Title: The Horizon Will Meet Us When We Arrive
Author: aisle_one
Fandom: XMFC
Pairing: Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr
Rating: R
Length: ~3800
Warnings: consensual noncon
Author notes: For the fan_flashworks "the lost hour" challenge.
Summary: One hour or one lifetime, how it matters depends on use and application.  Or - a happily ever after is always possible.





Charles, they've told him, is his name.

Charles doesn't know whether it's a Monday or a Wednesday when he gets on the train one morning and chooses a seat amongst a cluster of four. He guesses (correctly) that it is a weekday, several stops later, when a barrage of men and women in business suits cram the cab to near capacity, swallowing every inch of available space so that none can claim any as his or hers save for the bit they occupy. It is stifling the way Charles needs it to be, the way Charles had hoped, this morning, when he decided he would take a trip to anywhere. The previous days, the other rides into the city - all had aborted too quickly, destined to end at one appointment or another. But it lingered. The comforting sense of one amongst many, anonymous but in camaraderie with every passenger, to feel at once large and small in the slip-slosh of the train gliding on the tracks, and in that present Charles had been able to forget. It costs him nothing, it seems, this abbreviated sliver of time, minutes like pennies that last for as long as he is willing to count each.

In midtown - these are the stops in the fifties, forties and thirties Charles had been told - the train half-empties and most of the rest depart in lower Manhattan, or the Wall Street area as Charles has also learned to identify. The rest, along with Charles, continue on and through Brooklyn, yet another borough, another nation unto itself, or several nations congregated as one. They drive forward at hyperspeed and break with whiplashing efficiency.  Clusters of stations deliver different populations and they shuffle through and out, hinting at culture and language, at perceptions that might be very different from Charles's - or not so; he spies a girl several seats away with a book on her lap, the same that lies on Charles's.

It is too soon when he reaches the end, although - Charles checks his watch - yes, it's been several hours. There's a loud page by the conductor announcing the return to Manhattan (and from there to Westchester for Charles). It will be time for his mid-day meal when he returns and no doubt he'll be greeted by questions (and a healthy scolding from Raven.) Well. Too soon and yet nowhere to go from there. As the train rumbles to life, Charles tucks his head down and turns another page of his book.

_


They are concerned because he remembers nothing. He was told it was temporary and now they doubt the diagnosis.

Raven is chewing her lip. This, Charles has learned, from new memories they've created since he woke from his coma, is a sign that she is worried. He is still fond of her, Charles reassures with a light touch to her hand, which relaxes her a little. He'd been ridiculously overprotective, arrogant and overbearing, and always right as older brothers tended and as Charles believed himself to be on all things concerning Raven. She misses that, as much as she misses their easy companionship, and she confesses this all at once, repeatedly, as if speaking it again and again might shake something loose and familiar and he will return to her as he was, flawed but hers.

"I like that we're friends," Raven says, head tucked under his chin. He holds her because today she needs it, hours after he'd disappeared without telling anyone and his apologies had not been enough. She cries silently. He feels guilty, though not nearly enough. It is a faint sort of anguish, a distant thing more suited as empathy for a stranger in pain. The fact is more terrible than this hollow exchange and she feels it when he stiffens, as it goes for longer than he is comfortable and she pulls away abruptly, wipes at her eyes, turns away. "I just want you to come home, Charles. That's all."

_

Wednesdays. This is the day he designates for his trips. He gives them no choice but to agree. After all, he could just as easily board a plane and travel to - Indonesia. Egypt. Safari through Africa. He is a blank canvas and he could be anyone, anywhere. It is tempting each day to live a different life, perhaps days or months at a time, or years, and then recycle himself again. This is a newfound freedom and he aches with the possibilities. But - they are desperate, so he stays. Train rides, in exchange. It is gold for their copper.

_

It is worth the half day each week to be away from everything that reminds him of who he no longer is and the weight of expectation that he fears he will never meet.

_

Several weeks into this routine, he notices a man staring. It is not unusual. People stare. He stares. It is normally fleeting. This isn't and he capitulates under the weight of it, surrendering to the unspoken challenge and returns his eyes to the book in his hands. Yet it persists, the undeniable feeling that he is being watched, assessed. His cheeks flame because it is not...unwanted.

The man exits on twenty-third street. Charles dares a passing glance over his shoulder and finds the same blue-green eyes intent on his.

It is another several weeks when the same man sits down next to him and jostles Charles to the present with a question close to his ear - "What are you reading?" he asks. Charles jumps back and the man smiles. The wide flash of his teeth is a little harsh and there is something impetuous and irresistible in them, almost a mismatch to his eyes which are endearingly soft and careful in the way they perceive Charles.

"Er," Charles answers and waves the front of the book in the man's face. It is a popular novel for all the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, it busies Charles's mind, a simple a distraction as his weekly train rides.

