a moment, but he swallows and nods. "I knew."
It's such a relief to hear it-- Charles wants to reach over, squeeze Erik's knee, reassure him with touch. But he can't. They can't. "I wanted you to know. I tried so many ways to tell you. To ask you where you were. If I should come."
Shaking his head, Erik admits, "I would have told you to wait. That it wouldn't be long. I was less than a year from turning eighteen, I could have come after I graduated from high school..."
He was seventeen when this happened to them. Charles has felt so many things over the years for his bondmate, but suddenly he's a teenager again, and a protective sense of outrage flows up in him. Seventeen. Erik was still a boy then, just as Charles was. "I was sixteen. My family had been putting me off nearly three years by then. I only felt a direction a few times, nothing clear, but--" He flicks a hand toward his temple. "I had more range then, I was sure I could've found you. But that's not the custom."
Erik looks at Charles for a long moment, finally nodding. "We lost so much."
"And now this." Charles holds out his hand palm down over Erik's, bringing it closer and closer til the buzz starts up again. An inch or so from Erik, and it's there, but they can stand it. It's more an itch at that range than any real pain. "I've read everything I can lay hands on about damaged bonds; I've never read any documentation of anything like this."
Erik shrugs, his hand twitching lightly beneath Charles's. "Maybe it's because of Sebastian's mutation. Maybe I absorbed something... maybe it'll wear off."
"Did it feel like this when anyone else touched you, the EMTs, the nurses...?"
Another shake of Erik's head. "No. But you touched me before any of them did... maybe..." He turns fully, looking at Charles with purpose now, clarity, intent. His lips are parted, his pupils dilating as he looks at Charles's eyes... his mouth. Charles can feel an answering excitement building again in every inch of his body, every nerve. This is his bondmate. His. "I want to keep trying," Erik says hoarsely. "Please."
Somehow Charles hangs onto the shreds of his self-control and manages to nod, his voice nearly normal when he says, "All right." He turns to face Erik more fully on the bed: legs folded, hands out, both palms down now.
But Erik ignores his hands, leaning in for another kiss, and Charles meets him, so far beyond eager there can't possibly be words for this feeling. The pain is a miserable, distracting sting against his lips, ruining the taste of Erik's mouth-- Charles barely gets a hint of Erik's toothpaste before all he can taste is electricity and metal, something he wants to wash out of his mouth as much as he wants to hold on to Erik and push past all this painful interference.
Erik groans, whether in pain or excitement, it's hard to tell; he rests his hands on Charles's shoulders. That additional hurt takes Charles to the edge of his ability to tolerate pain, and when he can't help stiffening in distress, Erik backs off, rubbing at his mouth.
"I'm afraid I've never been much of a masochist," Charles tells him. His skin still prickles unpleasantly everywhere Erik touched him.
"It doesn't help," Erik winces.
"Oh? Ah."
"I don't know if you remember... feeling that from me... when we were together, back then," Erik says haltingly.
Looking at him again, Charles feels a wave of nostalgia, trying to imagine what Erik was like eleven years ago, sixteen years ago... "I had that impression at the time. I've questioned everything, in the years since then."
"I'm not oriented anymore." Erik looks at him, his brows inclined at an angle even Charles can read as regretful. "I just couldn't-- after... everything..."
"I think I understand." Carefully, Charles adds, "I still am."
Erik takes a deep breath. "I wish I could go there with you."
Charles studies him, feeling so much for him... affection, desire and tenderness, a depth of feeling he thought he'd left behind when he was sixteen. "We can work something out," he promises. "--Though I'm assuming a lot, with that. Given this..." He touches Erik's hand, triggering that ferociously irritating sting.
Nodding, Erik swallows, and begins, "If you don't want to..." He shakes his head, unable to finish.
"I want to," Charles answers instantly. "Whatever's in question, the answer is yes, I want to. I know we're strangers to one another. And perhaps we ought to take some time..."
"Eleven years isn't long enough?" Erik jokes bleakly.
"A long time to miss out on." But even if they can't touch, they're here, and Charles wants to be here, he wants whatever they can have. For all he knows, Erik's background might forbid them to touch yet regardless. "Do you observe any traditions around--?" he gestures between them, encompassing all of it, seeking, receiving, acknowledging, all the little customs and ceremonies, big and small.
"Acknowledgement?" Erik asks.
