skull_bearer | Present Perfect 3/?

I had this story all planned out long before I wrote it, planned to the last detail. Do you know how boring it is writing something you know to the last detail? So I scrapped the lot and I'm letting Erik and Charles decide what they're doing. I have only the vaguest idea where this is going, but the ride should be interesting. So here's the latest installment from our favourite traumatised mutants.

Present Perfect

Chapter 3

Charles is shaking so hard his bones hurt, every breath is a near sob through chattering teeth. Erik is little better and his hands are twitching constantly when he reaches for Charles and drags him closer until Charles' face is crushed against his collarbone and Erik's harsh breaths are ghosting over his scalp.

Charles closes his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. The world is an incoherent whirl of colours and noise, voices and thoughts blur in and out of focus like a badly tuned radio. He knots his fingers into Erik's shirt and focuses on his friend; the worn smooth cotton of his shirt, the hard edges of his body underneath. The warmth of his hands where he clutches at Charles' shoulders, the grip unbreakable and almost painful. The warm metal smell of his clothes, mixed with the cigarette smoke from the bar. The knee digging into Charles' side. The scuttering of his thoughts as they too race around madly before closing on Charles and starting to calm. He touches them. Slow. Breathe. Stop.

The din ebbs away and Charles' head feels as though someone's scrubbed it out with lye soap. Everything's raw and sharp and clear. Erik's deathgrip relaxes a little, and Charles tucks his head up under his chin. A hand comes up to cradle his neck. Erik's thoughts begin to settle like oil in water, separating and calming and becoming distinct. They are alone. No one is after them. Whether they lost them in the alleys or because their little display dissuaded them from following, Charles doesn't know. He will never go near that place again.

"What did you do?" It's in ragged German, something Erik only uses when he's not thinking. The words scrape like sandpaper.

Charles takes a few more deep breaths. I don't know would be unhelpful and a lie, and he doesn't think there's a vocabulary for this. Instead he pulls out the memory, trying not to flinch as it echoes through his raw brain. The Crowd, the drunkard, the soldier, the noise pouring out of Charles. The white burnt thing that had been all that was left of the man's mind.

Erik exhales, as though surfacing, draws back a little, hand rubbing over Charles' shoulder. Nothing is said, mentally or out loud, Erik's thoughts are quiet, and Charles doesn't want to pry. Erik stands up and pulls Charles with him, and it's only now starting to register that they're in a dead end street which stinks of piss and rubbish.

"Do you think you can maintain those shields until we get back?" Erik murmurs in English.

Charles tries, but the mirrors all shatter in his grasp and what little he has trembles in his mind as though exhausted. He shakes his head.

Erik shrugs, a hopeless smile. "Oh well." He keeps an arm around Charles' shoulders as they inch back to the mouth of the alley and look around. The streets around them are deserted, and they have no idea where they are.

Charles' hand wraps around Erik's waist. Tiredness hits him like a lead weight and he can barely keep himself upright. They need to get home and Charles has no idea where that is right now. Maybe they ought to find somewhere clean and quiet to sleep in until morning. It's warm, and he's had worse, he can cope with anything as long as Erik's there.

Erik tugs him along. "Come on." He frowns at the deserted street. "The sea's back there -" He points to the right, Charles can feel his mind putting down markers to judge distance, he snuggles closer and closes his eyes. "Stay awake, we should probably go this way." Another tug. "Do you want to sleep here?"

"How do you know?" Charles scrubs at his eyes. All the streets look the same to him.

Erik pauses. "I do. Call it a good sense of direction."

It's not, Charles can't really make out what it is, but he can feel it now, a north-south pull like magnet poles. Their abilities are doing strange things tonight. He lets Erik lead him, already falling asleep, resting on his friend's shoulder as the snow falls and the trees stretch branches overhead-

"Charles!"

Charles starts, wondering why it's suddenly so warm and why there's sand under his feet and not snow-

Erik's breathing hard. "Please," he's almost begging. "Please, can we just get home?"

Charles grips his head. Just stop. Please just stop. Anything, just stop.

Erik's learnt enough of the city to know that heading north will have them hit a main road which they can follow to the market square, and then back to the hospital. Charles' trying to push everything out of his head, even Erik, but he's so tired he can't hold it up for long and it's like listening to a radio wandering between stations. And volume. Until Erik just wants to clamp his hands over his ears and make it stop.

The main road is mostly empty, but cars sometimes still pass through and their minds break over Charles' head like waves, a brief flash of latesoverylateuptomorrowatsix and before the cars are gone into the once again quiet night.

