it's a Hollywood summer

[morethanhuman]

Despite an investment of time and effort and a great deal of Charles's persuasive sweet-talking, in the end it had been for nothing. The mutant had listened to their pitch, but he'd been skeptical from the outset, and none of the answers they'd given to any of his questions had changed his mind. He'd thanked them politely and declined the CIA's offer just as politely, and gone on his way alone.

So now they were empty-handed for the second time in a row-- though at least the surly man in Toronto had done them the courtesy of telling them to fuck off right away, rather than let them waste an evening in his doubtlessly unpleasant company.

Still, it was a failure, and (Erik guessed) in an effort to avoid calling Moira to admit as much, Charles had announced that they were going out. Erik had protested that these outings were never as much fun as Charles promised they would be, but it made about as much difference as usual: that is to say, none at all. He found himself shepherded first to one bar and then another, and by the time he realized it was after midnight they were being shown to a corner booth in a little diner that smelled of coffee and fried things, "Runaround Sue" playing softly on the jukebox in the corner.

Erik shrugged out of his jacket before sliding into the bench, ordering a coffee with barely a glance at the waitress, studying the menu while Charles took five minutes to flirt his way into a cup of tea. When she'd gone, Erik glanced up to find Charles looking at him with the smug, all-knowing expression that had grown so annoyingly familiar over the past few weeks.

Emphasis on annoying-- Erik reminded himself that he had refused to let himself be charmed by Charles, especially when he was like this, tipsy and flushed with his shirt sleeves rolled up, grinning at Erik like they shared the best secret in the world.

There was no point in even noticing, Erik told himself sternly. Charles was like this with everyone.

But Charles kept grinning at him, and eventually Erik raised an eyebrow, his lips curling into a smirk even though he didn't know what could possibly be so amusing. "What?"

Comments

[hopeagain]

How do you solve a problem like Erik Lehnsherr? Possessed of an innate charisma, he was undoubtedly difficult to resist, and even the slightest dip into the surfacemost thoughts swirling in that keen and calculating mind offered more than enough confirmation that his natural chemistry with Charles wasn't completely innocent. By all rights, they two really ought to have been tumbling into a bed a week ago, ought to be tumbling into a bed right now, all warm and dizzy and urgent, rather than skulking about a greasy diner at all hours of the night. Beneath Erik's exasperated attraction, however, lay a chaotic mind stitched tightly up in self-preservation, with a grip on his vulnerability so unyielding that even the slightest slip of a proverbial finger felt to Charles like a minor battle won, one more point on the board that would eventually lead them where they ought to be. It was a bit difficult to not be chuffed.

"Nothing," Charles replied, chin resting leisurely upon his upturned palm as he watched Erik across the table. Still smiling, he ducked a glance down to the menu-printed placement before him and then, with drunken impulsiveness, changed his mind and looked back up again, biting coyly against his bottom lip.

"It is, though, isn't it?" he asked, blue eyes glassy but sparkling with untempered delight. "The best secret in the world?"

[morethanhuman]

Erik's eyes flew sharply up to Charles's face, irritation and wariness warring with the little lurch he felt at Charles's playful smile. It had proven pointless to chide Charles for his invasions of privacy-- he apologized with such heartfelt sincerity, and then went right back to doing it as if Erik had never protested.

He'd been driven to distraction these past weeks, wondering how deeply Charles was delving into his mind. It disturbed him to think Charles might not have been exaggerating when he'd claimed to know everything; there were things in his head that Erik was desperate to keep to himself. Things he'd seen, things he'd done, memories of horrors to which no decent person should ever be subjected. He would do anything to keep that private, both to spare Charles the ugliness of Erik's past, and to spare Erik from Charles's disappointment and revulsion if he learned how Erik had bloodied his hands in his quest to avenge himself on Shaw.

Yet Charles's behavior toward him hadn't changed, which kept Erik in a near-constant state of confusion. If Charles was reading him, it stood to reason he'd learned more than Erik would have shared on his own. But if he'd seen the things Erik was trying so hard to keep walled up (his atrocious past or his guilty, longing present), why hadn't he balked?

