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Like every other organisation with more than one person, the NYPD has a huge library of unwritten policies. One is the don’t ask don’t tell policy, which, despite being so terribly battered by the media - it being an endlessly popular issue in post-controversial left-wing publications - still roams as free as a well-fed businessman, albeit with a shuffling gait and perhaps a slightly stuffy nose.
Among the NYPD lads and ladies, the old DADT zombie horse gallops, its leaps gaining strength in proportion to the perceived importance of bureaucratic unit. The Movie & Television division, for example, already a running joke within the department - they’ll tell you anything. Charles has had a particularly memorable encounter with one young fellow, who’s since left to pursue his life-long dream of heroic parkour by becoming a police officer on camera. As far as Charles can discern, the only thing youdon’t talk about in Movie/TV is Tom Cruise.
In the Crime Scene Unit, however, the hooves of the DADT horse are massive, stomping almost every conversational topic into awkwardly silent smithereens in the bowels of the copy room. Such topics not only include the standard four - religion, abortion, politics and economics - but also the less standard but no less controversial topics such as sexual orientation and mental health and belief in the supernatural.
All of which Detective Charles Xavier has several Issues with.
So he doesn’t talk much with his coworkers, if at all, beyond shop talk and occasional comments about the weather or big screen classics. He doesn’t need to, for the most part, because even without spoken words Charles knows entirely too much about them. Reyes, for example, has been having marital problems for half a decade and somehow relishes it. Quested has an odd fascination with gingko trees rustling in the wind. And Kozlov has been dreaming a lot about lobster recently. Charles knows all that and more, simply because the voices in his head tells him so.
The voices, which sounds a lot like everyone else’s voice, except filtered through a syringe with the needle jammed into his neocortex. He’s been to see a shrink only once about this, and the growing concern in her thoughts about Charles’ ‘condition’ was enough for him to backpedal very quickly, blurting the cringe-worthy it’s a prank! and earning himself a very nasty glare.
The way Charles sees it, if he tells people he can read minds, he’s limited with three options: one, get sent to a mental institution with a schizophrenia diagnosis, or two, get sent to a neuroscience lab and resign to being immortalised in -80ºC freezers and microscope slides, or three, something something the government, and something, according to literature, often involves dissections and anal probing. Neither of the options sounds very appealing, so Charles stayed and stays mum.
And then there’s Erik. Charles never ever, ever talks about Erik.
Said ghost currently has a frown marring his handsome face while Charles pukes up every morsel of the burger he’s had for lunch.
“It’s the father, isn’t it.” His voice isn’t questioning - more plaintive, unsurprised and half-angry, which seems to be Erik’s default reaction to just about everything to do with human beings.
Charles hacks before he answers in wet squelchy gasps. “You’ll be pleased to note --” whoops, there goes his Cobb salad, “-- that this time --” and that’s the orange soda, “ -- it’s the mother instead,” Charles finishes heroically, wiping vomit from his lips with his sleeve.
Erik scrunches his nose. “That’s fucking sick,” he says, as a comment to either Charles’ impromptu handkerchief or the case proceedings.
“Yup,” Charles agrees, standing up from where he’s hunched over the gutter. “Fortunately, the girl isn’t dead, which is why you couldn’t talk to her. You have your wedding ring, right?" Erik can speak to the dead only if he has his ring with him. Charles wonders if he talks to his wife that way. Sweet, if in a morbid way.
Erik nods, lines of displeasure vaguely spasming across his face, soon replaced by a strange impassiveness.
Charles adds, "She’s being kept in a cellar in Bath.” It’s always Bath. Charles sighs and retrieves his cell. “I’m calling the Captain,” he explains to Erik, who rolls his eyes and waves his hand in a shooing gesture.
Charles’ Captain is Cain, who picks up on the very first ring. “NYPD. Captain Marko speaking,” is his greeting.
