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Erik observes. Erik notices. That is just how he is and what he does. Even as a child, before he met Shaw and his mother died, Erik followed behind with a very straight face and watched his schoolmates. When they talked, he listened. Sometimes he tried (for the most part, he's stopped) to look like he was paying attention, which made it always that much harder to actually pay attention.
When he and four other boys (three of them Jewish) he lived near walked through the inch of snow down cobble streets, weaving past traffic until they were forced to confine themselves to the sidewalk, Erik walked behind them. There wasn't enough room for five to walk side by side, so Erik was a step behind and listened. (Two years later the Gentile boy stopped walking with them, and Erik still wasn't accepted enough to walk in line with them).
Erik tries not to attribute his observation skills to his (frankly quite lonely) childhood. He attributes it to work ethic and practice. He doesn't walk a few steps behind someone because he's too unangenehm to know whether or not he'd be welcome beside them. He does it because he's building a schedule and trying to find the best place to corner, interrogate, and kill them.
Erik doesn't do much hunting these days, which he isn't sure to be relieved at or annoyed. Molding American teenagers into soldiers is not his ideal day job, either, but the food and lodging is a net positive.
The company isn't so bad either. Erik's throat hurts sometimes at dinner because he's so unused to talking so often. But everyone here wants his opinion, on practically everything, it seems. The children want to know if they're doing a good job, want his praise and acknowledgement. Moira wants desperately to talk to another hunter, one who treats her like a human instead of a skirt with a mouth. Charles, though, Charles wants to talk about philosophy and politics and history and tea and an inordinate number of completely normally mind-numbing topics that Erik happens to have a keen interest in. So, Erik talks. And Charles listens.
Erik tells him in no uncertain terms that once Shaw is dead he is going to leave. Charles nods thoughtfully, says, "I believe you." in a way that Erik is half-sure means he doesn't believe him at all. The knowledge that Charles thinks he's lying or doesn't know what he's talking about enrages him, but he's too unsure that he was being condescending to call him out for it.
(Erik doesn't tell Charles he stays up late at night memorizing the other man's fingerprints so that when he leaves he'll still be able to conjure a wisp of fond imago just real enough to fool himself for a few seconds. He has to leave. But he will miss this. That, he thinks, Charles knows.)
But yes, Erik notices. He spends a lot of his time noticing Charles, in fact. The way the sun catches his hair and the stupidly endearing wrinkles in his professor suits are just small things he notices, the biggest being how irrevocably in love with him Erik is.
You're going to leave, Erik repeats firmly to himself as he prepares dinner for the house, knife slicing cleanly through carrots on its own. Charles is talking excitedly to Hank over a stack of printed paper on the table. You're going to leave. Erik thinks that all art in every high-brow museum he’s ever been to might as well be fingerpaint now that he has Charles to compare it to. You're going to leave, you poor, poor fool.
Erik notices, almost immediately, that Charles is a very tactile man. He practically blooms like a flower towards the sun when Raven slings her arm around him, and rests a hand on her hip in a way that speaks to decades of sibling familiarity. He claps Hank on the shoulder whenever he says something particularly brilliant, his knuckles always brush against Moira's sleeves and hands when he passes her, and he ruffles Sean's hair just because.
It takes longer to notice the subtleties of Chalres' touch. Erik is all about patterns. It's as if everything else fades to the black edges of old photographs when he notices them. Sometimes (most times, if he's being annoyingly honest with himself) he notices non-patterns, things that don't line up into numbers or orders and that he just wasted an entire conversation he wasn't paying attention to focusing on. Second most common is patterns that mean nothing, like seeing typography where every once in a while there's an odd space between two letters and he scans the page four times adding up where it happens with what letters and how far away they are until his brain catches up with him and he reminds himself that there's no pattern because it's just a bank statement.
But, oh so rarely, luck bleeds to coincidence bleeds to pattern. Charles touches Raven when she's smiling (which is often, but not always), and will always, always, without a sliver of hesitation, lean into touch she initiates. Charles only congratualtes Hank physically when he's beside him, not behind him, because if Hank doesn't know it's comign he starts like a spooked horse. Charles never, ever touches Moira more than a brush of the hand, will take opportunities touch her arm when not strictly necessary, but will always ask her to move if he's about to walk past her in a tight space where their bodies would press together.
Erik isn't sure, but he thinks Charles might be using his powers to know when people are most open to being touched and how. True, it doesn't take telepathy to assume Moira's braindead male colleagues treated her like a piece of meat rather than a sharp-minded asset, but Raven let it slip once to him that Charles will occasionally read someone's mind in bars to know the best way to approach them. How was this any different?