Charles nods, suddenly seized with nerves at hearing the word aloud. "I'm not very traditional myself. My family's not, either. My sister's acknowledgement party is tomorrow night... she and her bondmate have already acknowledged and recognized, this was just the best date for the celebration." Oh, God, he's babbling; he stops himself before he launches into his Concordance 102 lecture on comparative traditions, already springing to his lips.
"I-- I need us to be clear..." Erik looks at him, brows tilted up and drawn together, eyes dark. "Are we talking about acknowledging? Us." Despite everything, he brushes Charles's hand. "You and me. Acknowledging."
"If you--" Charles shakes himself. Even if his inept grasp of body language makes Charles uncertain, Erik's words make it clear he wants assurance. "It doesn't have to be right away, or even soon, we can decide that together... but yes, Erik. I want to acknowledge you."
Erik reaches for him, stopped only by that nettling pain when they touch, a frustrated noise grinding in his throat. "For fuck's sake..."
"This can't last much longer, surely," Charles says. "If nothing else, there must be someone who can tell us what's causing it and what we can do to stop it. I have an acquaintance whose sister is a psi physiologist, she might be able to help us."
"I know a doctor," says Erik. "She's an expert on the bond... she's not like most of them. And she works with mutants. She's here in the city, I've seen her before."
"Two possibilities already," Charles conjures a smile. "We'll sort this in no time."
"I want it gone now, it's been so long already..." Erik's fists clench, his shoulders tight. "It's not fair. It's been eleven years, I still can't feel you through the bond, isn't that enough? I can't touch you either?"
"I know," Charles murmurs to him, "but raging against it won't help. Calm your mind, try to relax..."
"Relax," Erik says furiously. "After eleven years of this? Eleven years of these fucking anniversaries?" He comes to his feet, one hand reaching to the front of his neck. Charles's stomach turns at the reminder; that-- piece of jewelry, it's still on Erik, and Charles folds his hands over each other to disguise the tremors.
"Erik, I understand," Charles tries next, with Erik pacing back and forth, prowling, coiled like a spring. "I've been alone all these years as well--"
"Alone. God, if only." Erik slips two fingers underneath his turtleneck, tugging, and Charles's hands tighten so hard on each other his knuckles go white.
Break, please, break-- "What did you say?"
Erik rounds on him, eyes flashing. "Eleven years. I can be grateful at least that it wasn't any longer, but every single year, going back to him--"
"What--" Charles can barely get out enough breath to say it. "What do you mean...?"
For another moment, Erik's still glaring at him, eyes narrowed, face harsh and lined with anger-- but then it all disappears at once, Erik's hand coming away from the front of his throat, the tension leaving his frame. "You didn't know," Erik says slowly. "Of course you didn't. How could you have known...?"
His hand slips back-- at first Charles thinks he might be pulling something out of his right back pocket, but instead he rucks up his turtleneck, and he turns, putting his back to Charles, unbuckling his belt and pushing the waistband of his trousers down as well. Charles saw it all before, the thin pale scars on Erik's lower back, the bandage up top where there might be a new one, but now Erik runs his fingertips down the set of them. "These were-- it was one for every year until last year. Last year he didn't have a knife." He rests his fingertips against the bandage at the top. "And tonight."
"Erik-- my God, are you--" He bites the question off; of course Erik's not all right, what an absurd question to even think. He let himself believe that tonight, the boat, Shaw experiencing what might have been a psychotic break-- that it was all just one incident.
Now he knows it wasn't. Going back to him, Charles thinks. His eyes are hot again, prickling with the threat of tears while Erik covers the scars again, buckling his belt. All these years... if he'd known, if he had the full measure of his abilities or even without them, if he'd known... he had that man's mind in his grip tonight and he let go. He knew Erik was in trouble years ago, and he didn't act. "Erik. Erik, I am so, so sorry--"
"I don't want you to be sorry," Erik snarls, turning on Charles, furious. But just as quickly the ferocity leaves him, and he shakes his head. "This is so familiar," he whispers. "All of this. You. Everything. How many times were we like this, before? How many times was I angry? How many times were you there to soothe me?"
So many feelings rock through Charles that he doesn't know where to start. He remembers all that anger, and he'd been so sure he was managing to send calm through the bond-- send calm to Erik through the bond. All that emotion... this man, the one standing in front of him, all coiled anger and desperation, he's the one who was on the other end of it. And he remembers.
