Forgive Us Our Transgressions 15/16

[poor_medea]

Erik stood in the mansion door, looking around at his surroundings, feeling like he was seeing them for the first time, but also the third.

His real first time, he had been incredulous and envious, shocked at the show of wealth and bitter, so bitter, than anyone who claimed to be like him had ever gotten to experience it.

His second first time, when he knew nothing of Schmidt or the camps or the oppression mutants faced, he been awed, but glad to be there, happy that he could enjoy the elegance surrounding him. He had felt lucky, a feeling entirely new to Erik.

This time, his third almost-first, he came to the mansion for the first time laden with baggage—both literal and metaphorical. This was the first time he came to the house already loving Charles, the first time he came with the intention of staying. The first time he saw the wealth and knew that Charles wanted nothing more than to share it. The first time he came with the knowledge that Charles’ life here hadn’t been perfect, or even happy, not until he had invited others of his kind into his home.

Erik stepped into the foyer, feeling the give of the expensive rug under his feet, and told himself that it was okay to want this—not the physical riches of the house, or the massive rooms or the beautiful grounds, but he feeling of home that washed over him as he stepped through the door.

“Your boyfriend lives here?” Pyro stood gaping at his side, eyes wide as he took in the splendour.

Erik glared. “I’m thirty-five. I hardly have a boyfriend.”

“Whatever,” the kid rolled his eyes, gaze still fixed on the ostentatious display in front of him.

“Erik!” Charles said joyfully, appearing at the top of the stairs. “You’re early!”

“I didn’t have as much to bring with me as I thought,” Erik said wryly, gesturing to Pyro at his side.

“Ah,” Charles said, face falling slightly.

Erik knew that he wanted his sister back, perhaps just as much as he wanted Erik. “Charles—“ he began.

“It’s alright,” the man held up a hand. “She’s her own person. She has to find her own way. Now, let me just get down there and you can introduce me to our new guest.” He turned his chair easily, headed for what Erik assumed was the elevator, based on the abundance of metal he could feel pulsing in the wall.

“Wait,” he called. “Let me?”

He could feel the question pressing into his mind.

Let me help, he repeated, trying his best to send feelings of reassurance Charles’ way, bundling them up and pressing them at the weight of Charles’ mind, resting lightly against his own.

“Oh.” Charles held himself very, very still, but nodded slowly.

Erik couldn’t help but grin as he lifted Charles’ chair, guiding it slowly down the length of the grand stairs. It felt good, cradling Charles in his power, touching the man this way, as well. He concentrated, making the ride as smooth and comfortable as possible.

You can trust me. Even with this, even with your safety, you can trust me, he thought, not even aware he was projecting.

I know, Charles’ voice whispered back, warmth and happiness wrapped around the words.

“Cool,” Pyro said approvingly as Erik brought Charles to a smooth landing in front of them.

“Hello, St. John,” Charles said, holding out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The boy started. “How did you—?”

“Charles is telepathic,” Erik said mildly, amused at the guilt and embarrassment that instantly passed over the boy’s face. “Surely you realized that when you met him before?”

“No,” Pyro said sullenly. “He froze some people and stole some memories. Blindspot could do that too. Not the freezing, but, you know…” he mimed snatching something from his head. “Neither of those things necessarily means he can read minds.”

“I can freeze people!” a voice exploded from behind the door to the kitchen.

Charles laughed. “He didn’t mean like that, Bobby. And you may as well come on out now. Its no good eavesdropping when we know you’re there.”

Bobby Drake burst through the door with a wide grin. “Hi Erik! I’m glad you came back!”

The warmth that blossomed in Erik’s chest was a foreign feeling, if not entirely unpleasant.

Pyro crossed his arms, eyes narrowing. “Who’s the kid?”

“Bobby Drake, meet St. John Allerdyce. St. John, this is Bobby. St. John is going to be staying with us for a bit.”

“Cool!” Bobby bounced slightly on his toes.

In return, Pyro slouched the way only a teenager can, regarding the younger boy with narrowed eyes. He edged closer to Erik.

Charles hid a smile behind his hand.

“So, what can you do? I can freeze stuff!”

“Like, stop time?” Pyro asked sceptically.

“No, like this!” Bobby smirked, and suddenly Pyro’s crossed arms were iced over, frozen to his chest.

“Bobby!” Charles admonished. “Not other people!”

But Pyro was smiling. “No way,” he said, grinning down at the ice on his skin. With a slight narrowing of his eyes, it melted, water dripping away onto the floor.

“How’d you do that?” Bobby gasped, bounding forward eagerly.

Erik watched, amazing, as the teenager relaxed, his tense posture easing into something friendlier, welcoming. He held out a hand, and a small flame flickered into life in his palm.

“Wow!” Bobby reached out, jerking back just in time to avoid burning himself. “That’s awesome! You’re fire and I’m ice! We’re like a…dynamic duo!”

Pyro laughed, but not unkindly.

“Come on! I can introduce you to everyone else! They’re all younger than us, but they’re pretty cool, anyway.”

Erik smirked. Bobby couldn’t be more than twelve.

