Past Tense, Part Six

[skull_bearer]

This will be the last chapter of Past tense. Thank you to al who have followed it this far, I hope you have found it as rewarding as I have. The story will be continued in the sequel: Present Perfect.

 

They must have been late, because they drove through the night. One of the nurses took over from them after dinner and they pass the last miles dozing in the car they’d started off in. It was a strange night. Charles slept lying across both seats, on top of Erik with his head on his friend’s chest. It was a risk, but the doctor in the front seat was asleep, and the driver only had eyes for the road, and if either of them wondered, hopefully they would put it down to exhaustion and the uncomfortable situation.

And it was very uncomfortable, his legs hurt and Erik keeps on twitching, but he was so tired very little could keep him awake right now.

The morning comes as they crest over the last hill, and the sun shines straight into Charles’ face. He blinks and grumbles and rubs at it, waking Erik, but everything is black and dazzling white that takes him a while to blink through. The car rattles and his head bumps against Erik’s chin. His friend opens his eyes and winces through the glare, the sunlight painting sharp stark streaks across his face and makes the edges of his grimy hair almost glitter.

The edges of the world seem softened in the morning sun, the sky blending into the earth and… sea? Is it the sea? Charles squints but the edge of the world slips behind the slowly growing buildings ahead. Perhaps he slept again, because when the world sets into focus once more they are among the white and dusty buildings and the sun is beating down stiflingly on the car roof. Erik is awake, and leaning against the still closed window, trying to watch the world without having it see him.

The cars rattle to a halt beside the dock, and it is indeed the sea. The car doors open and Charles sits on the seat with his feet on the loose gravel, the morning sun already beating down, Charles pulls the jacket hood over his bare head, sensing sunburn. He yawns. Everything feels too early to be real just yet.

Standing out in the predawn light, sleeping on his feet A slight doze the drooped his head down and allowed him to claw those few more seconds of rest before Erik jabbed him to warn him it was their turn to be called. Half blinded in the sunlight, trying to look awake as the guard read his number.

A crunch of gravel makes him start and he looks up at Erik, his friends face cutting away the blazing sun. It’s so hot for this early. Charles wonders where they are. Italy, probably. The buildings are speckled with shots and shrapnel. The wind brushes his face with the smell of the sea. So tired. Charles takes Erik’s hand and is pulled up, wobbling. The hands slips from his to his shoulder, steadying. Some noise along the dock, but this square is quiet. A ship close by, a liner. Charles rubs his eyes.

The ships at anchor in New York, watching the goods ferried from shore to ship and ship to shore. Far away magical countries that he had only read about.

The ship to France, a small beaten ship too small for anyone to bother with. Across to a small cove and enough. You’re on your own.

“Have you-“ Charles coughs, sleep clogs his throat.

“No, never.” Erik watches the ship, apprehensive but, yes, there is excitement in there. “We were never able to-“ He breaks off too, shoulders hunching slightly.

They smile, nervously. Then it hits them at the same time that this is a country that had been allies with Germany, and they sidle closer together. The damaged building’s shutters are closed, no one but their little group are out here, but still, the fear kicks. Charles feels sick with it.

The boat is huge, Erik has never seen a ship larger than a riverboat except in pictures, but this one is something else. Maybe for a sea ship it is small, but Erik feels like an ant beside a tin bucket. He can feel it, just as clearly as the cars, even more since there is so much of it. A different tone though, a humming, lower pitched than that of the car. It deepens and settles in Erik’s insides as they mount the gangway inside. A soothing distraction. They cannot bring the cars along, some will stay to drive them back and try to smuggle in more survivors. The nurses carry in those who cannot walk, and he and Erik guide those who can. Their old friend the girl can walk, but nearly steps off the dock, blind and thoughtless. He and Erik stand on either side and guide her up to the little group of cabins reserved for them. Good rooms, bunks and softness everywhere. They don’t have time to admire them, but it makes Erik smile a touch. Pleasure at least that this part of the journey at least will be good for them. Large rooms, four bunks each with a bathroom tucked away at the back. They loops straps around them and buckle them in as best and carefully as they can.

It’s slow work, patiently guiding, half-carrying and easing the patients into their bed, checking the locks on the doors and the straps on the bunks. They ship will cast off tomorrow morning, but they have to get all the patients in before this evening. The passengers will not want to see them when they board. Erik suppresses the flash of rage; he doesn’t allow himself to think about it. Anger shortens his temper, and the last thing he wants is to lose his temper with Charles or, worse, the patients.