"I always wanted to--" Charles nearly laughs at his own naivete. "I always wanted to help you. And--"
"And you did," Erik interrupts. "I don't know how I would have survived those last few years without you. After my mother died..." His voice trails off, and he shakes his head again. "But this is one of the times I don't want to be calmed down. Do you remember that? Did I manage to get that through to you, back then?"
Charles takes in a deep breath. "Of course I remember," he whispers. "But I thought--" It seems so selfish now, all the things he thought.
"You thought...?" Erik moves closer, one hand outstretched, palm up as if in... solidarity, as if to give comfort. Charles stares down at it for a few seconds and then reaches forward, hovering his own hand a few inches above Erik's, just where the feedback starts to set in. "Tell me."
"Sometimes I thought it was me you were angry with."
Erik's hand curls into a fist below Charles's, drops to his side. "No. Not you. Never you. My foster parents. Sebastian. The whole damned world, sometimes. But not you." He lets out a short laugh. "Just looking at you... there's an urge to--" Charles holds his breath while Erik collects his thoughts. "It's so tempting to just... let your presence help me the way it did then, let it calm me. Just being around you makes everything else seem--" He shakes his head. "But it's... there's too much. I don't think you can scratch the surface this time."
It aches, though Charles agrees, "I don't know how much help I can be, right now."
Something in Erik's expression softens, and he takes a seat next to Charles, reaching out to touch Charles's shoulder. He has to stop before he gets there, and the flinch from nearly touching turns into a scowl, the line of Erik's jaw tensing. "Apparently I'm not allowed to try to comfort you, either."
"You shouldn't have to," Charles begins, but that doesn't seem like a useful place to steer the conversation; he stops, putting his hand on the bed between them, as near to Erik's knee as he can get it. "But you were right," he whispers.
Erik moves his hand-- carefully, so carefully, slipping his hand behind Charles's and resting it to the other side of Charles's hand, close to Charles's knee. It's almost like having their hands folded together, that interleaving of hands beside knees; it's almost like touching, if the threat of pain weren't there, ready to sting them if either one of them so much as breathes wrong.
"I was right?"
"That this all feels familiar."
Erik looks down at their hands. "I spent the last year imagining what might happen if I found you. Sebastian's operation... it left people damaged, all over the world. I expected you to be one of them. I didn't know if we'd even be able to be in the same room, let alone in any condition to acknowledge--"
His eyes fly up to Charles's, and Charles braces himself for it: And now I don't want to. Or, Now we never can. Erik asked, earlier, about acknowledgment, but he didn't say that he wanted it. Maybe he doesn't.
But the rejection doesn't come. Erik keeps looking at him, his eyebrows drawn together, his face lined and tense, his hand trembling beside Charles's. Charles can't read that expression, but if Erik were going to reject the proposition of acknowledgement outright... surely he would have done it already. What if he's waiting for something else?
Charles takes a breath, gathers up what courage and dignity he's got left-- Erik deserves that from him, and so much more. If there's a way out of this, if they can find it together... Charles reaches for the smallest loose bit of material at Erik's sleeve, catching it lightly between his fingertips. There isn't much to hold onto, but he's got all he can.
"We could," he answers. "We could acknowledge tonight. We could acknowledge tomorrow, if you want to be received first; my sister would do that."
With no hesitation at all, Erik says, "I want to." Charles can feel the warmth of that response light up his whole body. After all these years, not just answers, but acknowledgement. His bondmate wants him. Erik wants him. "I could-- I don't have family anymore-- I have a friend, a close friend, and his family. They're in Boston... they might be able to get here by tomorrow."
"We don't have to rush," Charles tries to reassure him. "Either way, if you're there tomorrow, I could introduce you, my sister could receive you. It would even be traditional; technically I still live with her, so apart from me, she's the dominant of the household..." He's babbling a bit again. "Everyone I know is going to be at her acknowledgement party tomorrow." He smiles, just a little-- in this case, that's no exaggeration. "And several dozen others besides."
Erik's looking at Charles's hand on his sleeve, with what Charles hopes is the faint beginning of a smile. "Big event?"
"Rather." The hope of that smile has him joking nervously, "It turns out that when you invite half the mutant activists in New York State to an event, it starts to look a bit churlish not to invite the other half."
"I thought I knew a lot of people in Pittsburgh's mutant community," Erik says. "I can't imagine how many people show up to this kind of event in New York."
"Last I heard just over four hundred. But--" he can laugh about it now, albeit with a touch of mania-- "I'm not up on everything. I may have mentioned, I've been traveling."
Shaking his head, Erik's hopefully-a-smile widens. "You did find me."
