Title: Learning To Call You Home
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters: Charles/Erik
Rating: adult
Length: ~900 words
Content notes: Angst.
Author notes: For the "Transformation" challenge.
Badge notes: Angst, SBIGTTS Writing, Cross-Pollinator (fits my hc_bingo card!)
Summary: Charles said Erik would always have a home with him, and he meant it.



6.

The teakettle lifts, hovers. Erik gestures toward the pot, waiting for the hot water, and the kettle empties itself into the teapot. This, he has to do by hand, but he takes the teapot back to the breakfast table and waits for the tea to steep.

"It's good to be here," he says. "Good to be back." He stretches out a hand, across the surface of the table, and Charles reaches forward and takes it.

"I said you'd always have a home here, and I meant it." Charles squeezes Erik's hand. "Thank you for taking me up on it."

"Thank you," Erik murmurs.

Charles's gaze stays steady, doesn't falter. "You don't have to thank me."

"I think I do. For your forgiveness, if nothing else."

"You don't have to thank me," Charles says again, his fingers tight on Erik's hand.

---

5.

"How long is he going to be here this time?" Hank asks.

Charles rubs at his forehead. "As long as he wants to be."

He doesn't say, like always.

"If you're sure this is a good idea..."

"When am I ever sure this is a good idea?" Charles asks, wearily. Hank sighs.

"We're all looking out for you."

"I'm sure you are." Charles finally looks up again, takes in the way Hank's fur is ruffled, the concerned set to his eyes. "Thank you, Henry."

---

4.

They talk. Of course they're talking. It's a school. There's bound to be gossip.

"You ask me," says Logan, "he should have done it years ago."

"I don't trust him." Of course Scott doesn't. He sees the world in two shades: black and red, not black and white, but still.

"I'm keeping an eye on him," Jean promises. "Marie's keeping an eye on him."

"If Marie's okay with this, that ought to be enough for anybody." Ororo sounds certain, at least.

"We're not going to have a problem," Logan says. "We're all on the same page here."

"Are we?" Scott asks.

They are, all of them, Erik included. Charles wishes he could tell them all how much, but some things are better kept close to the vest. Better left unsaid.

---

3.

The first time after, Charles offers up something they've never tried before. Erik's suggested it, but they have pills for that now, and Charles keeps his prescription current. He's never wanted to know what it would be like to have Erik exert his control over the iron in Charles's bloodstream, to run the risk of it feeling-- like anything, really, but feeling different from the pills, or feeling too good.

He used to worry that he wouldn't be able to stand losing one more thing to the rift between the two of them. Not just Erik's friendship and love and presence in his bed every night, but these intimacies, too-- the ones that only the unique blending of their bodies and minds and abilities can create.

There's no point holding anything back from Erik now, though. No point at all.

Erik rides him, his hands braced on Charles's chest, Charles's hands on Erik's hips. He was right to hold off all these years; he'll never be able to live without this now.

You don't have to, whispers a voice in the back of his mind.

Charles knows all about voices in minds. He quiets this one, focuses on Erik's face, Erik's body, Erik above him, and takes this moment for everything it's worth.

---

2.

A push here, a nudge there. He's been rehearsing it since 1962. It's easy.

---

1.

"Don't go," Charles murmurs. He still has an arm around Erik's chest, and technically Erik wasn't moving, but it's been nearly an hour since they made love. If history is any indication, Erik will be getting up at any moment.

He doesn't, though. Not this time.

"Charles..." Erik reaches over, caresses Charles's temple. Charles closes his eyes. «I want to stay.»

Charles knows better than to take that as anything more than an idle wish. «You'll always have a home here,» Charles tells him. «All you have to do is want it badly enough.»

He feels it, then, in Erik's mind. The question Erik's never come right out and asked; the offer Charles has often wondered if he should make.

He rolls away, not easily. He pushes himself to the other side of the bed and sits up, dragging his legs into place, staring at Erik in the twilight.

"It might not last," he warns Erik. "Your mind is strong-- one of the strongest I've ever encountered."

"I know."

"I wanted you to come to this on your own."

"I have." Erik meets his eyes. "I want to stay. When I let myself admit it... I believe what you're doing could work, just as much as I believe in what the Brotherhood does." Erik kneels up on the bed, close to Charles, close enough to take his hand. Erik does. He laces their fingers together and squeezes gently. "But every time I think... come back to Charles, take what he's always offered you... I remember that we are who we are. Who our pasts made us."

Charles shakes his head. "You're more than that, you've always been more than that--"

"You believe it. You see it." Erik raises Charles's fingers to his lips, kisses his fingertips. "Make me see it, too."

They've tried everything else, Charles thinks. Why not this?

He lets Erik lift his fingertips to his temple.

-beginning-