The nurses do. When one man they are carrying starts fighting and screaming they drop him and swear. Erik lets them help the women they were guiding and he and Charles kneel down next to the thrashing, terrified man.

The terrors of being that blind. The utter fear swallowing up everything, even the fever, in the desperate fight to survive. Even when it was now pointless.

They don’t touch him, but wait just out of reach of the flailing limbs, also keeping anyone from going near him. The man is frailer than they are, and it isn’t a long wait before the man is exhausted, gasping for air, unseeing eyes locked on the ceiling hands clenched in half-fists. Only then do they pick him up. Carefully, an arm under each of his, a hand braced against his back like a parent helping a small child. The weight is almost enough to buckle them both down, but they stagger the last few meters to the cabin and let Shomron take him.

And finally, they have to stop. There are a few more left but the young doctor says they can take care of them. They should rest.

Their cabin is beside those of the patients. It’s half the size of the patients, just two bunks. Erik stops at the doorway, and looks around slowly. He’d seen the others, beautiful and near luxurious it seemed, but it hadn’t occurred to him they would get the same. Charles exhales slowly, and takes a step inside. He runs a hand over the bedding of the top bunk. Erik follows. The beds are broad enough for them both. Erik wonders if it would be worth daring to take the mattress and bedclothes from the top bunk to the other, piling them up in a nest of long-forgotten luxury. Even the sides of the bed have padding, to keep the sleepers from bruising themselves on the rough seas.

And thick walls. They would be called to attend the patients later, but not for tonight at least. Erik touches Charles’ arm just above the wrist. Charles pauses, smiles and Erik just has time to check the door is closed before Charles kisses him. Light as feathers, Erik’s eyes closing. Charles fingers hooking in his clothes, mouth brushing from lips to cheek to eyelids to forehead. His coat pulled from his shoulders, bare arms caressed. Erik lifts his face again and kisses back, mouth opening and… mmm. His perception of the world tightens, shutting out the outside world, or anything else beyond the two of them, the here and now. Charles’ hands brushing his shoulders, neck and scalp, tongue in his mouth, his clothes catching in Erik’s hands. Sliding down from Charles face to his neck. Dry skin with a taste of sweat, the nip of teeth and a gasp from Charles.

“Erik.” A sharp hiss.

Erik look up, a smile. “Yes?” The walls are thick, they won’t be called until tomorrow. What excuse now?

Another gasp, then a faint chuckle. “I would like to have a wash first.”

The weight of ‘before what?’ is heavy, but Erik doesn’t say it. His skin prickles. He nods. “Yes. A... good idea.”

Charles kisses him again, a quick, chaste kiss. “Would you like to go first?”

“Are you-“

“Please.”

They haven’t had a proper wash since they left the hospital. If you could call that a proper wash. The bathrooms here have a shower stall. He strokes Charles’ arm once more, and slips through the far door.

The room is blinding white, all tiles and linoleum. A pothole over the sink, a toilet and shower stall crammed into a space smaller than Erik’s old closet.

The door closes, and the room seems too white all of a sudden- laboratory, torture, gas- alone, Erik’s breath comes faster and he braces himself against the shower wall, his head pounds to his heartbeat and he rests it against the tiles until it calms. Cold, control. Control.

He doesn’t think when he walks into the shower and turns the tap. He doesn’t think. He won’t think. It he doesn’t think, he won’t have to fear what’ll come out of that showerhead.

The water is an ice cold jet and Erik realizes he’s forgotten to take his clothes off.

They always made you take your clothes off, before. It saved the Sonderkommando having to peel them off afterwards.

Erik fumbles with the taps and the water warms, his clothes hang like lead weights and he shrugs out of them, the added weight helping as the oversized garments just slide off. He kicks them out and they slop onto the rug.

Erik turns his face to the warm stream, closing his eyes and feeling the pressure drive the dirt from his skin.

Twice they’d been washed in Auschwitz, both times ice cold jets they couldn’t back out of or be beaten bloody. Then driven out naked and soaking wet with their stinking disinfected clothes. It had been during summer or early autumn, or they would have died. He had seen others during winter forces to stand in the snow until frozen.