Erik thinks, though with a sick, sinking feeling in his stomach, that this is the most logical conclusion. Because if Charles does do a quick check into someone's mind before he touches them, there is a non-zero chance that he knows Erik is maddeningly attracted to him and spends more time than is strictly healthy thinking about how soft his hair might feel.
Because Charles never touches Erik.
They have touched, of course they have. Erik is mostly sure this is true, though they were in the heat of battle or underwater and he isn't positive his mind didn't conjure the feeling of Charles' skin out of pure longing. But aside from that, and one accidental brush of the fingers over chess pieces in Charles' room: radio silence.
This shouldn't be a problem. Erik hates it when he's touched. The feeling of warm flesh, even through two layers of clothing, is enough to send him roiling. Erik wishes he could tell himself Shaw ruined all potential of enjoying human contact for him, but, just as with his school days, it was always there. The only person whose touch didn't make him feel like he was touching a hot mass of muscle with thumping blood veins was his mother. And since then, no one. Even sex with strangers is distracting for all the wrong reasons. Erik keeps his distance--not just because it's what he's used to, but because it's genuinely what he prefers.
Except for Charles. Because Erik wants to pinch a lock of his brown hair between his thumb and forefinger and find out if it is as soft as it looks. He wants to press his nose to Charles' skin, inhale deeply enough that he can imprint the scent on him and never lose it. He wants to kiss his red lips, wants to hold him close and bury himself in his mind and body and never, ever leave him behind.
But despite his want, his pure unfiltered desire, Charles never touches him. Erik is sure Charles must have felt some of his lust (or worse, his love) for him and been so reviled (or, Erik acknowledges painfully, scared) that he never wanted to touch him again.
Erik zones back into the chess game he and Charles are playing at some point between resigned acceptance and this heart-wrending feeling he can't name. Charles' move finished minutes ago, and Erik has been staring stone-faced at his white bishop for the entire duration. He knows, logically, that they each usually take quite a lot of time thinking to take each move. Erik isn't sure, for either of them, if it's because they want to extend the game to have an excuse to talk longer, or simply a very motivating desire to win. It's probably both, because Charles hates losing in chess even if he pretends to be a good sport about it and Erik loves pressing his buttons.
Erik straightens in his chair to get a proper bird's eye view of the bord. Open spaces seem lit up by spotlights, and a quick scan shows that the next turn Charles could take one of two of his pieces (knight or pawn) or move that hated bishop into a better spot to attack his rook. Charles is fond of his bishops and Erik of his rooks, so naturally they work as hard as they can to delete the other's favored pieces from the game as fast as possible. Erik moves his knight back a move to protect that rook and sends Charles a look.
"Really, Charles? You're becoming predictable," Erik says with an indulgent smirk, leaning back in his chair. His wrist twirls a little playing with the washer on one of the table legs idly. The way it catches ever so slightly on the wood sends a soothing texture down through Erik's power, as if it were a phantom limb.
Charles grins and looks at him through his lashes. Erik's heart momentarily stops. "Can't have that, then, can we?"
He's trying to look coy and is failing miserably at it, landing on giddily excited instead. Charles leans over the board and castles his king and rook and, with the lack of pawns and knight in the way, sets Erik's just slightly-too-cornered king into an instant concession.
Erik closes his eyes briefly in consternation because of course he forgot to keep track of the lane he opened up moving the knight, he always misses it. With a flick of the wrist his metal king falls to the board with a clack, defeated.
Charles laughs. "Guess I'm not the predictable one after all, hm?"
"You were just hoping I'd say something, weren't you?"
"Waiting, actually. I could've done that five turns ago."
"Don't expect to get away with that again," Erik warns; his voice sounds deadly serious, and is commonly the last thing someone ever hears, but he's mostly sure Charles will know he's joking. Then again, people tend to freeze up in horror whenever confronted with it (including the children, who don't think he even knows what a joke is), so he can't be totally confident.
Charles hums, still smiling and rocking his leg a bit where its crossed over his other. "Unfortunately for me, you're quite right. It's very difficult to get anything past your defenses, Erik. I have to think of new tactics all the time."
Erik ignores the way his heart beats in his ears at the thought of Charles' startlingly brilliant mind on him "all the time". He clears his throat minutely, thinking of all the things he could say to that. He lands on the safe, "Someone has to challenge you."
"I'm glad it's you," Charles says, smile falling into something soft and intimate. It should catch Erik off guard, but he's too used to Charles' sentimentality and openness by now. Vulnerability borne from privilege and problems with solutions. It gives Erik hope, whenever he lets himself hope, that Charles maybe, just maybe, might return his feelings someday. In a world where Erik doesn't leave, which he reminds himself, is not a luxury he has awarded himself in this world.
Erik quietly observes Charles, feels courage building in his chest so quickly he doesn't know what he's preparing for before his mouth opens and he hears himself say, "You don't act like it."
