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I.
"Hello," a voice says. "You're back." Pale hands splay across his naked skin, soothing goosebumps and transmitting warmth down his spine. Arms sneak below his shoulders. "Up you go, there."
Erik staggers up from the water. Wet sand presses against the bare soles of his feet, seeping and caking between his toes. His body is strange and aches all over, pinpricks of ice serrating all over his skin. "Where am I?" he murmurs, groggy. With bleary eyes, he gazes up towards the night. The waning moon is a comma between days; it seems weighed down, hanging reluctantly in the sky.
"Long Island."
Erik tilts his head to assess his rescuer. Blue eyes, brown hair. Unfamiliar. "Who are you?" He asks, sharp. His body is yet too weak to stand on its own, but he recoils slightly from the man's touch.
The man's eyes flicker the tiniest bit. It's soon replaced by a warm, kind smile. "Charles," he says. "Charles Xavier."
"I'm..." Erik murmurs.
"Erik Lehnsherr."
Erik shoots Charles a look. "I know that," he grouses. "I don't know why I'm here."
Charles' smile grows warmer, moonlight reflected in his eyes. His arms tighten around Erik, and what should feel restrictive is instead comforting. "Let me make you hot chocolate while I fill you in."
(There's a transmitter in Erik's fin that tells Charles where to go. Sometimes he makes it fast enough. Sometimes he doesn't, and Erik wanders the beach disoriented for hours before he snaps out of it and heads home.
Home is Westchester, New York. Erik doesn't know why, but it is.)
After Erik's been given a set of warm, laundered, perfectly sized clothes, Charles drives them to a nearby hotel. Erik takes the time to observe him fully; he wears a soft woolen sweater, a weave of dark grey that hangs loosely from his shoulders but pulls taut near his stomach. Around his neck is a cord that gleams too darkly to be silver - stainless steel, perhaps - and hanging from that necklace is a pair of rings. They tumble against Charles' chest, soft clinking noises echoing above the hum of car engine. There's something about the rings that pulls him in, leaves him breathless and wondering and warm, and Erik finds he can't look away.
Charles notices. He smiles. "What's the last thing you remember?" he asks, voice coaxing though his eyes remain on the stretch of road.
Trying to pinpoint a memory is like swimming through brackish water. Erik's head seems muddled, time slotting not quite right. "My mutti brought me to the beach," he says finally. "In... California? I'm not sure." The only thing he remembers of the place is the warmth of the sun gliding over waves, salt spraying over his skin.
"That's alright," Charles says.
Strange how that makes Erik feel safer. "It is," he agrees, and Charles' answering smile is brilliant.
After a few moments, Charles opens his mouth again. "Your name is Erik Lehnsherr, and you are currently mentally eighteen years old. Weekdays, you do odd jobs here in Long Island, but you live with your family up in North Salem."
"How do you know so much about me?" Erik asks, with both fascination and suspicion.
Charles turns to look at him. "It'll come to you," he says simply.
(One time, Erik found himself banging on the gates of a mansion in the middle of the night, buck-naked and shivering, with flecks of drying blood smeared upon his chin and a fresh jagged scar on his back where it looks like his flesh had been torn open.
"Oh," the man who opened the gate said, blue eyes wide with shock that melted into absolute relief. "Oh thank god," he breathed, then pulled Erik into a tight, teary embrace he could do nothing but return.)
II.
Charles speaks to him the way a nurse speaks to a dying man - kind, slow, face scrunched in heavy compassion. Overbearing, that's the word at the tip of Erik's tongue. Charles hovers around Erik like a helicopter, never ten metres away from his perimeter, and all at once Erik feels suffocated and, alarmingly, safe.
Right now, Charles is speaking in that same warm tone. It would be soothing if the contents of his words are meaningful. But what he's saying is utter nonsense.
"You're saying I turn into a shark for a week," Erik's eyes narrow. "And that this has been happening every month since I turned eighteen."
Charles nods, looking utterly serious. "Yes."
"And since then I have difficulty remembering the times I was human?"
Another nod. "Yes."
"Right," Erik says, no matter if there's no other explanation for the swift aging of his body. He gets up from his seat. "I'm leaving."
Charles looks at him sadly. There's something niggling at the back of Erik's mind, something that says that this is not the first time he's done this.
("Listen, Erik," mama said. "This is scary and new and strange, but we'll get through it. Both of us will get through it together. Yes?")
He ends up staying, after all; his mother does not answer his calls, and the house they once lived in belongs now to someone else. When Erik asks Charles about it, Charles shakes his head and answers - "I don't know," he whispers, and it sounds like half a lie.
"Charles," Erik says, imploring.
"I met your mother when you were twenty-one," Charles replies, quick, as if he's ripping off a bandaid. "The last time I talked to her was six months ago. We used to visit her every weekend."