"I did. I have. God, Erik..." It's overwhelming all over again, just sharing the same space with him, seeing him, feeling him near. "I can't believe you're here." He remembers being sixteen, the frightening day he went for ability testing. He spent hours seeking his bondmate's company for comfort, and the loyal attention he received kept Charles steady no matter how nerve-wracking it got. He's always remembered that as the day he fell in love with the person who held the other side of his bond, not simply because they were bonded, but for who he was.
Who he is. Here they are again, and Erik could turn away from Charles for failing to reach him in time; he could blame Charles for what happened, and Charles would have no answer. But instead, like all those years ago, he responds with loyalty and affection. They can't feel their bond, they can't even touch, but Charles couldn't be more certain: "I'm glad it's you."
Erik huffs, more a breath than a laugh. "You're probably the only dominant in the world who'd think that."
He can't keep from clocking Erik with a heated look and an odd flare of jealousy, thinking of it. "I very much doubt that."
And there they are, setting each other off again; Erik's gaze grows just as heated as he looks into Charles's eyes. "You're the only one I--" he stumbles, trying again, "the only one I want. I'm glad it's you, too."
Charles uses his free hand to smudge tears out of his eyes, again. It's different this time, though, nervousness and welling excitement replacing all that sorrow and grief. He can't imagine a time when he won't regret all the things he did wrong, as a teenager, but for now... they're talking about acknowledgement, and it could happen as soon as right now.
"Erik--" He stops short; Erik Shaw, will you-- No. "I don't know your name."
Erik turns his head, frowning with confusion. "I told you, earlier-- Erik Shaw."
"No," Charles says. Erik looks at him sharply, but Charles can't make himself take it back somehow. To hell with whatever the law says; Erik doesn't belong to that man, and he never has. "Your name."
It rocks Erik for a moment, his eyes widening, but he straightens, shoulders going back, head high now. "Erik Lehnsherr." He takes a breath. "My name is Erik Lehnsherr."
"Erik Lehnsherr," Charles repeats softly. "Erik Lehnsherr, will you do me the honor of acknowledging me as your soulmate?"
"Oh, God," Erik breathes. "Yes, I--" But he stops, his eyes moving from Charles's face to... to the floor, at Charles's feet. Excitement runs through Charles like lightning; eleven years of separation fall away, for just an instant, and he imagines it the way he did when he was fourteen, fifteen, when he was sixteen and that seeker trip was just weeks away. His bondmate, on his knees, promising...
The vision fades as Erik stays quiet, finally saying, "I always thought I'd do it from there."
Charles reaches out and touches a spare fold of denim at Erik's knee-- anywhere at all he can make contact, anywhere it doesn't hurt as much to briefly touch him. "You wouldn't need to on my account," he tries. "It's so much to me that you're here at all."
But Erik's jaw tenses, and he shakes his head-- for a moment, Charles's heart leaps into his throat. Too much time lost. Are they too different now? A million things could happen here, and acknowledgment might not be what Erik wants after all, now that they've come to it.
"No," Erik says firmly. "I wanted that for so long-- I'm not giving that up just because-- because."
And Charles watches as his bondmate-- his-- slides off the bed and kneels down at his feet, his hands turned up on his thighs, palms up, head tilted back so he can see Charles, too.
It's not the fantasy he had as a teenager; it's not even the vision he had a few moments ago. The faint scratches at the sides of Erik's mouth, the rasp of stubble over his jaw, the redness around his eyes, all of that adds up to a picture Charles could never have imagined on his own.
But the way he's looking at Charles, determined and hopeful... Charles remembers the strength he felt from his bondmate, all those years ago. The way he felt stubborn, all but intractable now and then. And the way he always fit, with Charles, in a way that no one else ever has or ever could.
Charles wants Erik for the man he is, now, but he wants the rest of it back, too. And this is where it starts. He glances around for something to cover his hand with, block that damnable feedback to the best of his ability, and all right, there's nothing nearby-- he'll outlast it, then, or maybe it'll just fade, now that Erik's real bondmate has come to claim him. He extends his hand to Erik, watches Erik's lips part as he sees the motion.
"Erik Lehnsherr, will you do me the honor of acknowledging me as your soulmate?"
"Yes," Erik whispers. His eyes are shining, his lashes wet. Charles wonders if Erik's heart is pounding as hard as his own. "Yes, Charles, I accept the gift of our bond and acknowledge you as my soulmate."