He turns the hot water up and that memory too is drummed out by the water. Washing at a bucket is good, but nothing to this, relishing the feeling of being properly clean for the first time in longer than he can be bothered to count. His hand encounters a bar of soap and it foams up like hot milk. Slick over his cheeks and chin, the knobbles at the back of his neck, shoulders and ribs and back and hips and legs all the way down. More and he works on his hair. He can feel the grit of dirt and dead skin already matting the short strands, he washes and rinses and washes against until his scalp tingles and his fingers card through easily, then his body again, and again and the steam rises in white clouds and his skin turns red from this wonderful warmth.

Then off, and the clouds billow as Erik exhales. Everything is steamed up and the towel he finds is already damp from the condensation. He runs it over his head first.

His mother’s hands, the rough scratchy towel, rubbing rigorously over his unwilling child’s head.

Erik hesitates, lowers the towel, clenches his hands and starts again, chest and arms now. Mechanically and without thought now, just get dry and-

There’s someone in the room with him.

Erik starts, drops the towel and stares at what he had thought was solid wall. It is, there’s a skylight over it but a door- His questing fingers touch cold mirror.

Erik stops. His reflection is just a shadow in the steamed up mirror, and for a moment he doesn’t wipe it away.

His reflection, one last time in the beautiful mirror they’d sold in the ghetto. His face grown sharp, his hair long and drooping into his eyes- his mother had cut it a week later- that last image of his face, a snapshot, fourteen years old.

He’s nineteen now. Erik holds on to that last memory of himself, knowing it’s about to be replaced by something completely different. His old face, a good face, as he had been. He’d keep it if he could.

Erik wipes the mirror furiously, get it over with, see himself and accept it, not matter how the last five years had marked him. He only stops when he catches his own eye.

His eyes seem paler than he remembers; the lashes and brows almost colourless when they had been black. His fingers touch the hollow of the socket, down over his cheekbone, the still concave cheek he knows from touch is filling out a little, along his jaw. His first thought is that he looks so old. Eyes overshadowed, chin jutting, lines at his eyes and drooping down the corners of his mouth. The years like water on sand, slowly eroding their passage on his face.

“Erik?”

Charles’ voice from outside. Erik barely hears him. His eyes, his face. This is the face Charles always sees when he looks at him. This is the face he has worn through the last five years. This is the face that he touches when he washes. This is his face. His face. Erik tilts his head to one side, following the line of his jawbone- surely it had never been this strong before- around to his ear, then cards fingers through hair gone, as Charles had reported- and almost colourless grey. He looks bleached out and exhausted, but better than he’d feared. Maybe if he’d seen a mirror immediately after being taken to the hospital he would have had a nasty shock, but like this-

Erik runs his fingers through his hair again, even in the damp room it’s drying fast, curling around his fingers.

Charles knocks, and Erik starts away from the mirror. “Are you all right?”

Swallow, nod, then “Yes.”

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The door clicks open, two steps then Charles stops with a soft ‘oh’. A mirror, of course. It’s fogged, but clearing, and Charles can see the outline of his body behind Erik’s in the reflection. Erik wipes it again, and it becomes clearer. Charles walks to behind him, and looks at the two boys staring back at them. Boys, young men. If Erik looks different in the glass, it’s nothing to Charles’ reflection.

Erik drags his eyes away, and slides an arm around Charles’ neck, one hand on his head and pulls him into rest on his shoulder. Charles doesn’t flinch away, though his tempting. He knows he’s bald, he knows it perfectly well.

Their hair shaved off in Auschwitz, the shock of it, of turning from individuals into endless shaved, scared clones. Realizing, or thinking he realized, what it meant. Running his hands over the stubble, looking desperately at Erik, trying to imprint what his friend looked like now into his mind, so he wouldn’t lose him again. They all looked so different.

There had been no mirrors in Auschwitz, which was probably a good thing. Charles can’t remember the last time he looked in a mirror, but he knows what he looks like, and it’s not this. If asked to imagine himself at eighteen he wouldn’t have thought of this. He would have thought… probably of Cain, but with his old face superimposed on his stepbrother’s. Strong, capable, an adult. Not this. His bare head makes his face seem smaller, more detailed and sculpted. Lines are drawn sharply, his eyes seem too large, bluer than ever. It’s not a bad face, the months in the hospital must have improved it, but it’s not his face. Charles can’t look at the mirror and see himself in it.