“Gabriella Hayes is alive. It’s the mother,” Charles says without preamble, and the silence on the other end is expectant. Charles rattles off the address he filched from Margaret Hayes’ brain. Faintly, he hears the clatter of a keyboard - no doubt Cain is typing the address on Google Maps right now. Charles likes having Cain as a coworker, maybe even more so than as a brother.
“So what do we do now?” Erik asks after Charles hangs up.
“It’s out of our jurisdiction. Now we trust Bath police to do their job,” Charles says, though not without first quirking a smile at the tiny collective pronoun. Funny how Erik has somehow managed to integrate himself to nearly every aspect of Charles’ life.
In response, Erik frowns. “There must be something else we can do.”
“The girl’s alone in the cellar, only the mother knows where she is, and she still plans to collect her daughter later. Honestly, it’s airtight once police gets there - which they will, in about half an hour.”
Erik’s still frowning.
“Plus,” Charles adds, “The most important thing is that Gabrielle will be safe.”
At this Erik scoffs. “That woman should spend the rest of her life in prison.”
Charles hums non-committally, deciding not to mention that life imprisonment sentences are generally reserved for murders. “Even if that’s so,” he hedges, “Right now, the less interaction we have with her the better, at least until Gabrielle is safe.”
Erik gives a short sigh, which is his version of a petulant fine.
Charles turns to him with a smile. “Well. Shall we head off?”
Erik glances back to where the Hayes’ house is standing, blocks away, obscured by other houses and a neat copse of trees. Charles hasn’t even managed to leave the neighbourhood before needing to pull over and puke all over a lamppost. “Let’s,” Erik says.
Back in the car, Erik’s restless and jittery, his fingers tapping incessantly against the headboard, neck craning to look behind them. He’s always agitated when it’s a family case, and Charles knows from experience that he won’t calm down until the case is closed and Cain gives them the wrap. That in mind, Charles makes it a point to drive down to Lower Manhattan - high-rise buildings and city lights have an uncanny ability to cheer Erik up - despite the cold, slimy sensation currently slithering around his cranium, like a handful of spiders crawling in his brain. This always happens when he reads minds with intent.
“Denny’s or IHOP?” Charles asks, as they near the city centre.
After a moment of focused deliberation, Erik says, “Denny’s,” and Charles heads to the Financial District.
Believe it or not, Charles met Erik on a holiday.
Some time ago, Charles had rented a tiny, decrepit hut in one of the smaller villages around Düsseldorf, one week after the disastrous visit to the psychotherapist. He had this fantasy of living as a hermit to escape the incessant noises in his head, and just when he thought he was more or less settled down - the voices quieter than a feather’s flicker - he found the Reichsmark coin in a loose floorboard.
As soon as he picked it up he was bombarded by images of hundreds of emaciated bodies, dutifully queueing up for slaughter. Nameless people with numbers carved into their arms, heads shaved and too heavy for their skeletons. Death, death everywhere, the stench so thick it would never be wiped clean. And then, and then -- two women, one old and the other young, memories weathered with grief and burning rage, stifling rage, choking and consuming all the air in his lungs.
But as strong and bitter the emotion was, Charles could recognise that it wasn’t his, and the sense of being an unwelcome observer was enough to save him from drowning.
That was when he promptly vomited on the bed.
“Arschloch!” he heard. A figure stood, clad in black, at the edge of his peripheral vision. Disoriented as Charles was, the man seemed the only real thing in this room, dark and solid, encased in the faint glow of moonlight. Thin veil curtains stirred like captured ghosts, and all around him shadows rippled. Dry leaves and tree branches casted strange greedy claws against rickety floorboards.
Charles wondered if he left the door unlocked. “This cabin’s private property,” he coughed out, trails of saliva still dripping from his chin.
The man paid him no heed. Instead, he stomped away, movements jerky in anger. “Klasse. Er selbst spricht.”
Charles eyed the stranger, who was now pacing around the room with a disgruntled look on his face, clearly determined to ignore Charles. “Who are you?” he called weakly, still dizzy from his mental altercation.