"Used to?" Erik raises a brow, challenging, despite the black dread that gnaws at his lungs.
"You keep asking me questions I can't answer," Charles murmurs, and that's answer enough, really.
Erik spends the next day sobbing in his room. He destroys the bedframe, flings chairs and desks against the walls, all the confusion and frustration of the last few days piling up and exploding out as violence. Charles, for his part, says nothing - aside from a small knock on his door, Erik hasn't heard from Charles all day.
That night, he steps outside his room, eyes and throat sore from crying. Charles is watching television on the couch, and when he sees Erik he does not smile.
"How did she," Erik begins, but his voice chokes and dissolves into a pitiful sound at the end.
At this, Charles speaks. "Peacefully," he says, soft and careful. "We were beside her, holding her hand. You told her you loved her and she told you the same. Alles ist gut, Erik, she said."
Erik shuffles to the couch and sits down, head bowed. It's no consolation, but it's better than nothing.
("Promise me you'll tell me everything," Erik said through a curtain of tears. This was a long time ago, after the last visit to a hospital. "Promise me."
"I can't promise you that," Charles answered, hands stroking his hair like a balm. "But I'll give you everything you ask for.")
III.
Erik's in the kitchen, stirring a teaspoon of sugar into his tea. Charles sits at the table, eyes on the television but unfocused. The channel's tuned to a soap opera, flecks of blue washing over the screen, turning the picture into a miasma of colour. Erik's pulling out a chair when he remembers -
-- him and Charles on a jetty by the summer seaside, neither of them carrying a bouquet of flowers though Raven had insisted, still insists, but Charles finds it tacky and out of place in this sky-sand-sea postcard of a place, and they don't need flowers, not at all, not when they exchange rings and not when they kiss, not while the ripples of the waves mirror the way Charles' eyes gleam, and Erik has never been happier, never felt more right, than here, now, breathing the sea with his new husband in his arms, in sickness and health and forever --
- and he drops his tea. The cup of tea shatters, contents spraying all over the marble floor.
"Charles," Erik gasps, reborn anew. In a trance, he brings his palm to caress Charles' cheek, marvelling at the familiar curve and softness of skin.
That's right," Charles murmurs, his smile wide and so warm and brilliant. He turns his head to kiss Erik's palm, on his fourth finger where his ring should be, then draws himself so close his breath wisps against Erik's lips. "That's exactly right, Erik."
And finally, like a long-awaited encore, they bring their lips together for a kiss. It's perfect, everything Erik never knew he wanted; their lips dance against each other, their tongues moving slow and fluent and precious, like some secret language unearthed from under the sea. Erik feels lost, and found, stripped bare of everything but this moment and the memories slotting back into place, the kiss a catalyst.
"Give me back my ring," Erik murmurs, later, into the crook of Charles' neck, fingers teasing at his necklace.
They make love that night. The first sex after a transformation is a rediscovery; Erik's memory trickles in slow but steady, and he traces the shell of Charles' ear with the tip of his tongue and whispers stories and dreams of the sea upon Charles' skin. I love you, he says, I love you like the caress of waves upon rough, wind-torn skin, like stardust shimmering in the open sea. I love you, and he feels more alive than he has ever been.
"I could fall in love with you a thousand times over," he whispers, in the end. "I have."
"Oh, Erik," Charles sighs.
IV.
Sometimes the memories don't reappear, and Erik leaves, eighteen, confused and irritated. Times like these, his hands feel too rough and the air too thin, sparks slip-staticking all over his skin, teeth grinding until lips bleed. The crashing waves outside the window proves too loud.
Always there's something inside him trying to claw its way out. It's missing and essential. Lonely and hollow and important, and times like these he lives like sketching negative space.
V.
They arrive at the beach before the sun is awake. The ocean is soft this time of day, sussurations of waves teasing at sand-speckled toes like small childhood fairies. Come with us and play, the waves whisper, let's play.
"Cold," Charles whispers, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest. Minute shivers traverse his limbs, and if Erik places his palm against Charles' nape he knows he'll find goosebumps.
"Here," Erik murmurs, tugging Charles closer by the elbow and kissing the shell of his ear. Charles goes willingly, sidles up to Erik as he wraps his heavy coat around both of them, one hand around Charles' shoulders. Charles laces his fingers through Erik's with a smile. Pressed against each other like book pages, they make their way along the shore.
Charles tilts his head up and grins, sunflower bright and brilliant. "Come on," he says, and, without further warning, tugs their intertwined fingers and breaks off into a run.
Erik laughs and goes willingly. Barely ten seconds in, he feels half out of breath; sometimes he forgets how fast Charles can be, because he spends his days languid, pottering around their house with unhurried comfort. But Erik knows - in high school and college he was track team captain, and he placed sixteenth last year's marathon - he knows, and he cherishes these reminders of the brilliant, infuriating, amazing, complicated perfect person Charles is.
