Chapter Text
“Everything is fine. There is nothing to worry about,” Erik said, somewhat believing it. Hank’s voice was tight on the other line, but there really was nothing to worry about.
The call ended a few minutes later, and there really was nothing to worry about. Granted, Charles was having to take three yellow pills every few hours and there was no feasible way for Erik to help him.
Erik turned around and sat on the bed, tossing his phone onto the bedside table, laying halfway on Charles’s legs, the other half his body dangling off the bed.
“What is the point?”
“Of?”
“The cuffs you’re wearing. They aren’t anything special. They’re just really tight, boring bracelets.”
“How quaint. I think they’re a test.”
“Of?” It was Erik’s turn to raise his eyebrows and not fully understand what was happening.
“Well, someone took the original suppressors off, and it wasn’t me. And while Kurt is… stupid, he is able to recognize I got outside help. And, while it was a lovely show of your powers, when you were here the electromagnetism of the house was messed up. It was almost like we had a ghost, except he left just after you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you take off the cuffs this time, I think he’ll know I have outside help, and I think it’ll confirm that it’s you.”
“How do you know?”
“I can hear thoughts. We seem to forget this a lot.”
“But he can’t. And can’t you control him?”
Charles, in reply, tossed one of his pills into the air. He caught it in his mouth and washed it down with water, grimacing.
“These things. I have to take three every three hours. They don’t shut off my powers, but they stop them. I can’t control people, and I can’t go overly deep into your mind. All I can do is hear.”
“Just stop taking the pills then.”
“I wish I could. There’s about thirty pills in here. Three equals one dose. That makes ten doses, every few hours. I could hide the pills under my tongue and spit them out, or dump them out the window. But I’m relatively sure that I’d get found out. I’m bad at hiding things.” Charles was smirking, looking at Erik like there was a secret, something that he had hinted at but not yet said.
“Are you being watched?”
“To some degree, I think. I don’t think I have a camera on me all the time. But I know I’m being watched somehow. For all I know there's a camera in my hallway and in the room with us right now. My closet is empty, and so is my bathroom. But I’m not positive.”
That made Erik jump. “He could see us right now?”
“If he wanted to. But he’s at the company headquarters, and I know for a fact that he can’t store every waking moment. The storage would have to empty itself regularly, and he’d have to review it daily or something like that, and who has time for that?”
“Stop being cryptic and get to the point.”
“I give you the pills.”
“And? You said we’re being watched.”
“We live in the age of information. One way or another we are always being watched.”
Erik sighed and sat up, and gazed at Charles. Something was different. It was as though something had changed last night. Charles' usually calm eyes were stormy, and though Erik was not a telepath, he had a feeling his mind was a maelstrom of thought.
Charles was looking at the pills, holding the orange bottle up to the light, and setting it back down. He looked at Erik and tried for a smile, but he never got one. Erik stood up and walked to the window.
“I can’t- I don’t understand your plan.”
“What part?”
“How does this last? I can protect you, burn your meds and break teh suppressors. We can run away for the weekend and know everything about each other. But when does it stop? When do we stop… I don’t know.”
“Stop having to hide?”
“I guess.”
“I don’t know.”
Erik blinked, hard. He could see Charles standing, getting out of bed, wrapping his arms around him. He sighed and relaxed.
“People. Other people, they’re involved now. Hank’s worried, and I’m sure that he told the whole group. I’m worried, and I’m sure the fact that I’m going to miss work today will worry Magda, and in turn that will annoy Logan.”
“And, if you're right, then we are not alone.” Erik continued, his voice getting fainter and fainter.
“It’s your turn to stop being cryptic and get to the point,” Charles teased, but Erik barely heard him over the tumult of his own thoughts.
“Do we have to? Any of this, do we have to? I meant it. We’re young. I mean, I know we’re almost adults but don’t you understand it? You want to save the world. What if we ran away, like you said? I have a man, one who hid me. We could do it. Find somewhere and start over and forget about all of this.”
Charles winced, “I can’t. You know I can’t. We say this over and over again but it’ll never be true. We never get to run away or anything like that. All we get is this.”
Erik shook his head. They could have this argument every day until the end of time, and he knew that they would never run away together.
“Can we talk about something else?” Charles finally said, shifting his weight so that Erik carried most of it.
“Sure. Why aren’t you at school?”
“It physically hurts to walk, and I always feel kind of sick after anesthesia and blood loss.”
“You could have lied to me and said that you had the flu.”
“Oh.”
“Can we leave your room? I think I’m just getting claustrophobic. I’ve been here for hours now.”
“Sure.”
There was a tense sort of silence as Charles led the way out of his bedroom. Erik remembered the layout of the mansion, both from his own visits here but also his dreams, which he was now sure were real.
They ended up sitting in a dark study, in the center of the house. There were no windows, and bookshelves lined the walls. There was a dark fireplace, plush armchairs, and a table between them. Desks and sofas and lamps, combined with the fire that was now very much alight, sharply contrasted the rest of the mansion.
Charles was stepping away from the fireplace, his hand still at the level of the gas switch.
“Fancy a game?” He said, pointing at a chess set that sat untouched. Erik shrugged and nodded, and took a seat on the black side. Charles took the seat opposite him.
“You know, my stepfather must have a decanter of whiskey here somewhere.”
“My god.”
“What?”
“You literally just say the word decanter, and it didn’t sound out of place coming from your mouth.”
Charles laughed and stood, getting two crystal glasses and filing them halfway with the amber liquid.