Maybe after a shower. Erik’s washed and in comparison Charles feels filthy. He pulls away and Erik smiles, very gently, and touches his face. This is the face Erik knows, the face he sees every day, the face he loves. Erik knows this face better than he does. Charles kisses his fingers. They smile at each other. Charles brushes a wet lock out of Erik’s face, it gleams like spun silver, already half dry. Not grey, but silver, silver as metal. Clean, Erik seems to gleam, as though metal had been grafted to his flesh. Pale, fine grained skin resting on a half-recovered body; all hard bones and rounded muscle. The tendons in his neck, the sharp collarbones, the ribs and muscles of his torso. Charles’ hand falls and grazes Erik’s side, realizing for the first time he friend is quite naked.

“I-“ Charles closes his mouth, not knowing what to say.

Erik’s hand twitches and Charles steps away, knowing that Erik wants to kiss him and while Charles’ blood burns to let him, he’d rather have a wash first.

“I’ll just-“ He gestures at the shower and Erik nods, then belatedly realizes he’s dropped his towel and picks it up, wrapping it quickly around his hips.

Charles backs away, half wishing Erik would go away and half wishing he wouldn’t. He strips off quickly, not looking at his friend and hurries into the shower.

Erik hesitates. It’s not easy, but right now he wants Charles so much it hurts. His hands ache, his heart aches in a loud, wordless want. Not for fear or even love but pure necessity, like air. Now. Always. Charles two feet away but out of reach and out of sight. Two months ago Erik would have just gone to him, and nothing would have been asked, but this is different, and the uncertainty is painful.

It’s the one thing he has left of what went before, than and the numbers on his arm. A simple, wordless, unbearably sweet love for the only person in the world who would understand and accept.

It’s dangerous, but right now the danger is outside, deaf and blind to them. For the moment, they are invisible. For the moment, Erik can try and forget fear the only way he knows.

The towel falls to the floor a second time and it’s two steps for Erik into the shower. The water is almost a third presence, weight drumming down, Charles turns around and Erik kisses him with no gentleness or care or anything but pure devouring hunger. Charles kisses back, hard enough that Erik would have worried about bruises, if thought had not frozen. Again, again, teeth and tongues and noses clashing as though trying to find some new way of kissing that would bring them closer still, ways unsuited to their human faces.

“Oh, God- Erik-“ Charles’ lips moved, breath against Erik’s soaking lips. Head and mouth moving down blindly along Charles cheek and neck. Violently, desperately. He wanted. His body waking up happily, penis stiffening and pressing against Charles’. Erik smiles, Charles smiles, the water races down their faces, along the old lines, hanging like dew from lashes. There’s the edge of embarrassment, and Erik knows Charles is about to start thinking again, considering that they are doing through other eyes. Maybe one day he’ll understand it doesn’t matter. For the time being, Erik kisses him again, his hand drops down to Charles’ back, grasps the skin covering his spine, pulls him closer until they are pressed together head to foot, and panting into each other’s mouths.

Sweet, warm, the desperate need melting into a light euphoria that throws a veil over everything. Like the steam has come to cover everything, hiding them from the endless array of threats both outside and inside, somewhere the police can’t find them, somewhere the memories won’t think to look. As long as they stay together, like this, everything will work, they will be all right. It feels as though his mind is being caressed from inside, and when he opens his eyes to look into Charles’ it’s like looking into a reflected mirror, endlessly repeated to infinity.

Charles licks his lips, swollen. Erik touches his cheek. Charles fingers are knotted in his hair. “Do you-“ They speak at the same time, then look away, embarrassed. It’s a relief though, that they both want this and not just doing this to make the other feel better. Although all the proof Erik needs is currently digging into the inside of his thigh.

“I would like-“

“I love you-”

This time Erik doesn’t know which of them moves to kiss first, both at the same time, like two halves of the same person.

“I love you.” Charles repeats against his lips.

When they stumble out of the shower, it feels as though they are trying to move as one person, one shy, uncertain person with four legs and hands. Stumbling, tripping over the tiles, sharing Erik’s damp towel and Charles’ fresh one, then making their uncertain way towards the door. Getting through the door is difficult, their bodies half knotted together and not wanting to separate. Erik’s legs buckle as they reach the bed and they fall down, Charles’ mouth stripes over his cheek, a missed kiss, knees knocking into each other, Charles’ penis pressing into his stomach.

“I love you.” It’s hard to find air for the words with Charles’ weight on top of him.

“Kiss me.” Charles looks almost drunk, eyes dilated until the iris was nothing but a thin rim of blue surrounding black deep enough to drown in. Erik has only inches to lift his head to kiss Charles again, damp lips slightly puffy against his own, over sensitized ones. Charles leaning down and pressing his head back down to the bed, devouring.

“I-“

“Shh.”