"That's not the same one," the man says.

"What?" Charles asks, wondering if he'd lost track of the conversation.

"From last week. You were reading something else. Something with fangs on the cover."

"Ah, yes." Charles blushes. "That one..." was even more ridiculous than the one currently in his hands, which Charles resists saying and says instead, "I did. Finish that one." Charles gives the man a quick once over and hopes his face doesn't betray how well Charles thinks he fills his suit. "I suppose you're on your way to work."

"You suppose correctly. And I suppose you - " Erik gives him a similar once over, visibly amused at Charles's worn jeans and sweatshirt " - aren't?"

Charles shakes his head, smiling. "No, I'm just a bystander."

"Well, Mr. Bystander, I'm Erik." Erik offers a hand and Charles accepts it with a vigorous shake, and in return says, "I'm Charles." Erik nods. The train stops at twenty-third street and Erik stands. "Well, Charles, I'll see you next Wednesday."


Next Wednesday, Charles has a genetics text open on his lap when Erik enters the train. There are no empty seats left but the standing space in front of Charles is still clear and Erik claims it with one long stride. He peers down and grins. "That's not on the New York Times Bestseller's list."

"No," Charles says, "but I have been led to believe that I was quite passionate for genetics. Once. I used to be a professor." When Erik arches a brow, Charles takes it as an invitation to continue. "Or so I've been told. And the degrees and the CV and tenure at Columbia do all prove this. But - I find the subject dreadfully boring. Now."

"Now?" Erik asks.

"Yes, I...have amnesia. I've forgotten who I am."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Charles shrugs. "I suppose I should be, too. Well, that I should feel sorry, anyway, but." He shrugs again. "I don't...have many feelings about it. I have more sentiment for the things I watch on television, the characters I read about in books, the people I watch on this train." Erik says nothing and Charles avoids his face for what it might give away and because, suddenly, he feels terribly lonely. Then all the more so for he has nowhere to land it, no one with whom to share it with that might bear half the load. They are close to Erik's stop when Erik says, "Do you play chess?" Charles shakes his head. "Hmmm," Erik says, then leaves with a wave.


Miraculously, the annoyingly loud woman drenched in offensive perfume leaves just a station later and Erik snags the seat next to Charles. "Here," he says, tucking a paper cup in Charles's hand. "I brought you a coffee." Charles smiles and Erik smiles back; Charles grows fonder of this every day. When Erik is settled, he pulls a small, square box from his briefcase. "This is a travel set I bought for my business trips. I prefer it to playing solitaire on my laptop." Erik teaches Charles how to play chess. The pieces don't slide off the board. Charles picks up one and inspects the bottom. "Oh, they're magnetized." Erik nods, with the same familiar curve in his lips, as in - yes, obviously.


One day, Erik gets on the train dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He doesn't get off on twenty-third street and explains to Charles that he took the day off. When they are close to his stop, to his apartment, Erik says to him, "Will you come home with me?"

Yes, obviously.

_

Afterwards, Charles aches from where Erik's fingers had been, his tongue.

("Trust me," Erik had whispered, his breath soft and hot and damp against the back of Charles's neck. "Let me" - as he'd spread Charles open and apart, his fingers almost cruel, but his breath still soft and hot and damp, and his tongue - oh. Oh.)

His cock. Charles tugs at it as it lays on his stomach, limp now and yet still impressive.

Erik chuckles. "If you keep pulling on it like that I'll be ready for another round."

Charles keeps tugging and pushes on Erik's head until Erik's mouth finds his nipple and - oh. "Oh," Charles says, arching into it.

_

"Erik!" Raven says, startled, and Charles looks between the two of them and spies the invisible thing they barter in a shared, unguarded expression before it disappears behind Raven's recovered smile and Erik's wall of polite regard. "It's, ah," Raven holds out a hand, "nice to meet you. Charles has mentioned you." In passing. A vague comment dropped in their sparse conversations. And so he understands her surprise. Her shock. "So," she says again, "You're sure about this." Her eyes land back on the suitcase in his hand.

"Yes," Charles says and tips forward to kiss her on the cheek. "Very. I won't be far."

"All right." She releases him reluctantly, her hands slipping from the lapel of his jacket. "And you'll - " she looks at Erik " - you'll take care of him."

"Yes, of course." Yes, obviously.

_

Charles has enough money to buy his own island and so it is easy to depend on Erik for the rest. He builds a solar system on the foundation of Erik's attentions, the sun rising and descending with his every smile and every affection.

It is a simple thing when Erik indulges Charles. They spend hours beating familiar paths on the streets of New York City, mapping out routes that become theirs, their hands entwined and their breaths shared between their bent heads, lost in the intimate conversations they dare to have in public. Charles is fascinated by relics from old, retired customs, their use having expired and with them the trinkets on display in museums, where Charles goes when Erik is at work. There, his curiosity for other lives is placated by his imagination and, just as well, he loses interest in the weekly train rides.