“I’m going to get drunk in your parents house.” Erik said, drinking it and wincing at the bitter taste. He shook his head, blinking hard.
“You could be doing worse things.” Charles' smile was curled at the edges, all the innuendo there but somehow absent in its meaning.
Erik could do nothing except roll his eyes. There was a terse silence between them. In that silence lingered their argument, something that was easy to reach for but would inevitably hurt both of them.
“Worse things? Like running away? Or removing all the zippers from his trousers so that way he humiliates himself at his next business meeting?”
Charles laughed. “That’s the exact opposite of what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” Erik said softly, glancing down at the chess board with a sigh.
“Embarrassed?”
“Make a chess move. You’re going to win anyway.”
“How do you know.”
“You can read minds.”
“Fine. For every piece of yours that I get to take, you get to…” He trailed off and glanced at Erik, trying to think of something.
“Hm?”
“You get to do something. I don’t know. Strip chess sounds illegal and anyway there has to be a way to level the playing field. I could always take more suppressant-”
‘“No.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see then. I’ll try to stay out of your head.”
It was about half an hour later when they finished the game and were laying on the floor beside the fireplace. There was a thick hearth rug, and Erik idly wondered if this entire room was made to feel like it had been pulled out of another time.
Their hands were laced together, loosely.
Erik lifted their intertwined fingers to his lips and kissed Charles’s knuckles before setting them down. He stared at their fingers, at slender wrists that seemed to strain against the unsightly cuff that adorned it. He reached out, feeling them with his powers.
He imagined that he could feel Charles’s pulse against them, a metronome, something steady for himself to lean on. He imagined the metal shattering, falling apart and breaking apart and every piece would be so small that nothing would be left for the eye to see.
He met Charles’s eyes, who was looking at him with a bemused smile.
“What?”
“What do you want to do for Valentines day?”
“I’ve been in here a while, but it’s still the last of January. And how can you even think about that?”
“I’ve found that thinking too much about the future and my eventual escape either leads me to false hope or into a state of despair.”
“So you think of Valentine’s Day.”
“Of course.”
“YOu’re shameless.”
“I must be.”
Erik laughed softly and pulled his hand away, staring at his hand, silhouetted in front of the fire. “I know that in general, everything is pretty terrible.”
“How astute.”
“Everything is terrible. But… I don’t know where I’m going with this.”
“It’s okay.”
Erik felt the warm feeling of life and warmth flood his mind. He couldn’t help but relax as Charles’s mind sidled against his own, working in a perfect harmony that would always provide some sense of comfort.
“No.” Charles said, and the warmth was gone. All that was left was the sudden, steely feeling that was his mind and his mind alone.
Erik sighed and laid back down on the rug, his head resting on Charles's leg. He reached up, his hand searching for Charles’s hand. The world was spinning, his eyes struggling to find something to land on. He eventually settled on the fire, blaming the light and the non existent smoke for the sudden sting in his eyes.
“Why not?”
“You’ve asked me to run away with you already.”
“And?
“My answer isn’t going to change!” Charles snapped, and Erik flinched. He looked away from the fire and sat up, his arms crossed.
“My answer isn’t going to change with time. I’m going to stay here for the next two years and then I’ll take over the company. I’ll undo everything that he’s ever done and make the world better. I can’t do that if I run away with you.”
“What’s the point then,” Erik said flatly. “What’s the point of me stealing your pills or breaking your suppressors or knowing any of this? What’s the point of letting me know everything I do about Kurt? What’s the point of keeping me around?”
“I don’t know what you're talking about.”
“Why bother fighting any of it at all if you are never going to try for freedom?”
“Because I will get my freedom in the end.”
“You don’t….”
“What?”
Erik shook his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“No, Erik. Tell me.” Erik could feel the words catching in his throat. He felt like Charles already knew the answer. It was yet another one of those inevitable truths. It was something that should remain unspoken.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I can’t lie to you.” Erik said, softly.
Charles looked like he’d been hit. His face was frozen, his eyebrows arched and his mouth half opened.
“No. No, no no no… Please god, no. You can’t think that. You can’t.”
Erik looked away.
“I- I’ll fight him. I’ve fought him before. I won’t let it happen.”
Erik didn’t speak.
“I won’t- He can’t. I’ll stop him.”
“How?” Erik said, hollowly.
“Get the suppressors off me- break them and we’ll burn the pills and we’ll run away.”
Erik looked at him and stood up, holding out his hand. He was waiting for him to take it, for their fingers to interlock and this would be the end. It would lead to the end of the regress, a world where they would never worry about Kurt again.
Charles reached up and then yanked his hand away.
Erik closed his eyes and nodded slowly. He sat back down as the telepath seemed to collapse, falling in on himself like a rag doll. A head found the crook of his neck and he wrapped his arms around him, trying to hold the telepath together as best she could.
“It’s all right.”
“I’m not going to let him kill me.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to let him kill me. I can’t die.”
“You’re right,” Erik said, and suddenly he felt some sort of purpose. For better or for worse, a plan began to form in his mind.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make any plans. I won’t listen to you.”
“Fine,” Erik lied, and thought very hard about not making a plan. He sighed and took Charles’s hand.
“I love you.” Erik breathed, looking at him with a smile. “I love you,” He said, again, this time for himself.
It was a simple truth, one that could not be denied, even as Erik fought his own mind. He would not make that mistake, not yet. He smiled and waited for Charles to reply. The silence that followed was longer, yet it must have only been a second.
It occurred to Erik these might be his last words, that whatever came next would determine what would happen to them.
“I love you too.”
His fate was sealed. He closed his eyes.