The man turned so sharply towards him that Charles reared back in surprise, the back of his knees knocking against the bedside table. “Nicht machbar,” the stranger whispered, eyes wide.
“Right,” Charles said, once the churning in his stomach has marginally settled. “Uh, sprechen… sprechen Sie Englisch?”
“You can see me?” the man said, voice thin with disbelief.
“Obviously.” Charles rolled his eyes and turned to the bedsheet. He sighed, not relishing the idea of carrying vomit-stained sheets to the washing machine downstairs in the middle of the night.
As he reached for one corner of the bedsheet, he realised he still held the Reichsmark coin; he hadn’t noticed just how tightly he gripped the coin until he saw the indents the coin’s edge made against the soft flesh of his palm.
He set the coin down on the table and set to the covers. “Look,” he said, without paying much attention to the stranger, “There may be a problem. I rented this cabin for the month and as far as I know I’m the only one supposed to be here.“
When he turned back to the man, he had vanished.
“What the--” Charles said. Then there was a slow, subtle movement in the corner of his eye: the Reichsmark coin was floating. “That’s... interesting,” he said, feeling rather faint. If this happened weeks ago he’d be more surprised, but since the onset of his ‘condition’ he supposed he should be rather desensitised to supernatural phenomena.
Still. A floating coin was not yet ordinary.
Charles stared after the dusty thing as it moved further away, and then stilled, about chest-height two metres from where Charles was standing.
“Whoever you are,” Charles muttered, with tired incredulity, “Will you please tell me what the bloody hell’s going on? Hello? Anyone here?”
The coin wavered, and then it inched closer to Charles, until it hovered right in front of him as if offering itself.
Charles accepted it.
And then he promptly vomited - again - on the stranger’s shoes. The stranger who, coincidentally, reappeared once his fingertips touched the Reichsmark coin.
When he looked up, his vision flickered. Again, those nightmarish images - blood and mud and steel, corpses being piled on top of one another - howled, banging against the interiors of his skull and nearly ripping his mind apart.
An ache ignited in Charles’ chest, a thousand iron nails hammering into his sternum. Perhaps it was just his heart, too rapid for blood, radiating pain up along his jaw. He was trembling, beads of sweat forming upon his forehead. A sensation of coldness settled in his lungs every time he drew breath - the air around him felt at once papery and as thick as tar.
His knees buckled - the visions ceased.
“Fuck,” Charles gasped, crumpling to the floor. “My apologies,” he offered, clearing his throat when his heart ached less and his breath gained warmth, though he could no longer see anyone. The sensation of his hand in his own vomit leaked past the pulsing pain in his head, and he cringed.
He hadn’t realised the coin had slipped through his fingers as he fell until he saw it float back up, approaching him.
Charles withdrew. “I don’t think I should touch that,” he said, and the coin wavered, but it did not stop.
Charles flattened his lips, gulped, and braced himself. He hesitantly opened his palm to receive the coin, but it bypassed his hand and slipped inside his pocket instead.
The man kneeling above him was frowning, brows furrowed, eyes uncannily bright. The way he stared at Charles sent chills up his spine.
Charles shivered. “So you are here,” he whispered. The noise in his mind had resumed, but this time it was a single wordless voice, which could belong to no other person but the stranger before him. Darkness, though muted, still lurked at the edges, and Charles carefully turned away from it.
“I am,” the man said with a nod. “My name is Erik Lehnsherr.”
“I know,” Charles replied, and to his amazement, it was not untrue. “I read your mind.”
Months later, the ghost is wolfing down his two Grand Slams in the passenger seat of Charles’ car, cruising along the streets of New York City. They never talk about the night in Düsseldorf, or the visions Charles had of what he’s now sure are Erik’s memories.
“Hungry?” Charles asks, quirking a brow.
Erik barely pauses in his chomping, shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. It still strikes Charles as hilariously incongruent, how a ghost can be so humanin his gestures.