Please. He thinks at Charles. I don't care if you put the whole city to sleep. Just stop.

"Believe me, I'd love to." Charles stops, rubbing his face and swaying on his feet.

Erik walks back until they're facing each other, Charles sighs and leans in, resting against Erik's chest. The echoes in his head fade a little, but not by much. He feels Charles try to concentrate, gathering his thoughts like trying to focus a signal, but he's too tired and his mind too scattered by whatever he did in the bar.

It's better when they're away from the main streets, the narrow corners where the hospital is tucked away are almost completely silent, all the houses' inhabitants having gone to sleep. Charles picks up the occasional loud dream, but it's hazy and out of focus, like all dreams are, and he can pull away.

They don't try the front door, the night nurses should be up but they'd want an explanation and neither of them are up to dealing with the waking at the moment. Instead they creep around the back to the fenced-off yard they'd left what feels like years ago. Erik kneels down beside the fence and runs a hand over the rough wood. The nail in it is like a loose tooth, and he pulls at it until it shoots into his hand and he can swing the board out and squeeze through.

The yard is a welcoming presence, the sense of metal everywhere a rush of warmth over his rattled nerves. It's become so familiar, the steel and chrome of the motorcycle, the iron nails in the fence and storehouse, the tools, even the doorhandle. He tries the last, it's locked, but a moment later it clicks open as though ashamed of trying to keep them out. He can feel Charles trying to lose himself in his mind, trying to keep away from the sleeping minds of the patients upstairs.

It's not as bad as Charles feared. In fact, walking upstairs past the wards feels like what Erik felt when they entered the yard. Everything here is safe, a known quantity. Something they've made their own. Everything is quiet, and they slip past without anyone noticing, finally, finally, finally reaching the attic room with its cramped two beds and one window always open to let the cool air in.

Charles doesn't even wait to take his shoes off, he collapses on the bed and buries his head into the pillows, eyes screwed shut. They're far enough away that there's nothing for his mind to pick up, just his and Erik's thought piling up on them over and over.

Erik sits next to him and gently runs his nails over Charles' bare head, over the nape of his neck and down his back. He's make a conscious effort to think only of soothing things, and there's an amusing flash of kittens and sunshine before Erik's mind focuses on the sea they'd walked beside earlier, and there's nothing but the sound of waves on the shore and moonlight glimmering on the waves. The hammering in Charles' skull fades a little.

Thank you.

Erik pulls his own shoes off and lies down beside Charles, on hand still on the small of his back.

Do you want to get undressed? He sends rather than speaks because speech is unbearable right now.

Please. Charles tries to sit up but his body's had enough and his head spins. Erik helps pull him up and starts undoing his shirt. I'm sorry. I thought we were past this.

It's a mark of how deeply he's dug into Erik's mind that his friend hears both thoughts and nods to both. That Charles' powers can be a crippling as starvation had been is painful/frightening/horrible a word that somehow encompassed all of those. Charles envies Erik his more benevolent gift.

Erik must have seen that too because the next image Charles gets is of Erik unable to get up because of all the metal stuck to him. Charles gives a surprised laugh, the sound reverberating through both their heads like a dropped stone in an echo chamber, rising in din to deafening. He shakes his head to clear it.

But that's never happened to you, he points out instead.

Another image, involuntary, a flash of standing by a pit to the shattering of gunshots, and bullets hitting everyone except him. The image is yanked away violently, a hot angry refusal to feel guilty to the whisper of you could have saved them too.

Charles stops Erik from pulling his shirt off and hugs him instead. Bare chest against his still clothed body. Erik closes his eyes and relaxes almost by instinct. They are alone, and Charles is holding him. By default, nothing bad can happen. The sharp jagged edges of anger and guilt smooth away and everything is rounded and good.

Charles kisses the side of his cheek, just under his ear. Help me with my shoes?

Erik smiles, but restrains his snort to a mental one. Charles is quickly stripped of both his shoes and trousers, and Erik turns to himself. Do you want anything? Water?

Charles lies back and closes his eyes, the sheets are cool against his skin. Please.

The bed shifts, a padding of bare feet to where they keep the water jug, pouring and glass pressed against his hands. The water is cool and fresh from the night air - odd that a place that was so hot during the day could be so much colder at night - and the pounding lessens a little more. Erik lies back down, presses against Charles' back, he's quite naked and Charles manages a smile. They blankets and sheets are pulls over them, and it's pleasantly warm in their little cocoon of soft and smooth and skin. Charles settles down, his mind absently going down the mental checklist of warm, safe, nothungry, Erik before slowly shutting down for the night.

