Chapter Text
"But you came over me like some holy light,
And although I was burning,
You're the only light
Only if for a night"
_______
Raven is considerate enough to let him take a few sips of awful/glorious diner coffee before she gets to the reason she asked him out for breakfast.
“How would you like to be in a music video?”
Erik is not too surprised by the question. Raven is an up-and-coming stylist and she frequently works in the music industry. He’s actually played model for a day as a favor to her before. He twirls his finger idly and the spoon in his coffee disrupts the sugar at the bottom. He can feel each grain against the metal as they dissolve.
“Who’s music video?” Hopefully it’s for a band he’d actually like and listen too, although Raven knows enough eccentric performance artist types for him to be worried.
Raven sets her mouth in a firm line and tenses her shoulders, blue and bare after she’d shrugged off her leather jacket. He knows the pose, she is steeling herself for something. raven is incredibly stubborn, a trait he’s sure she learned from-
“Charles’”
He looks at her for what could be a full minute. Two, maybe. Their waitress arrives and sets down their plates. Neither of them move to start eating.
“Are you…” he shakes his head, CharlesCharlesCharles ringing through it, “are you completely mental? Is this your idea of a joke, Raven? I don’t find it particularly funny.” He glares at her and is impressed when she doesn’t cower. His glare has been known to make small children cry and send adults scurrying away in abject terror. Raven hasn’t been afraid of him for years, possibly she never was. Raven can be pretty scary herself, when she wants to be. Once he had embarrassed her in front of a boy she’d had a crush on and in retaliation she had shifted into a naked Judi Dench and chased him around the roof of his old apartment on the Lower East Side. He still has nightmares.
Erik listens to Raven explain. Charles is shooting a music video for the first single from his upcoming album and wants to use all of his New York friends in it. He’d given Raven the job of rounding everyone up.
“OK, but I very much doubt that he included me in ‘everyone’, we haven’t spoken since…” he broke off because there was no need for him to say it, Raven knew.
A sad smile blossomed on Raven's face, so red against her midnight blue skin. He was struck by gratitude then, that Raven had stuck by him even after everything with Charles. He’d always assumed that as soon as he and Charles parted ways, especially considering the circumstances, Raven would cheerfully watch him get run over by the L train and post the pictures on her Instagram account, picking the perfect vintage filter to accent his bloody remains. But after the first year with Charles almost always gone touring, Raven had drifted back into his orbit. The only explanation he ever got being, “Someone has to look after you.” The now that Charles is gone went without saying.
Raven began to eat her Eggs Benedict and he started in on his pancakes. “I really do think that you should come and be in the video. It’ll be so much fun. We’ll all dress up and get drunk and maybe you and Charles can, you know, talk and work your shit out.”
Erik gave her his ‘are you fucking serious’ expression.
“Are you fucking serious?” he choked out, in case the look hadn’t been enough, “You think that I should be in Charles’ music video and dance around and laugh like the fucking love of my life, who hates my guts, isn’t standing a few feet away wondering how many times his body guard can get away with punching me in the face?”
And then there was that twinkle in Raven’s eye, the one that he thinks might possibly be a genetic Xavier trait, and he realizes that he just referred to Charles as the love of his life.
“Oh, shut up, Raven.”
Her smile gets impossibly wider. Literally, impossibly. She’s making her mouth stretch far enough to touch her ears.
“Yes, I think you should come. You can see the LOVE OF YOUR LIFE,” the silverware on their table rattles, “and the rest of the old gang. Everyone will be there, Hank and Alex and Sean and Moira. Maybe even Angel and Emma. Azazel is coming with me, of course. He says he can’t stand Charles’ music but I’ve heard him singing ‘Peace Was Never an Option’ in the shower and anyway he adores Charles. He’ll probably drag Janos along with us. I’ve emailed Logan, Marie, Jean, Ororo. The whole gang will be there, wouldn’t you love to see everyone?”
He would, oh god he would. He misses the people who were his first friends, the little family they had made for themselves. There was a slight problem with the happy picture Raven was painting.
“But they all hate me. Just like Charles does.”
That sad smile was on Raven’s lips again and Erik hated it more and more every time he saw it. “They don’t hate you…well, Alex might…but Alex hates just about everyone, excluding Hank, and that’s only because Hank has sex with him. And Moira definitely does but you and Moira have always hated each other. It’s possible that Jean doesn’t like you, considering how much time she and Charles spent in each other’s minds those last few months…but I think you should come and see what happens. I know that they miss you and I know that you miss them.”