It just feels so good, too good. Better than anything. Charles is warm and damp in his arms, slightly slippery. Charles props himself up on his arms. Such a pleasant view of strong chest, broad shoulders, sharp face. Erik grins up at him, half dazed and breathing hard. Charles smiles back a little shyly, shoulders hunching a little. Erik strokes his hip to reassure him, they’re naked in bed together, there’s no need for modesty. He shifts up on his elbows and cocks his head to one side. Everything’s all right, no need to be worried. Charles’ smile broadens and he rocks forward, rubbing his body against Erik’s. Sparks fly behind Erik’s eyes. Oh. He opens his eyes again to stare into Charles’, that same sense of staring into endlessly reflecting mirrors.

“I- I want-“ Hoarse whisper.

Erik nods, and shifts his hips again. Again. More. Just… more. He feels lightheaded, all the blood pooling between his legs. “Charles.” Half begging.

“I want- I love. Oh, I want you-“

Meaningless babbling, but Erik understands, there aren’t words for this, but he understands, meaning riding those words and arriving safely to him. He nods. “Yes.” Please, anything.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

A reference, no matter how oblique. The memory of that Kapo, that rape. Those memories, touching them like a flame to paper. Erik grows cold; the warmth reduced to ice, then shakes it away. That was then, this is now, and this is Charles. “You will not hurt me.” Expect the sky to fall and the seas to turn to blood before he expects that.

Charles’ arms tremble from holding him up, and Erik is smiling, head cocked to one side so his short hair almost touches his shoulders. He is beautiful, and would trust him if Charles told him to walk off a cliff, trust so hard he wouldn’t fall. Most people would be lucky to get a moment like this once in their lives, and Charles is terrified of doing something wrong.

He remembers- he knows the mechanics of this, heard it in taunts, seen it with the Kapo but this is Erik, and if Charles hurt him…

“You will not hurt me.” Repeat, a whisper as though Erik has read his mind.

He wonders if Erik has any idea- He would. He- Thoughts break off as Erik kisses him impatiently. Now please. His legs part and then it’s blind and fumbling, and yes, pain although Erik doesn’t make a sound Charles can feel it reverberate between them.

“If I turn over-“

“No, not like that.”

Because this is not rape and Charles wants to see his face. It takes some soap and more exploration; a thousand touches Charles intends to rediscover later when his mind is able to think of more than wanting to be inside Erik. Now. And when he gets his wish with Erik’s legs wrapped around his waist and them lying face to face again he can’t think of anything at all, because it’s too much. The world drawing to a needle-tip point where nothing else matters and anything beyond the two of them is a dead blur. Erik’s face is an inch from his, their breath hot and rapid against each other’s mouths, eyes open. He can feel Erik looking at him, and the half-edge of pain that’s even now fading. He can feel-he can- it’s…

Erik kisses him and Charles moves back to rest his head of Erik’s chest, then back up with a gasp, and Charles can feel what he feels like inside, and Erik can feel what he- endlessly repeated. Forward, inside and thought snaps again, hot and tight and Erik gasps again, and it’s pleasure this time flooding both their minds.

Again, again, it’s all right, their bodies know what to do even as their minds roil and entwine and shatter. Erik gasps, it might be Charles’ name, it might be just air but the word echoes between them anyway. Reflected as their pleasure is reflected over and over until far too soon it’s just too much, it crests, and they cry out in each other’s minds and the world dissolves into endless panes of white.

It’s too good. Charles thinks muzzily. He knows that too much pleasure can turn you soft; make you more susceptible to pain. He wonders if the opposite has happened to them, that they are so used to pain that pleasure takes them utterly off guard. Erik’s chest reverberates with a soft laugh, he heard that. Charles doesn’t bother to speak it out loud, closing his eyes and resting his cheek against the slick skin. They’re both damp with sweat and Charles can feel a sticky patch on his stomach. It doesn’t hurt the moment, nothing could. You cannot measure this moment, this is a moment you measure others by. It wouldn’t be the same without these proofs of what they’ve just shared.

He can feel Erik in his mind, a warm fire he curls around like a cat to warm himself. All tenderness and gentle emotions, a mental caress. He can feel himself in Erik’s arms, the smoothness of his scalp against his lips.

You see. Erik’s thoughts are neither in Polish or English, but a language of their own, one they might have spoken in Babel. It doesn’t stop them from sounding smug. I told you it would be all right.

Charles yawns? Let Erik be smug, if he was always right about such things Charles was happy to carry on being wrong.