He's almost asleep when it occurs to him he might have killed that man tonight.

Erik is awoken by a hammering on the door like machine gun fire. He thinks it is machine gun fire at first, leaping out of bed with a start and falling to the floor.

"Are you awake in there? It's past ten!" It's one of the night nurses.

The jarring shock of just for a moment thinking he was back there is overwhelmed by another, far more immediate terror. If she opens the door-

"I'm coming in if you-"

Erik scrambles back on elbows and knees until his back hits the metal frame of the spare bed, he climbs up on it like a spider and throws himself under the blankets.

The door rattles, and opens with a bang. He can't see the nurse's face, she's in shadow from the lighting coming through the hallway. "-Oh for - Get up both of you, you should have been downstairs two hours ago!" The door slams behind her.

Erik curls into a ball, and tries to draw in regular breaths. His hands are still shaking and any shields Charles might have put up between him and the past are long gone. He wants to uncurl and looks around and convince himself that they're here not there and no one's going to shoot them or take them away, but his bones feel as though they've locked into place.

Charles' feet pad almost silently across the two steps between the beds, and hands rub over his shoulders and back, a coil of warmth in his mind brushing away the barbed wire like spiderwebs until Erik finally relaxes with a low groan.

He opens his eyes and almost manages a smile, Charles is still stark naked. He sits up and pulls his friend in his arms. If only could stay like this forever-

Yes, shhh, but we have to get up or she'll be back.

Erik glares at the door, the work with the motorcycle has paid off because it's a matter of a thought for it to lock itself with a snap.

Charles pulls back a little, and brushes his thumb over Erik's lips. She'll still be back.

"I'm up." His body doesn't want to respond, he's going to have a violent bruise where he'd rammed into the bedframe, and his left arm is still stinging from where he'd banged it on the floor. He's still tired and they're both naked and all Erik wants is to go back to bed and forget the world outside their room even exists.

Charles pushes him gently, "You go first." His voice is slightly raw, and he doesn't look Erik in the eye.

Erik frowns, we will talk, but goes. Best they wash and get ready separately. The though sends a hot spike of rage through him, this is supposed to be their safe place. The world outside is full enough of danger, particularly after last night, but even here - even here-

He's been getting complacent. There is no safe place, or if there is then it's a deserted island no one knows of. There is no obvious danger in the hospital, with its now-quiet patients and staff who either ignore or are distantly polite to them, but if they slip, if they reveal their powers or their relationship to anyone, then they would have to run, or be turned on and torn to pieces.

And that would be the same everywhere they went. Erik washes his face and towels himself dry with rather more violence than usual. They were alone. If there were any other survivors of the Nazi test that gave them these powers, they were no doubt all dead. It was just him and Charles left, and if anyone found out, there wouldn't even be that.

And for the other, well, Erik supposed there had to be other people like them here, other - what was that word?

Homosexual Charles supplies.

- But they were probably hiding like they were. The world of man was a violent, hostile place which would kill you the moment you stepped out of line, who could blame them.

It's not that bad. Charles is lying on his bed, eyes closed to improve the connection.

Yes it is. And never try to prove it otherwise. The very idea of Charles taking that risk was fuel for a thousand nightmares.

The ghost of a hand down the back of his neck. Erik turned, but no one there. I'm sorry, I- it's hard to - There's a scrambled mess of thoughts Erik can't decipher, and Charles pulls away, leaving a cold space in the back of Erik's mind.

I didn't mean- come back.

They missed breakfast, and it's a mark of how bad Charles' shields are today that the realisation makes him break out in a cold sweat and fight down panic. Stop it!

There's food of course, even if not in the kitchen he stashed a loaf of bread and two tins of potatoes in a dresser in their room. He hates that they're there, that he can't dig the terror of starvation out of his mind like a rotten tree, tear it up by the roots and bury it somewhere, far away. He tried to take them back once, soon after using the shields, but the thought of not having food just burnt straight through them and he'd left them where they were. The bread's probably utterly stale by now.

They eat and there's some mercy in the day at least, because they're both told to work in the wards today. Charles doesn't think he could manage going out, not after yesterday.

The wards are cool and quiet, and the low buzz of the patient's minds is soothing. There haven't been any other attacks, and there probably won't be. Charles can't articulate it, but they are about as much a threat to him as a mouse would be to a cat. he can make them stop now. Stop forever, now.

Erik puts a hand against his back, feeling the tension in his muscles. "Talk."

