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They've taken the children swimming in some picturesque little lake on the Xavier property (is there anything that isn't on the Xavier property? Erik wouldn't be surprised to find a private supermarket tucked between the trees) and everyone is burning off energy and the frustrations of training in as loud and obnoxious a fashion as possible -- splashing and shouting and cannonballing, completely out of control. Even Erik has unbent enough to don a pair of swim trunks and join them in tossing the beach ball around.
Charles remains on shore, fully dressed, watching with a smile Erik can only call wistful.
"Join us, Charles," he calls, waving him in. "We all promise not to hold it against your professorial dignity."
"I'd rather stay here, my friend," Charles replies -- a blatant untruth, and Erik is baffled. He tosses the beach ball to Alex and slogs out of the water to sit next to Charles on his blanket in the grass.
Charles eyes his dripping, half-naked approach with a clear appreciation that threatens to distract Erik from his purpose in coming, especially once Charles runs a hand discreetly down Erik's arm and tangles their fingers together. This thing between them -- Erik hardly knows what to call it, all the usual words seem silly or sordid and utterly inappropriate for what he feels for Charles -- whatever it is, it's so new and intense that every touch seems to take up the bulk of Erik's attention, leaving frighteningly few mental resources for things like supervising the children or remembering what he came here for.
Swimming. Right. "Come swim with us, Charles," he says, perhaps leaning in a little closer than he has to. "Or do you not know how?" It wouldn't particularly surprise Erik, actually, to learn Charles had leaped into the ocean that night unable to swim...
"Oh, I know how," Charles says dismissively. "I'm just perfectly comfortable here. The lake is rather messy, you know." He tightens his fingers around Erik's. "You could stay here with me."
"Tempting," Erik admits, trying not to think about how very few inches stand between Charles's lips and his -- but that's exactly why he should go back to the water. Someone has to keep the idiot teenagers from drowning each other.
"Later then," Charles says with a smile, releasing his fingers reluctantly.
"Does Charles know how to swim?" Erik asks Raven when he returns to the water.
"Oh, perfectly," she says. "He just... doesn't like to. Around people." She gazes back toward her brother with a sad, resigned smile.
And somehow that smile makes Erik realize that, although he and Charles have been together twice now, Charles has always managed to distract him from ever quite getting his shirt all the way off.
That night he confirms it. Charles is happy to let him remove the cardigan, undo the buttons all the way down the thin white shirt beneath -- but when Erik moves to slide the shirt off his shoulders, Charles is suddenly much more interested in getting Erik's hands somewhere else. Anywhere else.
"And how long do you think you can get away with that?" Erik says.
"What?" Charles murmurs, barely pulling his lips away from Erik's neck far enough to speak.
"Keeping your shirt on."
Charles stills for the barest moment, then tries to laugh it off, distract him with fingers down Erik's spine. "There are more important things, my friend--"
Erik catches his hands, pulls away.
"Erik...?" Charles looks dumbfounded, verging on hurt.
"What have I withheld from you, Charles? Tell me one part of my body or mind that hasn't been yours for the asking."
Charles says nothing, unable to quite meet Erik's gaze.
"Take off your shirt, Charles."
"No. No, you don't understand, it's not important, can't we just--"
"No, we can't."
After a long moment, Charles tugs his hands free of Erik's and start re-buttoning his shirt.
"Charles."
"I don't want you to see!" His voice is a fierce, embarrassed whisper. "Don't want anyone to see, but you least of all--"
"See what, Charles?"
Charles turns away, brushes hair out of his eyes, sits down on the edge of the bed. Erik waits.
"My stepfather, Kurt," Charles says at last. "His laboratory caught fire when I was fourteen -- he died there. He got me out. For all his sins he got me and my stepbrother safely out. But the back of my shirt caught fire on the way." He looks up finally, to give Erik a twisted smile. "Burn scars are horrific things, Erik, not like your interesting map of lines and ridges -- more like a melted wax doll, like some alien creature, and I can't stand for you to see that."
"Charles." Erik sits beside him, kisses him gently. "How shallow a man do you take me for? I would love you covered in warts and boils, I would love you if you were a brain in a jar. Much as I enjoy your body," he trails a hand down Charles's chest, provoking a shiver, "surely you know that's not all I'm here for."