When he wants to, Erik behaves like any mammal - he shits, eats, and sleeps - except nobody else but Charles can see him. With a caveat, of course: Charles has to have Erik’s Reichsmark coin on his person, which Charles finds all kinds of tragic and disturbing. Mostly tragic; he’s seen Erik’s tattoo, and that’s another thing they never talk about.
Two hours later, Charles’ cell rings. It’s Cain; Charles picks up immediately.
Erik’s finished with his meal when Charles hangs up, and he looks at him expectantly. There’s still a bit of sauce at the corner of Erik’s lips, and Charles can’t help a small smirk as he reaches to swipe at the spot with his tongue. Erik stiffens, but then he swallows and exhales. Charles takes advantage of that resignation to drag his thumb along Erik's bottom lip, still in the pretense of wiping sauce away.
“There you go,” Charles says as he lifts his hand. He licks the sauce from his thumb.
Erik's eyes are gleaming with heat; his tongue flickers out to swipe across his bottom lip, and he can't seem to look away from Charles' mouth. It's painfully gratifying to see, even if it's just for this moment. There's attraction there - that much is obvious - but as long as Erik's still in love with his dead wife it's not like anything's going to happen between them.
So. Back to the matter at hand. “Anyway, bad news,” Charles says with a heavy breath, appropriately grim. “Margaret Hayes shot herself.”
Erik inhales. A beat, and the intensity of fury that overtakes his expression and his mind right then nearly makes Charles gasp. “Take me back to the house,” Erik growls.
“What?”
“Take me back to the house!” Erik yells, fists grabbing and shaking Charles’ collar. If it were anyone else Charles would think he was being threatened.
Though a bit miffed, Charles shrugs and turns the car around; he’d have to deliver the news to Ronald Hayes anyway, and even though it’s nearly three a.m. in the morning Charles doubts Ronald Hayes is asleep, with his daughter missing.
They drive to the Hayes’ house in chilly silence. When they arrive, Erik insists on coming with Charles to the house - something he almost never does. Charles knocks on the door.
“Margaret,” Erik snarls the moment the door swings open. His gaze falls on a point beside the piano in the living room, where Charles surmises the ghost of Margaret is standing. Then Margaret must have ran, because Erik bursts past Ronald Hayes and sprints into the house, up the stairs, his footsteps cracking like thunder. “You fucking piece of shit!” he yells.
Not that Ronald Hayes can hear him, of course.
“Mr. Hayes?” Charles says to the man, showing him his badge. “Charles Xavier, NYPD. May I come in?” Ronald’s wearing simple nightclothes, a stain on the upper part of his torso. The short mop of his hair is grey and receding. There are shadows underneath his eyes; he looks like he hasn’t slept in years. He nods and steps backwards to let Charles enter with a sigh, his gait lifeless and heavy.
Charles goes through the motions. The police found your daughter in Bath, she’s safe, they’re bringing her here in a helicopter right this moment. Then he hesitates. “We… also have some bad news.” And therein lies the rub.
From the bedroom, Charles hears Erik yelling in German. He thinks he understands several words - why, how could you this to your daughter, why, you pathetic woman, why - and he feels another headache incoming.
He explains the situation to Ronald Hayes as calmly as possible - strictly procedure, sensitivity training 101. He watches the man’s face crumple, watches him turn away with tears in his eyes. This is it. The moment when you’re almost sure you can tell what’s going to happen by their reactions.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Charles says to Ronald Hayes in the end, dimly echoing the words he himself heard, four years ago.
“But my daughter,” Ronald gasps, “my Gabrielle, she’s alive?”
Charles gives him his gentlest smile. This time, it’s not even half a lie. “Yes, sir. She’s alive and well.” And Ronald’s resolute mask finally topples, the dam bursting and giving way to real, whole-hearted sobs.
Ronald Hayes will survive, Charles thinks. He has his daughter with him, and he’ll live for that if nothing else.
