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Erik would be calm in the air, even without the added cushion of the scotch. Hurtling through the atmosphere in a sealed metal tube, surrounded by dials and instruments, is a place as safe to him as a womb, a bunker, a barricade. And yet his knuckles are white from gripping his arm rests, and the metal ashtray embedded in the one on his left ripples and vibrates until its indentations are completely smoothed out, dissolved into liquid.
If he wanted to, it would be but the work of a moment to send the entire plane hurtling to the ground below them. He could crash the plane and save them -- himself, obviously, and Charles -- from the charred wreckage somewhere around the Poconos. Ten years in solitary means he's had time to hone himself without distractions. Erik's learned just how deep his power goes. Starved of metal, starved of touch, he had learned nonetheless to feel it below the surface of the earth, radiating from the sun he longed to see. But rage has its own kind of purity; anger, anchored as a still point in the center of a maelstrom. It only ever looked like meditation. To one of the endless, faceless guards, or the high-level spooks brought in for ineffectual interrogation, to them, Erik might even seem to have gone Zen.
After Charles had stalked off, his body corded with tension, Hank slammed the door to the cockpit shut, leaving him alone with the asshole called Logan, who wasted no time in reciprocating the sentiment.
"So you were always an asshole," he'd remarked, and at that moment Erik nearly forgot his own power, too wrapped up in the visual of punching him repeatedly in the face.
Twenty minutes ago, he'd figured Charles would slink back to their scotch and the forgotten chess game, over which their hands might touch and their gazes might meet, and, with a bit of coaxing and a non-apology apology, he could set the board for the long game of seduction.
Eleven years prior, Erik had been the one doing the seducing, and Charles, for all his bonhomie and worldliness, had to be taught, night after night in seedy motel rooms. And how he'd learned. Well, Charles had always been gifted. A quick study. An education, he'd called it, laughing even when Erik hurt him, even better than Oxford.
The thump Erik now hears from the rear, a smaller area partitioned off from the cabin by a privacy curtain, registers as a head knocking against plastic, sending oscillations through to the metal sheeting of the exterior. It reverberates through every atom of his body, a tiny earthquake. If he wanted to, Erik could extend his ability into that metal, pretend it was his hand on Charles. Muted for all the layers of plastic and fabric, but closer, at least, than this.
Close enough.
Over the rumble of the engines he hears a wet slurp, and whoever is on the receiving end of the noise squeaks with pleasure. Erik's hands tighten into fists.
He plots. Maybe, if timed correctly, then he could shear the tail end of the plane off and keep Charles steady inside of it, holding him there by his belt buckle, drawing the magnetic fields of the earth in to hold him close, while that, that - other man would hurtle twenty thousand feet to the farmland below. Erik enjoys the thought that even if he cannot die, his recovery would be excruciating. Every bone in his body broken, smashed beneath hammered sheets of metal that would pummel him a thousand times more, until Erik could no longer hear his deep grunts and Charles' higher-pitched moans echoing in his fucking ears.
The ashtray liquefies completely and drips down the armrest, snaking towards his brown ankle boots. He cannot be bothered to move it.
Twenty minutes ago Charles had stalked off, and three minutes after that Logan had followed him. As he pulled the curtain open Erik caught a glimpse of Charles, wild haired and red eyed, but Charles had looked up, at Logan, instead of over to Erik, try as he might to will it. All his energy focused there, eyes boring a hole into the side of Charles' face, focused like lasers on the sweep of his cheek, a spot he'd always loved to kiss, and could imagine kissing still, grotty facial hair be damned...
He could sense it, if he so wished. What Charles is having done to him. What they are doing to one another.
Erik wonders if Charles still likes to get fucked, as he once had learned how to love; if he is on the ground, on all fours, or if Logan is holding him up with his massive arms, pinned like a bug against the wall. Erik glances down at his own bicep, trim and effective, and imagines his own arms bracketing Charles' face, his hands pinning Charles' smaller ones to the wall, doing his best to be gentle -- Charles' injury, his own body too heedless, responsive, after years of deprivation -- but failing terribly because of want and need and mine.
"Fuck," someone groans, from behind the curtain, as the thumping noise grows louder, "harder, damn you, harder."
"Easy, kid," Logan says, his voice reassuring, "It's not going anywhere."
For long minutes he listens to this continue, cock hard, heart aching.
Charles cries out, then, a high sweet noise that sends blood fizzing into long-dormant capillaries. Charles has just come on Logan's cock, and he knows, for certain, now, that the long game is over. The window for his own extended seduction has closed. Anger rouses him, but he will not act. The plan will stay aloft and land smoothly, with a little encouragement from its passenger. He will scrape the metal from his shoes and walk down the stairs onto the tarmac. And then, sooner or later, someone will suffer.