Not out loud. The man, last night. I think I killed him. There, done. Charles doesn't know which is worse, the horror that he killed someone with his mind alone, or that he killed someone and isn't feeling worse about it.

Erik glances around to make sure there's no one paying attention, and puts his arms around Charles's waist from behind. He would have probably tried to kill you for stopping him. The thought is gentle. He would have hurt you.

But-

He would have hurt me.

Charles can't help but smile a little at that. That's cheating.

A kiss on the side of his neck. Erik doesn't send his next thought, but Charles picks up on them anyway, it something to the extent of It's not like it's the first time anyway.

That's different. There's a world of difference between the bloody fight for food and clothes and shelter in Auschwitz and what happened last night. Two different worlds.

We were defending ourselves, it's the same.

We shouldn't even have been there, if I hadn't-

Erik kisses him again. Stop. You could say the same about anything. If you hadn't gone to Europe- There's a wistfulness there that makes Charles scowl.

You'd be dead. That puts a firm end to that tangent. None of this changes the fact that even if the man isn't dead, he's no better than anyone here. An image of the ward.

Again, nothing sent directly, but Charles gets the feeling Erik thinks at anyone who picks fights with helpless cripples and boys half his size deserves to be here more anyone else does. Besides, what can either of them do now? Other than keep as far away from that beach as possible and avoid any police.

Charles sighs, and lets it go. He just won't do it again. And as Erik put it, what can he do? Turn himself in? He can't even consider that.

Besides, what did you really do anyway? Erik adds. By what you told me, all you did was send everything he was projecting back at him. It was his fault in the end.

It wasn't, Charles knows deep inside it doesn't. But is it worth mourning a man he knew was probably going to end up murdering an innocent? There are things to be done, and a lot of work today.

Normally, they ought to separate. Charles on one floor and Erik on the other. But that's out of the question and anyway, if they work together they get things done twice as quickly.

Erik lets Charles check the patients for bedsores while he washes the floor, or, he should be washing the floor. instead he watches as the patient falls silent almost the minute Charles touches them, silent and still and quite at peace. He can feel Charles' mind soothing theirs as he turns them like a loose-limbed doll, checking pressure points and turning them very lightly and, in the case of those self-injuring, ties them back down carefully.

After the third such performance, Erik stop washing the same square yard of tile and walks over. Charles looks up at him from where he's kneeling by the patient's bedside, That smile is trouble. He thinks, then smiles a little when he realises Erik heard.

Erik cocks his head at the man in the bed. Like many here, he's in a coma, eyes open and staring at nothing. "Wake him up."

Charles' thought skitter and bang into each other. I don't know how is overrun by I can't and then both discarded because if Charles can kill someone he can surely undo the process. He looks down at the man in something approaching panic. I could hurt him.

"I can't see how he could possibly get worse."

"Maybe he doesn't want to wake up." Charles runs a hand over the man's forehead and Erik feels absurdly jealous.

"You could ask him." He points out. "And the other one, the one who attacked you, you said he didn't even know where he was, that he was still in the camps."

Charles' hands twitch. "I can't, not now."

"Why not now?" He's getting exasperated because he can feel Charles trying to look for an excuse and they're all feeble. "Don't bother with that one," He crosses his arms, "You know I wouldn't believe that."

"I can't control it like that!" Charles' voice is sharp and he quiets it at once, "Why do you care?"

Erik isn't sure how to begin answering that question and says nothing, finding an answer to that question is like trying to find the end of the world. It doesn't exist.

Charles sighs and rubs his face, "I mean, why care about that- this things I can do."

Erik frowns. "Because it's amazing." He takes another step forward until he's right in front of Charles. "And you're amazing." He kneels down until they're face to face. "And I want to see what you can do with it, when you're not so afraid." He takes Charles' hands, they're cold from being pressed to the tiles.

"You'd be afraid."

"And I hope you'd be there to push me if I was."

Charles glances back over to the man, they don't even know his name, and all Charles would need to do is close his eyes and go in and they would know. At least the man would have the dignity of being registered under his own name. He closes his eyes. "I could kill him."

"You know what you're doing. You know how to kill now. Just don't do that."

"There'll be questions. They'll want to know."

Erik hesitates. "I'm not saying we wake all of them, just one. They wouldn't think anything of it." And if they did, you could make sure they'd never ask.

Charles looks between the patient and Erik, a rather cornered look. Then nods, and Erik can feel part of him is alive at the challenge. This chance to learn how to use this ability, the idea that maybe one day he'll control it.

Erik smiles. He couldn't have put it better himself.