Up in the bedroom, Erik is silent. After a few seconds he emerges, jaw and fists clenched. His eyes are stormy, and he’s breathing hard. His mind is suffocating with anger. When he sees Charles and the weeping Ronald Hayes, his eyes flicker, but he does nothing except stride back to the car.
Charles stays with Ronald, listening to the man speak about Gabrielle and her estranged mother. It must have been over an hour until he hears the whirr of helicopter blades, and he looks out the window to see the signature blue and white police helicopter land on the street.
Ronald doesn’t care to wait for Charles to exit - he bounds out the door, calling his daughter’s name, and really, Charles simply has to smile.
After some perfunctory greetings with the officers who’d just arrived, Charles saunters to his car, where Erik’s fuming in the passenger seat. He has a hand in his pocket, where Charles knows he keeps his wedding ring, and immediately, Charles feels a sense of keen longing, bittersweet.
"What took you so fucking long?" Erik spits.
The fury in Erik’s gaze sparks his own anger. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Erik?” Charles says.
“What the hell’s wrong with me?” Erik echoes. “What the hell’s wrong with you! Why the fuck are you so calm?”
Charles takes a deep breath, reciting the periodic table. His answer, when it comes, is, “It’s not my first family kidnapping and suicide. What’s important is the case is solved, the daughter is safe, and the living are relatively happy and unharmed.”
Erik deflates. He removes his hand from his pocket, though not before tightening his fist then letting go. Like an apology to the thin band of steel, somehow. It can't help but make Charles feel a little bit melancholy. “Fuck,” Erik breathes, shaking his head.
“Another round at Denny’s?” Charles offers.
Erik thinks it over for close to a minute before he shakes his head again. “No. Let’s just go home.”
On the drive home, Charles turns on the radio and starts chattering away, commenting about whatever it is on the news. He starts whipping out conversation topics by the dozen - food, movies, fracking in Australia, and even the Israeli-Palestine conflict. When even that fails to garner a reaction from his prickly passenger, Charles tunes the radio to the music station; and that, there -- the glitzy pop song the DJs been playing over and over since it landed on the Billboard 20 that he knows Erik secretly adores. Charles himself hates it with a burning passion, but for Erik he can endure the bass.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Erik mumbles, halfway through the song, but at least his shoulder has loosened and he’s leaning against the seat instead of sitting ramrod straight, a fuse ready to blow. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“I wasn’t aware there was something I needed to distract you from,” Charles says mildly, but he’s smirking. Erik breathes a laugh.
It’s sunrise when they arrive home. Charles makes a beeline towards the kitchen, picking at a half-eaten packet of chocolate chip cookies while he waits for his tea to steep.
He absently offers the packet to Erik, who refuses. "You sure?" Charles asks - Erik has a sweet tooth after cases. He turns to look at Erik, who has somehow moved to an arm's length behind Charles. His sudden nearness, and the intensity of his expression on makes Charles start.
"Erik?"
"Charles," Erik says - whispers, rather- and his hand rises to cup Charles' cheek. The world stops, halts, stutters on its axis, and Charles is afraid to breathe. Then Erik lowers his head, closer and closer, until their lips brush. Not quite a kiss, but the intent is clear. "I want you."
And then the world spins ablaze. Charles yanks Erik towards him, a desperate sound ripped from his throat as he fuses their mouths together. Erik responds with equal fervor, hands roaming, thigh pressing against Charles' rapidly hardening cock.
"Bed," Charles manages to gasp, before Erik steals his words and his breath all over again.
Somehow in this flash-heat haze of want, both of them manage to stumble through the bedroom doorway. Erik growls, and seizes both of Charles' wrist, wrestling him up and slamming him onto the nearest wall.
"God," Charles moans through the shock of pain. He's trapped, now, back flat against the wall, and Erik's grip against his wrists is unrelenting.
"It's not him you're with," Erik whispers. He grazes his teeth against Charles' neck, suddenly and curiously gentle.