"First one around the bend wins!" Charles yells, and Erik tightens his grip on Charles' fingers half a second too late - he feels only the brush of fingertips.
"Cheating bastard!" Erik yells back through his pants. Already ten paces away, Charles whoops amidst peals of laughter. Barely breathing hard, the bastard.
Erik rears and takes off.
Charles wins, of course, turning the bend with a tap of fingers against the closest rock. Smug of his victory, he slows and swivels to face Erik -- just as Erik tackles him down, sending upwards a puff of sand.
"Oof," Charles says, flat on his back, trousers drenched, legs half-submerged in seawater.
"Who's the winner now?" Erik grins at him. Like this, they're pressed up each other; Erik's placed his palm on the back of Charles' head to cushion his fall, his other hand tight around his waist. Charles' fingers splay across his chest, and he traces his hands up to Erik's shoulders, collarbones, before finally settling home at the back of Erik's neck.
"Still me," Charles whispers, and draws Erik in that one inch closer to catch his lips with his own.
When they break apart, Charles whispers, "Erik," his voice thick with lust. The scent of his blood beneath his skin is heady, and the spread of his body - on the sand, ready, tempting - is magnificent. "Erik," Charles murmurs against his cheek, and then, with a slow, curling smile, "Do whatever you like."
With a growl, Erik does.
He drives into Charles body, nails possessively digging into warm flesh, leaving red marks in their wake. It's a strange counterpoint to the soothing kisses he peppers along Charles' shoulders, thigh, flank, everywhere. He bites Charles' throat until he tastes blood - beneath him, Charles groans and trashes, simultaneously pushing him away and drawing him closer. When he clamps his jaw around Charles' shoulder, Charles screams. It's as if Charles' electrified, body squirming, sounds of pleasure being ripped out of his throat - and he looks so glorious, so delicious like this that the predator in Erik can do nothing but devour him again and again.
There'll be countless bite marks littered across Charles' body, Erik knows. Some of them may even be permanent scars. Any other time - later tonight, even - Erik would feel remorse, apologies and soothing kisses delivered from his lips like flower, but now all he feels is mindless, all-consuming want. And whenever Erik wants, Charles indulges.
The sex is rough, frenzied and electrifying - exactly what Erik needs in moments like this. Charles gives as good as he gets, dirty and violent with his tongue and teeth, and Erik - Erik feels raw, so exposed, his skin split open and turned inside out. He comes so hard he forgets how to breathe; beneath him, Charles laughs and drags him closer.
After, he presses his ear to Charles' torso and feels his heart beat in time with the waves, the weight of breath drawn into lungs like rising tide. Here, wrapped around Charles on the boundary of sea and sand, in a cove secreted from the rest of the world, Erik feels most at home.
(Once, Erik bit too hard, nearly tearing a chunk of flesh. "Stop," Charles gasped, his words turning into panicked yells when Erik still failed to let go. It took a punch to the cheek for Erik to come back to himself, and when the fog of his mind cleared, there were fresh tears in Charles' eyes.
But instead of turning away, Charles raised a palm to cup Erik's bruised cheek, and kissed him so tenderly, so carefully, that Erik felt as if he's the one crying. He never knew, not until Charles, that it could feel like this, that anything could make him want to weep and scream and laugh and rage and love at the same time.)
VI.
The sea laps at the sun at the horizon, a violet overcast settling upon the shore. They are at the beach, waiting for sundown.
"I never want you to leave," Charles murmurs, gazing at their rings. He'll wear them for Erik, for safekeeping.
"I..." Erik begins, but the ocean sinks her hooks into him, the crash of waves a pied piper's song. Already he feels restless, the boundaries of his skin too tight.
"You don't have to say it back."
"I know." Erik says, and kisses him. Again, again and again, until the sea fully swallows the orange light of the sun. Just before the end he places a kiss upon Charles' forehead, soft and comforting like snowfall. "I'll always return."
"Of course you will," Charles declares, intent. "And I'll always bring you home."
(There's always a moment before Erik's human consciousness fades, after he enters the water and transforms. In these times Charles would follow him down, staining his trousers with seawater and wet sand, and run his hands so softly over the roughness of Erik's fin. And he'd pepper kisses on the top of Erik's head and stay, lingering in the water until Erik nudges him to go, go, run quickly, before his instinct fully takes over.
Sometimes it's a close call. Sometimes Erik snaps at the heels of Charles' toes, but Charles breaks into a sprint as he resurfaces to dry beach and settles there, panting, safe beyond the boundary of wet sand, and watches as the waves drag Erik in.
Charles digs his heels in wet sand and crouches, lays a palm on the sea's turbulent surface and feels, feels the sea settling into the cracks of his skin.)
end.