But keeping his turmoil pushed far below the surface of his thoughts had become habit by now, and so he was able to meet Charles's eyes with a little smirk, though his glare only lessened a fraction. "I doubt many of the people here would agree, if they knew what we are," he said. After a pause, he allowed, "But it is--" Exciting, his mind supplied, and though he might not have voiced it aloud, he saw Charles's grin broaden and knew he'd been heard anyway.

[hopeagain]

"To say the least," Charles replied with a lazy chuckle, his smile gone softer a moment, more adoring at the overt acceptance of his telepathy, before he turned it upon their returning waitress. His warm hand fell to her downy forearm as she slid his tea cup across the Formica tabletop.

"Please tell me you've still got some pie left, love," he said, face unabashedly upturned, dreamy and guileless with the lingering effects of several glasses of exceedingly stellar scotch. The young woman, pretty and not a day over 18, tittered out a nervous little laugh as she nodded, a blush creeping up her neck.

"Brilliant," Charles replied, and smiled, a languid flash of white teeth. "A piece of cherry for me, and lemon meringue for my tart friend, here." He watched her go, craning his neck to appreciate the slide of her crisp cotton uniform across her ass, and then returned his focus to Erik.

"What?" Charles asked, unrepentant. "It was right there at the top—" He paused, reconsidering, and leaned forward to press the tip of his index finger between Erik's eyebrows. "Actually, more like right here," he corrected, sliding the fingertip until it rested over the crest of Erik's right eyebrow.

"You needn't be such an ascetic, you know," he continued as he sat back again, reaching for his tea. "You're allowed something sweet every once in awhile."

[morethanhuman]

Erik steeled himself not to duck away from Charles's touch-- that would be as good as admitting it was having an effect on him, which would only make Charles more unbearable. Instead, he gave his friend a pointed look as he reached for the sugar, poured a scant spoonful into his coffee and stirred it.

"You're mistaking my lack of a sweet tooth for some kind of statement about indulgence," he said. "I'm not Catholic-- I don't deny myself things on principle." That was true of other indulgences besides dessert-- but Charles wasn't talking about that.

The waitress returned with their pie shortly, blushing prettily as Charles thanked her with a sunny smile. Erik barely refrained from rolling his eyes where the girl could see. Charles might call him a dour stick-in-the-mud-- and had, on several occasions-- but it wasn't true that he didn't know how to enjoy things. He just didn't have Charles's obsessive need to charm the pants (sometimes literally) off of everyone he met. The girl was underaged and human, and they would never see her again-- if Charles hadn't been here to make such a spectacle of himself, he'd have forgotten her the second he paid his bill.

Erik wondered how much of Charles's interest in him was due to Erik's repeated resistance to his charm. From what he'd seen the past few weeks, he was one of the only people in America who didn't go weak-kneed when Charles smiled-- at least not that anyone else could tell.

[hopeagain]

"That's bloody awful," Charles murmured of the tea, frowning briefly at the golden-brown liquid in his cup before setting it aside and taking up his fork instead. The pie was better, despite having likely been sitting beneath its glass dome for hours, and he swallowed his first bite with relish and sucked his fork clean before wagging it Erik's way.

"Not on principle, no, but because allowing yourself genuine pleasure makes you feel guilty," Charles countered with a brief upward hitch of one shoulder, and speared another bite of pie. He flicked a glance back up to Erik, expression fleetingly sobered, and tongued at a bit of cherry filling lingering at the corner of his mouth.

[morethanhuman]

Rather than acknowledge the unpleasant ring of truth to Charles's words, Erik forked off a corner of his own pie, a trembling tower of custard and meringue. It was a touch too sweet, but light-- much better than he'd expected.

Charles's satisfied expression couldn't be left alone, though, and as he took up his coffee again Erik made an encouraging gesture with his free hand.

"By all means, Doctor Xavier, go on. Only, shouldn't I be lying on a couch for this?"