"I'm not complaining," Charles manages. He drags his fingers through Erik's hair, slow and reverent. "But what brought this on?"
Erik huffs a breath; not quite a smile, but close. "We've been flirting for ages."
"I didn't know you were receptive."
"Only because you're so bad at it." Erik grins, and surges forward.
"Wait, wait--" Charles mumbles against the crush of Erik's lips. "What about your wife?"
Erik falters, but then he pushes Charles to the bed, full of determination. He joins him within seconds, looming above him, pinning Charles with his gaze, not daring to look away. For whose benefit, Charles wonders. "We're the only ones here right now."
"You still carry that ring," Charles protests, inwardly berating himself for the hint of insecurity in his tone.
Erik's gaze hardens, but he hasn't yet looked away. "So I can see dead people and help you with your cases. Are we doing this? If we are, then drop it, Charles."
The words are you sure bubbles up Charles' throat, but it never makes it past his lips. "All right," he says, voice thick, and he attempts to banish the niggling doubt at the back of his head. "All right."
Erik grins - it's crooked and sly, making him look much younger than he really is. He buries his face underneath Charles' chin, kissing the hollow of his throat. “You're the only one I can see
right now.”
"And you're the only one I can hear," Charles says, gesturing to his temple, brows arched in amusement even though Erik can't see him. "Wonder why that is? Perhaps someone up there really wanted us to meet.”
Erik is grinning when he draws back. “Wouldn’t have thought you believed in divine intervention.”
“If it’s not divine intervention, reality will have a hard time trying to explain itself.” Charles shakes his head, quietly amused. He moves forward, a hand on Erik's shoulder urging him to turn over. He positions himself between Erik's legs, kissing down the trail of hair leading from his bellybutton to his groin, steadily gaining confidence. “Think of it as fate, if you will.”
“Fate. How romantic.” Erik sounds out of breath; he's propped up on his elbows, staring at Charles with a quirk upon a lips. Charles can’t tell if its a smirk or smile. Knowing Erik, most likely both.
“Too romantic for the man who practically clutches his wedding ring every time he sleeps?” Charles teases.
Wrong thing to say. Erik’s face immediately shutters. “Get off me,” he growls.
Charles’ hands freeze in the middle of taking off Erik’s trousers; he jerks them back to his sides, guilty. “Erik…?”
“Get off,” Erik repeats, and Charles yanks himself away so fast he almost trips on the carpet.
“Sorry,” Charles says. Did I do everything wrong? he wants to ask, but from the hard lines on Erik’s face he doesn’t think he’ll receive an answer. And if he did receive an answer, it’s unlikely to be something he’ll like.
Erik says nothing more; he straightens his shirt and stands, striding out of the bedroom with almost no sound. Charles thinks he’s not even breathing.
Okay, Charles thinks, hurt and confused. Okay, deep breaths. He lowers himself onto the bed and tries - futilely - not to think about the hurt and resentment he saw in Erik’s mind, and who they’re directed at. Within three minutes, he’s come to the conclusion that there’s really no point in ruminating about these things alone, and slowly, his mind makes the decision to talk to Erik about it.
It takes him close to half an hour to steel himself for the confrontation. When Charles dares to resurface to the living room, Erik’s sitting at the dining table. The blasted ring is on the polished wood surface right across him, innocently gleaming in the sunlight.
“You just had to mention the ring,” Erik spits, full of venom. "Twice, even."
“It’s not like it disappears if we don’t ever talk about it,” Charles points out. His hands start to curl around his body before he catches himself and stops, bringing them firmly down by his sides instead.
Erik doesn’t seem to have heard, because he continues his tirade. “Every time I think I can care about someone again -- care about you -- you remind me of the damned fucking thing!” With a swipe of his hand his flings the ring away from the table; it flies and lands on the carpet with a soft thud.
Charles looks at the ring, and back again at Erik. “Am I supposed to tell you to forget your wife and throw it away?”