It was so incredibly tempting. He wanted to trade insults with Alex, laugh with Sean over Hank’s inability to ever stop being a nerd, shamelessly and harmlessly flirt with Angel, glare silently at Moira and drink beer in companionable silence with Azazel and Janos. And then there was Charles…
God, the chance to be in the same room as Charles…to see him in person after three years without him. He dreams about Charles’ lips, so red against his pale skin.
The chance to hear Charles' singing with that incredible, magical voice, not through his headphones or his stereo but right there. To feel the touch of Charles’ mind as it expanded throughout the space he occupied. Erik would sometimes sit alone in his apartment at night and try to remember the indescribable sensation of Charles mind curling protectively around his, the essence of him winding itself through Erik until there was nothing between them. To feel that again, if only for one day, one night, one hour…
And then he thought about Charles’ eyes, those blue eyes so bright and sharp he’d felt that even without his telepathy, Charles would be able to look right through him. Erik had seen those eyes look at him with such tenderness, and joy, and darken with lust-
don’t think about that don’t remember hurts too much
But the last time he’d seen Charles those eyes had shone with tears and been filled with so much anger and desperation, such overwhelming sadness. He couldn’t bear it if those eyes looked at him coldly, or worse, if there was nothing in them at all. It had been three years, surely Charles had forgotten all about him, or had at least been carefully nurturing his hatred, as Erik had done with his regret.
And what if Charles looked too deeply at his thoughts and saw how Erik still pined for him, how pathetic and obsessive and…sad he was? The only thing that could be worse then Charles’ hatred (which Erik at least deserved and would stoically bear) was Charles’ pity (which he knew he could not).
“I’m sorry, Raven, I can’t.” She tried to argue with him but he quickly changed the subject and refused to let her change it back. The rest of their breakfast passed in awkward, stilted conversation.
When they left Raven kissed his cheek like she always did, her legs lengthening so to bring her face level with his. She gripped him in a tight hug and murmured, “Just think about it, Erik.”
The entire subway ride home, Erik couldn’t get Raven’s words out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. He attempted to distract himself by frightening tourists, standing completely still in the middle of the car, his powers keeping him anchored much better then holding onto the bar would, but he gets hardly any glances. People hardly paid attention to PDMs (public displays of mutation) anymore, thanks to…
And there he went again. CharlesCharlesCharles
His stop comes and the walk to his apartment so ingrained and automatic before he knew it he’s flicking the locks of his apartment open with a wave of his hand. He dropped his bag by the door, grabbed a beer from the fridge and slumped down on the couch, displacing a few books with his ass.
He calls his laptop to him with a gesture and plugs it into his speakers, opening the computer and pulling up his iTunes. There he is, in between Bruce Springsteen and Cold War Kids. Charles and the X-Men.
He selects their first album, Evolution, and presses play. A slow and steady drum beat starts, a relentlessly reverberating bass line joining in moments after. The beat picks up and a guitar begins. The piano tinkles on, a harp trills and finally, finally there is Charles’ voice.
I wrapped my arms around you
Swore I’d never let you go
But now my arms are empty
I fear you made it so
He lies back on the couch and lets Charles’ voice lull him to sleep like it has so many times. It’s a pale, painful imitation of the nights when Charles’ would hold him close-
Swore I’d never let you go
-and sing softly in his ear, but he takes what he can get.
I found you in the water
And said you’re not alone
I knew right from that moment
You were meant to be my own
________
The dream is the familiar because Charles is there and when he does dream Charles is always there. But this dream has a hazy, glowing quality about it. Everything is pink and gold and glittering. He and Charles are standing in the park, the sun making the blue of Charles’ eyes shine dangerously. They are speaking but the words are muffled and Erik doesn’t know what they are saying but understands it, terribly, at the same time. Charles has a hazy, translucent quality, he’s ghostlike. The most vivid part of him is the blue of his eyes. They speak for what could be hours or moments and Erik knows, despite not being able to hear the words, that they are both pleading and weeping. As he's waking he swears he can hear Charles' voice in his head, as clearly as it used to be when Charles spoke in his mind.
Oh Erik, darling, how I miss you
Erik reaches out a hand to him and the dream fades. Reality is there to greet him and he hates it.
Once he is coherent enough, Erik reaches for his phone and types a short, direct text to Raven, hoping that she will be too happy to gloat. All it says is, “Alright.” He knows she’ll get his meaning.