[hopeagain]

After a handful of faltered seconds, Charles chuckled, a warm and throaty hum capping off the sound as he poked idly at what remained of his pie. When his gaze returned to Erik, it was steady but amused, curiosity and challenge lingering beneath the unflinching blue. He tilted his head, considering.

"Oh no, not a couch, darling. You could do with lying somewhere else, I think," he blithely answered, and then dropped his fork with a clank as their waitress returned, check in hand. Beaming a smile at her, Charles snatched the paper away before Erik could so much as fathom picking up the tab.

"You've been glorious, Amy, thank you," he told her, hunching invitingly forward over his folded forearms. "D'you really not get off until five? That's positively criminal."

[morethanhuman]

Erik was, and had always been, a man of action. He was decisive and purposeful; passivity was not in his nature, which made Charles's ability to upset his foundations and make him feel off-balance infuriating. There were few things he liked less than uncertainty, and he was at a loss to understand how Charles had developed this talent for miring him in it.

It wasn't just the flirtation-- Charles would flirt with anyone who stood still long enough, and it came as naturally to him as breathing. But when his sly innuendoes were coupled with that searching, provocative look, the one that dared Erik loudly to respond, it was hard to deny-- well, that he wanted to.

Erik was a man of action, but he was also spectacularly out of practice at acknowledging when he wanted something that had nothing to do with his pursuit of Shaw. It was easier to bury the impulse than to grapple with the prospect of acting on it-- but their close quarters and Charles's refusal to stay out of his head were making denial nearly impossible to sustain.

So with the waitress as a suddenly welcome interruption, he finished his coffee and another few bites of pie while Charles sweet-talked her some more, finally meeting his friend's eyes again as she departed. "Are you ready to go?" he asked, wanting to be the first to break the silence. "Or did you want to chat up every other woman in the place first? There's only four more, it shouldn't take that long."

[hopeagain]

Sober, Charles would have better heeded the clear signs—Practically neon, really—that said he ought to tread with more care, here. Typically he did, in fact: Tempering his smiles and touches to something more fleeting, his flirtatious nature under firm rein if only to ensure Erik's continued commitment to an already precarious alliance with himself and the CIA. They two weren't far enough along in this yet, to Charles' constant dismay; anything that allowed Erik to write the partnership off, to write Charles off, was counterproductive. Every moment Charles spent looking at or thinking about the man, impatience clamored in his hips and his heart like a bell, but he was keenly aware of the need for restraint.

Of course, he wasn't sober now, even if he wasn't entirely drunk, so all of that went rather out the window.

"Jealousy really doesn't suit you, Erik," Charles said now as he levered himself to his feet with surprising dexterity, fully aware that the knot of emotions and instincts warring in his friend could never, even on the most straight-forward of days, be labeled anything so simple as jealousy. He dropped a ten dollar bill on the tabletop, far more than their meager bill called for, and sauntered toward the exit, hands in the pockets of his slacks as if he were window shopping or out for an afternoon stroll.

[morethanhuman]

The only answer that deserved was an incredulous chuckle as Erik shrugged into his jacket and followed, slipping his own hands into his pockets and nudging the door open with his power a heartbeat before Charles's shoulder touched it.

It wasn't until they were out in the warm night air that he responded in words. "Jealous? That's funny, even coming from you. She's human, and practically a child. My imagination's better than that." Since there wasn't a prayer of Erik touching on the subject of his real feelings for Charles (which were so complex he had no hope of unraveling them himself, and didn't plan to try) it was easy to respond with the cool detachment the situation demanded, the only thing that had a prayer of convincing Charles to change the subject. In some ways it was no different than the roles he'd played while wheedling information out of people-- he knew how to paste on a smile and pretend light-hearted indifference with the best of them.

Thankfully he was more sober than Charles, or he might've ruined the effect by voicing his last fleeting thought aloud. If I wanted his undivided attention, I'd have it.

[hopeagain]

Charles' laugh was unrestrained, but he had the good grace to duck his head as he splayed a hand across his coy smile, dark hair drifting across electric blue eyes.

