Title: Of Ghosts Who Dwell Here
Fandom: X-Men First Class
Length: 525 words
Content notes: no warnings apply
Rating: R
Author's note: Part of the Patterns of Light series.
Summary: It was a mistake to come back, Charles thinks.





It was a mistake to come back to Rehoboth Beach and this hotel, Charles thinks when he wakes dry-mouthed and gritty-eyed at four in the afternoon. This isn’t the same room he and Erik had, but it might as well be: the same cream paint and rose-patterned wallpaper, the same patchwork quilt and iron-framed bed, wooden chairs and washstand. Clearly imagination in decorating is not Theresa Pryde’s strong point.

He’s not sure it isn’t worse, on reflection, being across the hall from the room they shared. As if the ghosts of that earlier trip might still be there on the other side of that locked door, kissing and clinging to each other as if they’d never let go. Waking up together for the first time, and imagining all the other mornings they could have. Anything seemed possible then, in the heat and rush of new love.

Not a word he’d thought to use, but that’s what it was. Knowing this time he wanted much more than a quick fuck or a one-night stand.

He’d wanted those things too, of course: how could he not, meeting Erik for the first time in that smoky jazz club? Wanted this man so hard and fast, it took his breath away. The heat of Erik’s gaze made him dizzy, certain it wasn’t a question of if but when. He’d sat through the rest of the show in a haze, achingly hard, fighting the impulse to freeze the minds of everyone else in the club while he sucked Erik’s cock or bent him over the nearest table.

Hours later, they’d stumbled into Erik’s apartment, barely managing to close the door behind them before falling on each other, fumbling with buttons and cloth, desperate for the feel of skin on skin. Bitten-off cries and half-smothered groans, the heat and salt of bodies locked and sliding together. Erik’s cock in his mouth, or against his hip, or pressed between them as Charles fucked him, Erik arching up to meet him thrust for thrust.

“I want to see you again,” Charles heard himself say as they lay still panting in each other’s arms. He never said that, no matter how good the sex was.

Erik kissed him so fiercely that he felt the sting and bloom of blood in it, and the sharp flare of his ability at the tang of metal.

“I’ve got a few days’ leave,” Erik said, sounding almost as stunned as Charles. “We could – go somewhere.”

And so they had come to Rehoboth Beach, and this hotel, and allowed themselves to fall in love.

Charles sighs, and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. Impossible to recover those ghosts of another season; impossible not to want to. They thought they had all the time in the world. They knew nothing of what lay ahead: the summons from MacTaggert, and the crooked house in New Orleans where Charles would lie awake cold and sick with dread, listening to Sebastian’s sleep-heavy breathing and willing him not to wake up.

It was a mistake to come back here, that’s certain. But now he’s here, he doesn’t want to go away.


***



Title from John Keating's song "This Hotel", recorded by Shirley Horn.