“Yes!” Erik roars, and then his stops cold, his face rapidly draining of colour. “...No. No, I don’t mean that, how can I, I-” he chokes, physically unable to continue. Staggering, Erik lowers himself into the chair, all the energy drained out of him, leaving him limp like a puppet without strings. He lifts his hand to cover his eyes. The grief that lines his trembling mouth rips Charles’ heart into shreds.
“Do you think you’ll be better off forgetting?” Charles says, as soft as he can, as if it can cushion the blow. He bends to retrieve the fallen ring - the cold hardness of the steel is a grounding presence in his palm.
“I…” Erik says, after long, tense seconds. He lifts his hand and blinks harshly, tilting his head to stare blindly at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”
Charles drags another chair so that it’s closer to Erik and seats himself. “No, I don’t think that’s the case,” he says. Tentatively, he places the ring against Erik’s fist, and hears Erik’s breath hitch.
“What was she like?” Charles asks. He’s seen her, of course, in the cocoon of Erik’s memories. But he wants to hear it from Erik himself.
“Magda,” Erik says. “She was… she was bright. Strong. And then I - “ took that away from her, his mind continues, when his voice is unable to. Charles tightens his hold on Erik’s hand and draws it closer.
“Were you separated?”
Erik shakes his head, numb.
“I see,” Charles says. “Then shouldn’t you be wearing this?” Slowly, slowly, he brings the wedding band to Erik’s palm. When Erik doesn’t protest he slips the ring down Erik’s fourth finger. Then he brings his hand to his lips and kisses the ring; both cold steel and warm skin touch his lips, and it feels every bit as right. “How did it happen?” he asks, quietly.
“How do you think?” Erik says with a tired smile. Charles doesn’t know if he should answer, but Erik continues speaking. “I killed her.”
“That can’t be true,” Charles says without hesitation, watching the ring gleam against Erik’s skin.
And Erik -- Erik’s looking at Charles with so much naked emotion, so open and vulnerable that Charles feels as if he’s the one stripped bare. And then he crushes Charles to his chest, a broken sound spilling from his throat, holding on to him as if his existence depends on it.
They stay in the embrace for what feels like hours. All the same, the moment seems to pass too quickly when they part.
Erik clears his throat. “We married immediately after the war,” he begins, voice tired but determined. “I was grateful to survive. Others were not so lucky.” A flash of anger clouds his mind, an image of his mother and the Reichsmark coin. Charles wants to ask - but no, not yet. This is Erik’s story, and Charles has no business directing how he wants to tell it.
“Magda, though,” Erik continues. “She changed. Everyone did, of course, but she changed the most. She became angry and resentful - I reminded her of everything we had lost. There were days she couldn’t even bear to look at me, but on other days she’d laugh and tell me how grateful she was to be with me, how lucky --” Erik stops, swallows. Charles can see the exact moment he manages to rein in his tears. “I thought we could be happy together.”
Charles says nothing. All he does is hold Erik’s hand, thumb stroking the back of his palm.
“One day,” Erik murmurs, eerily steady. He’s looking at the row of numbers near his wrist. “I’d just returned from town. No one greeted me at the door; I thought she must be asleep. But then I noticed one of our knives was missing. So I rushed to the bedroom. And there I found her, lying in a pool of her own blood.” Erik runs a finger against his forearm, an invisible slash across his tattoo. “She had gouged this right out of her flesh.”
The image in Erik’s mind is as fresh as it was on that day. Charles hears himself make a sound of dismay.
“When I came, it was too late,” Erik says. Only now his voice crumbles. Almost by instinct Charles pulls him closer, letting him bury his tears in Charles’ shoulder. “It’d been too late the moment the war started. I can’t - I hate myself for not being able to save her. But… but even more than that, I hate her for leaving. I hate her.” A maelstrom of disgust whirls in Erik’s mind; disgust and disbelief and helpless, furious grief, so dark to be almost palpable. It’s like the darkness is a separate entity, so heavy and awful that Erik can no longer see anything else. Charles can hardly breathe,
“Charles,” Erik whispers, lifting his head. His expression is shattered, overflowing with desperation. “What kind of… what kind of monster would do that? How could I resent her for what she chose, when she’s already suffered so much?”