"That's certainly true," he allowed, having become intimately familiar with Erik's imagination and all of its twisted little rabbit holes. At the car he paused, leaning forward against the closed passenger side door to fix Erik in a compelling look across the sedan's roof.

"You can't possibly imagine what my undivided attention involves, love," he said, infuriating smile still firmly in place. "I doubt you'd ever recover."

[morethanhuman]

He wanted not to stare-- wanted not to be caught staring-- but sometimes Charles was so beautiful it took his breath away. Unlocking the car with a flick of his fingers, Erik tried to school his expression into something unreadable, but feared it fell far short of the mark. He settled for putting a little extra bite into his words. "Then I'll be happy to remain safe in my ignorance."

He started the car, keeping his eyes fixed assiduously ahead, though he could feel Charles's eyes boring into the side of his face, Charles's thoughtful awareness brushing at the edges of his mind, carelessly intimate. Suddenly his heart was racing, and he gave Charles the mental equivalent of slamming a door in his face, feeling abruptly desperate for privacy-- and if he couldn't get it through physical distance (he knew by now that he hadn't yet been far enough from Charles to test the reaches of his power) he would have to shut Charles out, rudely if necessary.

[hopeagain]

Instantly sobered, Charles physically started, head rearing swiftly back as if he'd been struck, eyes blinking his disbelief. Eyebrows drawing together, he briefly faltered, lips parted and stare unmoving. "Don't," he said without thinking, more exhalation than word, his expression soft and chastised like a child's.

Emotion welled suddenly within him, crested and ebbed, Charles drawing a shaky breath. Words rose to his throat and stuck there: I know all of you, all of the sharp and raw and raging parts of you, every hard, unyielding stone that rolls around the sweet vulnerability of your heart. I know your darkness and your fear, I make them my own, and I love you all the more for it. Look at me and see that.

Swallowing, he ducked his head instead, and blew out a sigh. To everything there is a season, and Erik was still lingering in the harsh chill of his winter.

Charles sat back, pushed a hand through his hair and peered out the window as they made the turn into the motel parking lot. "You make the mistake of assuming that because my attention may be elsewhere, it isn't always upon you," he said, and hefted open the door as the car rocked to a stop.

[morethanhuman]

Erik wanted to snap back-- what made Charles think Erik cared where his attention was?-- but there was no point. Denial would serve nothing, because they both knew better. Charles had called his bluff the night he'd caught Erik outside the CIA building-- but now it seemed Erik had proof that he wasn't the only one snared in this strange connection between them.

He was slow to follow his friend into the motel, his mind turning over Charles's reaction, that anguished murmur like Erik was denying him something by shutting him out. He wasn't sure what to do with this unexpected glimpse into Charles's mind, into the loneliness that was somehow lessened by Erik's presence, and the fact that Charles wanted his trust and affection as much as Erik (unwilling as he was to admit it) wanted Charles's attention and respect.

It seemed they were both in need of a friend. The irony of that (that Charles would choose him, who was possibly less cut out to be someone's friend than anyone else in the world, to say nothing of Erik's decidedly unfriendly attraction to him) was staggering.

As he approached their motel room, he deliberately relaxed the tight grip on his thoughts, hoping that would be enough to repair whatever damage he had done with his abrupt dismissal in the car. He didn't want to continue the conversation Charles's parting comment had begun-- there was no way to know where it might take him, and he wasn't going to blunder into it half-tipsy in the wee hours of the morning. Instead, as he turned the handle from the inside with his power and slipped into the room, he said, "Going to break the bad news to Moira in the morning, then?"

[hopeagain]

"Bit late to call her now," Charles replied as he stepped to the far side of the room and began peeling free layers of clothing. First the cardigan, tossed atop his bed with its cheap blanket stretched into military corners, now the long row of buttons on his dress shirt, pale fingers surprisingly deft at working each free. Nursing his wounds, he took particular care to give Erik his back, but found that his mind betrayed him with its petty itch to know whether his reprimand had found its mark. He nosed around the edges of Erik's thoughts like a curious puppy and then withdrew, uncertain whether he ought to feel gratified or patronized by the concession he discovered there.