Charles blinks, that serene almost-flirting broken. "What... what do you mean?"
A sliver of real annoyance snakes into Erik's mind. More obvious than the lack of... anything from Charles is how deliberate it is. Charles touches everyone. It's in his nature. But he conciously makes the choice to exclude Erik from that. Erik leans back in his chair once again, crossing his arms. "Don't play dumb, Charles. It's not a good look on you."
"Erik, I'm not playing anything. What are you talking about?" Charles repeats, exasperated. Erik pauses for a moment. Does he really not know, or is he making fun of him?
In for a penny, in for a pound. "You don't touch me."
Erik cringes internally at the delivery. He should never have brought the conversation here. He sounds like an attention-seeking, pouting child.
"What?" Charles exclaims loudly, far too surprised for Erik's liking.
Erik huffs angrily. He's definitely being laughed at. "Look, it's not that hard to understand. And I'm not stupid, Charles. You can hardly take your hands off everyone else--" --Not true, but the jab feels vindictively good, especially after putting himself out there for complete confusion-- "--except for me. It's alright, I understand that you don't feel comfortable, or safe, whatever it is, around me--I don't blame you for it--but you dont have to pretend like that's not what happening."
Erik's words hang in the air between them for a long moment. The air is heavy with it, almost stifling, but the ball is in Charles' court now. He's said what he needs to say about this topic.
"Erik," Charles begins slowly, brows drawn together as if he had contradicted a truth so obvious to him it was profoundly bewildering. "You don't like human contact. It makes you uncomfortable."
Erik has his simmering anger at condescension at the ready, mouth already open to lay into the man across from him, when his words fully register. Still angry, but less so, and for a different reason: how dare Charles assume he knows Erik so well he can tell him what he does and doesn't like? Even if it's true? "And how'd you puzzle that one together? Read my mind?"
Charles' expression shifts to affronted and he straightens. "For your information, I don't need to read your mind to see you recoil when Alex accidentally touches your arm! But yes, Erik, you tend to project louder than anyone I've ever met so even being in a room with you is like having a hive of bees living under my skin!"
Erik doesn't like his tone, but he hates more how apparently torturous it is for Charles to even be in his presence. "Then allow me to apologize, Professor, for being such an irritant for the heinous crime of thinking too loud! I suppose I'll go and bury myself in the ground for your convenience, then."
"Erik!" Charles snaps, rubbing at his temples. "Stop blowing this so out of proportion! I was just trying to be considerate!"
"Of me, or of yourself?" Erik demands. There's a deep, fresh cut under his skin but he does all he can to poke and prod at it, relishing any pain at all if he could only distract himself from what Charles is saying. Of course Erik meets the only man he's ever wanted, and he can't even stand to be around him. There was truly never any alternative path because this world hates him. "If it's too painful for you to touch me, then--"
"Good God Erik, it's not painful for me to touch you!" Charles interrupts, throwing his hands up. His face is pink and, Erik notices, quite distressed. "Please stop putting words in my mouth. All I'm saying is that you project discomfort loudly and you are always uncomfortable. I'm just trying to accommodate you so that hopefully one day you feel less uncomfortable in our home. God, Erik, you don't need to make everything a fight because you're scared of being open with me!"
Erik's anger loses it's sharp edge as Charles pleads with him, mainly because of how genuine the other man is and how desperate he is for Erik to understand. He won't yell at Charles again, but he's not quite done arguing with him. He leans back in his chair to force himself to stay calmer. Lowly, he says, "Don't make the mistake thinking that you can scare me, Charles. I have seen things that would turn your 'fear' into a dream."
Charles sags and looks at him with big, sad eyes. "I know, Erik. But like it or not, you're more afraid of telling me your boundaries--or even admitting you have them--than you are of those things." He taps his forehead once. "Sorry, but I can tell."
Charles being in Erik's head doesn't anger him like it did when they first met. In fact, he's more than warmed up to the idea, realizing somewhere along the way that Raven's blue form and Charles' unshielded telepathy are the same in that they are their true, natural mutant selves. It doesn't hurt that Charles is very good at privacy and if he goes anything beyond projected thoughts, he makes it very clear to Erik that he is there. But there is, in Erik's mind (although probably at least a little bit illogical), a difference between Charles looking into his mind and Charles finding something. Erik sits back and observes. Erik finds patterns in Charles' behavior. Charles isn't meant to the same thing back and, damn him for saying it, it scares him.
Judging by the look in Charles' face, he has been patiently waiting for him to come to the conclusion that just maybe, just this once, Charles Xavier is right about something.
Erik looks away from his face (too open, too patient, too understanding). He feels flayed open for him, an open book Charles can read far too easily. When did that happen? When did Charles learn to understand him when no one else ever tried?