"I know, my friend, I know that, I do. But." He looks away again, color deepening with embarrassment. "I'm more of a vain, selfish creature than you give me credit for, Erik. I know how you see me." Erik's own words float secondhand through his mind -- beautiful, luminous, perfect. "It's intoxicating and I want to keep it, I want to keep you looking at me that way."
"You will."
"You don't know that."
"Let me prove it." He reaches for the shirt.
Charles twists away. "No," he says pleadingly. "Not-- not tonight, Erik. Haven't we wasted enough time on this nonsense?" He gives a hopeful smile, running his hands down Erik's ribs.
Erik sighs, pretending to let the subject drop, consents to being kissed and touched with mounting enthusiasm, undoes the scattered buttons Charles had re-done and yes, Charles's throat and chest and stomach are beautiful-luminous-perfect. He kisses his way down Charles's neck to his shoulder, slowly moving the shirt out of the way. Charles starts to tense and Erik reassuringly sweeps a hand up the outside of the shirt, as if to hold it in place.
As soon as Charles is relaxed again, he sneaks his other hand up under it.
I know what you're doing, Erik.
Then make me stop. The hand creeps delicately up until he feels the scars -- uneven, lumpy, rough here and stretched-tight-smooth there. It is a shame to have the perfect velvety sweep of Charles's skin disturbed so, but it isn't repellent in any particular way.
Charles is quivering with tension, despite a visible effort to stay relaxed. Erik pulls back, kisses slow and deep and leisurely, lets Charles bear him down onto the bed. After a minute he skims both hands across his back and the tension returns, but is less. Progress. Perhaps he should leave it there for tonight.
But Charles, looking down at him with fever-bright eyes and sweat edging his hair -- nothing could ever be this beautiful, Erik thinks, you can't possibly be real -- goes still, and breathlessly says, "Brain in a jar? Really?"
Erik blinks. "Not my first choice, certainly. But yes."
And slowly, visibly bracing himself, Charles sits back and lets the shirt fall off his shoulders. He folds it carefully and sets it aside and waits, trembling.
Erik sits up, touches his face tenderly, tries to tamp down his own urgency because this is important, dammit. Kisses Charles's shoulders again, hands on his back, pulling him against his chest with Erik's legs curled around him, feels the nervous shivers traveling up and down Charles's body. He can see over his shoulder now, down his back in the low lamplight. And the scars are ugly, ragged and withered and grooved, shiny and discolored and misshapen, and Erik aches for the pain they must have carried, fights down a pulse of anger at the stepfather who caused this -- no point in hating a man long dead, it will only distress Charles.
Wordlessly, he guides Charles into lying facedown so he can see better, and lays over him, weighing him down in the way he's already learned Charles likes, finds comforting. He runs his fingers carefully over every inch, following every swell and dip. They're ugly but that's what it takes sometimes for the body to survive such destruction, and Erik finds himself strangely... impressed. This is not light damage, recovery must have been long and painful. But Charles did it, he survived, and these scars are the visible manifestation of that, of the surprising strength and determination Charles carries in that slight frame.
Exploring now with lips instead of fingers, Erik feels a glow of accomplishment when Charles's breath catches, hands clenching in the sheets. And it doesn't seem tragic to him anymore, that his skin is marred like this, it seems perfectly appropriate, a natural element of the perfection that is Charles Xavier.
You still think I'm perfect? His mind's voice is disbelieving, almost mocking.
Oh, you've flaws aplenty, Erik replies, working his way back up to the nape of his neck, the sensitive skin beneath his ear, and Charles's shivers now have nothing to do with uneasiness. You're arrogant and naive and about eight times smarter than is good for you and you never know when to shut up--
Who's not shutting up? Charles turns over and catches Erik's next kiss with his lips, hands already tangling in Erik's hair. And that's the end of conversation for the night.
In the morning, they drag around sleepily getting ready for the day, shaving and showering and picking through the breakfast Erik fetches on a tray, indulging in lazy kisses and caresses. When they truly cannot any longer put off going downstairs, just at the doorway, Charles finally, reluctantly pulls on a shirt.