Erik brings with him the gift of novelty. The world is made anew each time Charles experiences it, with Erik by his side, not strange and foreign and awkward when it was just Charles alone, stumbling though it, trying to recover himself.

He stops despairing for this rediscovery. It was never his, in the first place.

_

Erik never stays for Raven's visits, though they are both accommodating, if cold, towards each other.

"Are you happy?" Raven asks each time.

"Yes," Charles answers each time.

"Good," she says. Charles nods. Several stilted hours later, they hug and promise to stay in touch - as they do each time.

"Will it always be like this?" Charles asks, in bed, one evening after an afternoon with Raven.

"You're still getting to know each other."

"I didn't mean that, but now that you've mentioned it - well, why has it been so easy with you?"

"Because I'm sexier," Erik deadpans.

Charles laughs. "There is that." He falls silent and nudges closer to Erik, who embraces him as much with affection as from habit. "I should love her more than I do. Sometimes, I want to. I feel terrible that I don't, but more so because - I don't feel as...as apologetic as I ought to. It makes me seem, ah, deficient, doesn't it?"

"Deficient is not quite how I would describe you."

"How would you describe me?"

"Tetchy." Charles laughs. Erik grins at him until he quiets and they kiss. "But only sometimes. Only when you're hungry, really. Other than that you are..." He pauses. The difficulty in gathering the proper words is apparent in the crease between his brows. Finally, he confesses, "Everything. Everything and more than I could have ever conceived wanting in anyone. I adore you, you know?" He looks to Charles, to acknowledge that his intent is plain and is received as he means it to be.

"I do," Charles says, impishly. He can't help it. "I suppose you're lucky that I feel the same."

"I suppose I am."

Charles remembers his dreams the next morning and they are resplendent.

_

It is lovely for so long, the pursuit of excavating all of who Erik is a seeming infinite exercise that it comes as a surprise when, one day, boredom leeches onto his face. Charles recognizes it with a flutter of panic. It used to stare back at him in the mirrors of the Westchester mansion, week upon week until one day he decided to ride a train for the sake of it - because he could, because what else? Charles's heart beats at an unsustainable rhythm.

"What else" hangs between them an unasked query as if Erik has reached a dead end where Charles is still lost in winding curves.

"Is something wrong?" Charles asks, unable to keep the fear from coloring his tone.

"No," Erik answers quickly, boredom shifting to alarm as he gathers Charles in his arms. "No, everything is...It's fine, darling. I love you."

Erik loves him. It is unquestioned. But is it enough?

_


Is anything enough?

_


The answer must be no, because Erik loses interest, not in spades, but centimeters. He spends one night away past office hours at the office - so he claims - that become routine, crawling into bed, next to Charles, who pretends he's asleep and takes small comfort in the arm Erik throws over him, thoughtless and haphazard. One night that becomes five and then ten and then every other until it is every - every one that used to belong to Charles, who is left with...what? Waiting? He does wait, as if there is any other choice.

Charles doesn't know how to earn back the loss, how to climb up from the pathetic place of desolation that Erik leaves him in with each kiss to his cheek good-bye when he leaves for another day without Charles, how to ask: what else? Is there anything else?

Charles pines for the rides on the train, when he was once able to lose himself to be himself - in the rough, soothing rumble of rubber against metal, in forgettable fiction and forgettable faces, in moments that mean eternity in an instant and then nothing. Nothing but a spark, lightning, flash in the pan, gone as quick as it came.

He won't. He doesn't. Not a step out or anywhere that isn't expected, because what if? What if Erik chooses him again? He wants to be there when he does.

_

Charles didn't know he was capable of this. He is a volcano spilling heedlessly his rage and hurt and fear, relentless no matter where they land. He blames it on the vodka, on the one too many that he slurped down before Erik came home, fuel for the impossible, for the deluded. He thinks he can bite down without regard, that wherever and whomever he sinks his teeth into will welcome it, that every thrash and protest is just permission for more. They sink into Erik and he bleeds his reaction in a white-knuckled grip on the door, saying, "I'm going to give you time to cool off."

"No," Charles says, stepping in his way and putting his entire weight on the door until Erik lets go and it slams closed. "Fuck you." He slaps Erik's chest, aims the second at his face, but Erik catches his wrist.

"Stop it," Erik snarls, showering spit.

"No." Charles swings his other hand. Erik catches it just like the first and twists both of Charles's arms behind his back, shoves him until Charles collides with the couch, the edge of it knocking the breath from him as Erik bends him over.