"My dear friend," Charles says, suspiciously wetly, when Erik doesn't speak for a moment. Erik risks a look back to the other man, unnerved by how close he is, leaned over the chessboard. His eyes are wide and genuine. "Erik," Charles says his name like it is everything, like it is the air he breathes and the sun in his eyes and still not enough to encompass all he wants to say. Charles' eyes are a bit unfocused, like they always are when he's seeing something beyond what ordinary people can, and Erik feels his presence in his mind, fitted against him like a puzzle piece. "Erik, if your mind is an open book then I have read it a thousand times and would a thousand times over. I'd hang onto every word and write notes in the margins, my dear. You don't need to be afraid that I understand you."
Erik's jaw clenches against the well of emotion building in his throat. He knows if he speaks his voice will break under the burden, but Charles can see through him anyway--no, more importantly he can see him, not just his mind but everything that makes him up, so much more than Erik had every imagined he did and for some ungodly reason he hasn't recoiled from him.
"Charles, don't--" Erik's voice predictably breaks, but he presses on. "Don't try to--you shouldn't--Gott, just touch me already."
Erik leans forward over the chess board to meet Charles and grasps at him, his sweater, his jaw, his wrists, his hands. Charles is caught off guard, a flash of surprise and trepidation shoots through Erik's mind, but as fast as it appears it's gone, and Charles is standing and the table between them was flung by its metal nails across the room.
Erik is wholly distracted by the feeling of Charles, a warm body full of meat and blood, against him as they cling to each other, but not the same way it normally is. Erik is distracted by pushing his sleeves up to run his fingers along Charles' wrists and pale arms, by the way Charles drapes himself half over him like a heavy blanket. He knows Charles is just 160 pounds of warm flesh and chemicals but he doesn't feel it, the knowledge doesn't seep into his bones going wrong wrong wrong and the bees, as Charles put it, are fast asleep under his skin.
Somehow their lips are pressed together, sliding against each other wet with saliva that was secreted from glands in their mouths and Erik doesn't care because it's Charles and not just a human body. He's holding and kissing Charles, who lights up like a firecracker in his mind, who smiles against his lips like he's found religion and deemed it hilarious, who reciprocates everything but lets Erik take the initiative at every step.
They fall into bed together and between one slide of their bodies together and another Erik pants, "I love you." Just that is enough to send Charles over the edge and where Charles goes, Erik follows.
He keeps holding Charles in the afterglow, partly out of disbelief that companionship can feel so beautiful and partly out of the evolved fear that from having, comes losing.
Charles rolls over with a heavy, yet fond, sigh, throwing a leg and an arm over Erik. athe weight, somehow, soothes him even further. Mouth pressed against Erik's collarbone, Charles murmurs, "I'm not going anywhere, Erik."
"I believe you." Erik replies, shocking himself to find that he really does.
There's a long few moments of silence, where Charles' breathing steadies and his presence diminishes ever so slightly in Erik's mind and Erik thinks he's fallen asleep.
"There's nothing wrong with you, you know," Charles says, out of nowhere but at the same time inevitable for a man who spends far too much time in Erik's mind. He would know; he has to live there. "No, don't think that, Erik," Charles admonishes, swatting him lightly on the abdomen with his hand. "I meant what I said earlier. Your mind is beautiful Erik."
Erik can't help his scoff. "I'll trade you."
"I know it mustn't feel like it, most times," Charles concedes. "Those times when everything is wrong and you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. But you must know there's nothing wrong with that. We're all different, we just hide it. What you said to Raven and I and the children about our mutations goes for you as well. You shouldn't hide yourself."
Erik is silent for a very long time. "I... didn't consider that as an option."
Charles nuzzles closer to him and yawns quietly. "Consider it now."
Erik stares up at the dark ceiling, Charles' sleeping, breathing form heavy atop him. He traces the hexagonal pattern above him, line interlocking in with different shapes. They're all the same shape, Erik realizes, just repeated against each other, outward, like a blooming flower.
Erik grits his teeth in his head, not because he's angry, but because the pressure feels so right. Patterns.
Erik understands patterns, he understands rules that people make for themselves and follow. He also understands that Charles understands him, even though Erik himself couldn't put the way his mind works into words. It's discomfort and stimuli and distraction... but, since he is considering, there is also that heady rush at putting pieces together correctly, at finding just the right texture to put him at ease, or the true focus he can channel into something he truly cares about.
Erik comes to the conclusion that he's not sure if it is beautiful or not, how his strange, oddly-wired brain works. But he does come to the conclusion that he is going to stay with Charles, in this manor with these kids, and someone could not pry him away if they tried.
After all, with that terror of falling with only someone to rely on to save you, comes that pure exhilaration at being caught.