Down now to his boxers, Charles turned to peer steadily at Erik over one freckled shoulder. "I'm going to have a shower," he said, face soft but otherwise unreadable.

The bathroom door was old, the wood swollen with the steam of hundreds of anonymous showers, coated with at least half a dozen layers of paint. It wedged open a good three inches and refused to close further. There was not much to see in the gap but a silhouette reflected in the tiny mirror above the sink, made more indistinct by a spreading film of tartly-scented steam, hard water and a thin slice of hotel soap that crept softly through the crack in the door to flavor the whole room.

[morethanhuman]

Charles's subdued demeanor made Erik feel even worse, but he was saved from having to wrestle with it by Charles undressing, which demanded Erik's immediate occupation with something, anything else. He busied himself with unpacking and repacking his suitcase under the guise of laying out his clothing for the next day. When Charles spoke, Erik didn't look up, just nodded acknowledgment and didn't, didn't let himself turn and bring the peripheral pale blur of Charles's body into focus.

These moments were warning signs, like pebbles down a mountainside heralding the avalanche ahead. Someday, Erik knew, he wouldn't be able to keep this to himself anymore, and he was certain the end of his and Charles's partnership would follow close on its heels. It felt dangerous, this yearning, and when it seized him like this it was nearly unbearable. But he hadn't reached his breaking point yet, and he would keep fending it off for as long as he could.

Erik put on his pajamas and got into bed, and lay there staring at the same page of a book for endless minutes, his mind a careful blank as he made a study of not listening to the sounds of Charles in the shower. If the room had come with a radio, he'd have turned it on just to drown out the steady murmur of water on tile, to keep his mind from wandering. Eventually the pipes creaked, the water shut off, and Erik was able to concentrate on his book in earnest-- and if he was further distracted by Charles appearing wrapped in a robe with his hair curling in a damp halo around his face, he was careful not to let it show.

[hopeagain]

It would be so easy. Effortless, even, and standing there in his overheated skin, head swimming, it was the most natural thing in the world for Charles to imagine: Robe dropped to the floor as his body followed the inertia of his mind, climbing across stiff sheets to press Erik into the mattress with his mouth and hips.

And Christ, Erik wanted it, felt that same inescapable pull even as he lay there, focus doggedly upon the same passage, the words a litany, a mantra against the man wrapped up in terrycloth across the room. Charles closed his eyes, unconsciously mouthed the first line of the paragraph, and then drew a weary hand over his face with a sigh. He ought to have had a wank in the shower; he was half-hard now, and tugged the fabric of his robe closer as he moved toward his own bed, careful to keep his back turned as he disrobed down to his pyjama pants and slid between the sheets.

For a long moment he lay silent, listening to the soft rhythm of Erik's breathing and scrape of his fingers over pages.

"It isn't the same, you know," he said, speaking to the far wall, and then turned to fix Erik in a baldly vulnerable look, damp curls a riot against his pillow. "That girl, and you."

[morethanhuman]

Erik's tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth, pinned by the rawness of Charles's stare, the naked emotion scrawled across his face. He swallowed, with effort. He still didn't know what to say. Whatever Charles meant by that oblique statement, Erik was desperate to understand, but sure it didn't mean what he wretchedly wished it did. And he couldn't bring himself to ask. Normally he would have said that knowing was better than not knowing, but somehow he couldn't force the words past his lips.

What came out instead was a soft, "I know." He was still as stone, the rise and fall of his breathing barely stirring the sheets. Nothing's the same anymore. He only half intended for Charles to hear, but didn't try to hold it back. Charles didn't look away, and the breathless feeling in Erik's chest intensified until he couldn't bear it any longer. He shut off his bedside lamp with a thought, turning toward the shadows, ignoring the thump as his book fell to the floor.

His voice was steady, but barely. "Good night, Charles."