Tears are running freely down Charles’ face. You’ve carried this with you all your life, Charles thinks, and he stifles a heartbroken sob. He doesn’t answer, because right now anything he can offer in words seems paltry. What Erik has said strikes Charles to his very bones, as if a talon had reached and unearthed something buried inside him, and now -- now all he can say will be twisted and bent by his own history. Sharon and Kurt and a burning home in Westchester. A little girl without a name, and the reason he joined the police. It’s so, so selfish to be thinking of himself right now, when Erik has laid his soul bare.
Charles breathes. It’s not fair to burden Erik with that, so Charles only tightens his arms around Erik, and hopes to whoever’s out there that it’s enough.
That night, Erik sleeps in Charles’ bed, wrapped around his body and unwilling to let go. Charles stays awake counting seconds, a curious feeling in his chest - elation and terror, both battling for territory with equal intensity. It's not bad, not at all; just strange, and, for some reason Charles can't pinpoint, it feels so fragile that Charles doesn't dare to examine it any further.
Instead, his thoughts stray towards Sharon, and the dancing shoes she keeps hidden in her wardrobe, out of sight but never out of mind. She had been angry too, the way Erik was, though for a different reason, and that anger had manifested in self-destruction, like a final fuck you to the people who she thought had needed and wanted her; so determined she was in her downward spiral that not even Kurt or Cain or Charles can help her. And at the time - something Charles had never admitted to himself - he was relieved that she's gone, relieved to be free of the burden of her anger. And with the relief, an endless ravine of guilt. Not hate, though. Never hate; simply a chilling, bone-deep apathy that in some ways is even worse.
Charles wonders if this time, this time maybe, he can anchor Erik to the surface. Stop his anger from dragging him down. Of course he can, Charles decides, barricading himself against the freefalling terror. He has to. The consequences of the other option are unthinkable.
Hours later, Charles' brain has raced itself to fatigue, and he drops off, arms around Erik, desperately leaching warmth. Times like these it's a wonder that between the both them, Charles is the one who's alive.
Morning announces itself with sunlight, filtering through the slits between the blinds. Charles blearily rubs at his eyes, regretfully lifting Erik’s arm from where it’s splayed across his chest.
He pads to the bathroom and performs his morning ablutions, and, as it’s a Sunday, has nothing else to do and decides to return to the bed.
Erik appears to still be asleep, his face peaceful and comforting, and Charles feels his lips curve, tender warmth suffusing him from head to toe. Last night’s conversation still hangs heavily in his mind - he can’t imagine how Erik feels - but for him the weight is distant, bearable after one of the most restful slumbers in his life.
He’s halfway asleep, tucked comfortably under the duvet, mind pleasant and hazy, when a palm against a particularly ticklish area of his belly makes him yelp, nearly jumping out of the bed in surprise.
Erik chuckles, tugging Charles closer against himself. “You stayed,” he whispers in Charles’ hair.
Heart beating fast for another reason than surprise, Charles murmurs, “Yes.”
“You stayed with me.”
“Of course I did.”
Erik’s lips are immediately on his. He tastes -- kinda horrible, actually -- Charles never knew ghosts can have morning breath. But the kiss is thorough, deep and searching, as if Erik can't get enough. Charles moans into Erik's mouth, hands scrabbling down Erik's chest to tug at his trousers.
"So we're doing this," Charles says, gasping for breath when they finally part.
Erik is similarly breathless when he says, "We better be."
"What happens after?"
Erik chuckles. "Easy, detective," he murmurs, his hands tracing a line down Charles' spine. "Let's just take it one day at a time."