"What," Erik says, shaking him, "is wrong with you?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Charles bites back. He struggles some more and Erik binds his arms around him. He kicks Charles's legs apart and lodges one of his in between. It nearly immobilizes Charles, but he still has his teeth and decides to use them, sinks them into the vulnerable flesh of Erik's hand. Erik yelps but doesn't let go, instead grips Charles by the jaw. "Who is it?" Charles demands. "Who are you fucking?" Because it's not Charles. Not for weeks.

"What?" Erik says, the shock clear in his voice and his hold slackens for a moment. Charles takes advantage of it and kicks back at Erik's shin. "Shit," Erik says, leaning more of his weight against Charles. "Is that what this is about? I haven't fucked you so you decided to throw a tantrum."

Children have tantrums and - "I'm not a child." Not spoiled. Not naive. Not any of the things that Erik has never claimed him to be, but the imagined accusations are familiar nonetheless. It is like ice down his back, remembering something not from this world he knows and - he shoves it down. Shoves back at Erik.

"Fine," Erik says. His hand is on Charles's belt, then on the zipper of his jeans.

Charles stills. "What?" he asks, unbelieving. Panic from Erik leaving becomes panic at what is happening, at the spike of unexpected arousal as Erik's hand slides past the waistband of his jeans and -

"Fine," Erik growls low, his chest rumbling against Charles's back. "Fine, I said."

"Oh!" Charles bites into his shoulder, Erik's hand on him rough. "Oh," he says again, when Erik's finger, coated in his pre-come pushes into Charles, then another, and a third, and they push and push until it's Erik's cock that's breaching him and - oh...smothered into a throw pillow as Erik fucks him to blissed out and trembling.

"Oh, God," Erik chokes out, afterwards, dressing quickly and leaves before Charles can stop him.

He doesn't return that night and not for several weeks of Charles calling and texting and emailing him incessantly, and each time saying, "Come home. It's all right. I wanted it."

_

"No," Charles says with his mouth, but nods yes with his head, with every cant of his hips. "No," he says, then yes with his heels digging into Erik's back and the lazy swipe of his fingers at Erik's thumb pressed hard into the thinnest part of his wrist as he holds Charles down. "No," Charles keeps saying, but yes, yes, yes as he matches each of Erik's thrusts.

They do it again. And again.

_

One afternoon, Charles says, "I'm tired of playing chess."

Erik pauses with his hand over a pawn. "All right," he says and follows Charles as he rises and leaves their game, into the living room where Charles chooses the right corner of the sofa as he always does. Erik sits down next to him, concern etched on his face. "What is it?"

Charles means to say, "Nothing," as he has each time Erik has asked this question, but shakes his head instead. "I don't know."

"So, it's something?" Erik sounds...hesitant.

Charles touches his cheek. "You are frightened."

Erik takes his hand and looks at Charles as if he is pleading with him. "Should I be?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

_

The years pass with chunks of uncertainty mashed between many more miles of certainty that this is it. Until -

Until one weekday afternoon in Central Park, when both of them are in jeans, Erik opens a small box with two rings inside. He picks up one and slips it onto Charles's finger, and says: "With this ring, I thee wed." His eyes are bright and shimmer with unspoken promises.

"I," Charles starts, picking up the other. "I...I pledge to you everything." Because it is that simple. Because it is that complex. "And with this ring - " he weeps, slipping it onto Erik's finger " - I thee wed."

They have no witnesses. They need none.

_

Erik evaporates in the mist and when Charles wakes, he is still weeping.

_

"Professor." Someone is shaking him. "Be all right, please be all right."

"Alex!" Is that...

"Hank?" Charles barely gets out, as if his mouth is stuffed with cotton. His eyes are no more cooperative and it takes several attempts, blinking through an insistent and heavy weight until he manages to open them. It is too bright. "I'm in the infirmary."

"Yes," it is Hank who answers.

"I'm so sorry."

"Alex?" Charles turns his head - or tries. It hurts.

"Don't move." Hank again, who adds, "You were too close to the mannequin." Oh, yes, when Alex shot out. He remembers.

"How long have I been out?"

"An hour," Alex says.

"An hour?" Charles echoes, blinking up at the fluorescent lights, and registers the dull pain in his head.  "Just an hour?"  Only to himself, he whispers - gone.  Here today and - like sands through the hourglass.

"Yes," both Alex and Hank say, looking at him strangely and then at each other with no small amount of...hmmm, guilt.

"I see."

And though he does, it makes marginal difference for later that day or tomorrow, and the day after, and not for many years.

_


Until.

_

Until they are old. And scarred, the worst of them not visible to anyone but each other. Until Erik confesses, "I had a dream once," and Charles answers, "Yes, me, too."

And then they reminisce because it helps to pass time, and because it eases the way to declaring: "Well, all roads had to lead to this, didn't they?"

"Well, yes. Yes, they did."

Charles offers his first and - nods.  Yes.  Their hands still fit.