Pyro shot Erik an uncertain look, but then, to his surprise, nodded. “If that’s okay?” he checked.

“Of course. Get settled in.”

“Bobby can show you where your room is going to be, if you like,” Charles smiled, and then the children were bounding out of the room, as Bobby excitedly explained every other child’s power.

“He seems younger, suddenly,” Erik noted, seeing the smile on Pyro’s face as he pushed through the door.

“He’s only seventeen,” Charles said sadly.

In the past, Erik would have snapped that seventeen was practically an adult; he would have outlined every horrible thing that he had already done by that age. He would have scoffed at the implication that a seventeen year old should be treated like a child.

Today, he felt the stirrings of guilt at having let Pyro make his first kill, at having helped to wipe the innocence from his soul.

“Don’t feel guilty. Just help make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Charles said, not unkindly.

“I thought you weren’t going to read my thoughts?”

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, hesitance in his wide blue eyes.

“No.”

Erik was done hiding.


_________________________________________________________


That night, the children all tucked away in bed, Erik trailed uncertainly up the stairs after Charles, levitating the man’s chair smoothly up the steps.

The day had been surreal. Never in his life had he experienced a rush of children, smiles on their faces, running to see him. Lorna, Ororo and the others had bounced around him, tugging on his hands and speaking so fast he couldn’t grasp anything but their happiness.

Because of him.

The adult’s reactions had been easier to handle, easier to understand. Hank had reluctantly growled a welcome and then skulked in the background, his yellow eyes fixed on Erik, watching his every move. Sean had been wary, but tentatively friendly and Alex had been nowhere to be seen, keeping himself and his brother sequestered out of sight.

Charles had frowned, but Erik understood. He wasn’t sure he would have forgiven himself, either.

Now, he and Charles moved through the silent halls, passed the boys’ and girls’ corridors—separated for good old-fashioned British propriety—and reached the door of Charles’ bedroom.

Erik’s own room, the one he had used when he first visited the mansion, was just across the hall. Erik’s other own room, that he had been in just a few weeks before, was in another wing, separated from the students and their headmaster by as much winding hall and creaky old steps as possible, as far from Charles as the first room had been close.

Erik wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be, now.

The first time he had been given a room in this house, he had been a friend—albeit a new one—a trusted ally. The second time, he had been an enemy, given asylum.

Both times it had blossomed into something more.

“Erik,” Charles said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “I don’t want you in either of those rooms.”

“No?”

“No,” Charles confirmed. “There’s only one room I want you in, one room I want you calling your own.”

Erik glanced at the door to Charles’ own bedroom, just to be sure.

“Of course. I’m not going to suggest you bunk with Hank,” Charles laughed, wrapping his hand around Erik’s wrist and tugging lightly.

Erik let himself be led through the door. Good thing. I’m allergic to cats and dogs.

Charles snorted with laughter. “Don’t let him catch you saying that.”

“What?” Erik grinned through his feigned innocence. “I didn’t say anything.”

The laughter, the joking, cut through his nerves, reminding him why he had been so drawn to Charles in the first place, why he longed for the man’s company as much as his cherry-red mouth.

“ My mouth, hmm?” Charles asked, turning to peer impishly at him over his shoulder.

Erik refused to be embarrassed.

“Yes, your mouth. It’s been my ruin.”

Or my salvation, he added, shielding the thought from the other man.

Charles arched an eyebrow and then very deliberately bit his lip, digging sharp white teeth into the pillowy flesh.

Erik groaned.

A quick shove and a thought had the door latching behind him, and then he dropped to his knees in front of Charles, replacing the other man’s teeth with his own. He tugged lightly, delighting in the way it made Charles shiver.

“I missed you,” Charles mumbled into his mouth, the words smothered by their lips and teeth.

Erik heard them all the same.

I’m sorry I left.

I’m sorry I lied.

And that was all Erik thought needed to be said, and so he silenced Charles’ mouth and his mind with his insistent touch, pushing his hands up under the thick wool of Charles’ sweater and spreading his fingers to pet at soft skin.

More than the house, more than this room, kissing Charles was like coming home.

The years seemed to shrivel up behind him, denying their separation, their mistakes.

“I want you,” he murmured, flesh hot beneath his hands.

“I need you,” Charles countered breathlessly.

Erik stood, bending to work an arm under the weight of Charles’ legs, slipping the other behind his back as Charles wound his arms around Erik’s neck with a soft smile.

He swung him up, enjoying the strain in his arms, the weight of his entire world clasped to his chest.

“I love you,” he finished, stretching his legs to close the distance to the bed.

Charles fell back on the bead with a whuff, laughing breathlessly as Erik followed, climbing over him.

“I absolutely love you in those turtlenecks,” Charles said with a smirk. “But right now I’d prefer you out of it.”

Erik flushed with pleasure even as he reached for the hem of the sweater, bunching it in his fingers. He had always suspected Charles had a thing for him in turtlenecks, but the wardrobe purchased for him at the mansion confirmed it.

He had rather deliberately put one on that morning.

“We must be perfect for each other. If you can love my turtlenecks, and I can love your cardigans.”

“I’m pretty sure everyone loves you in those turtlenecks,” Charles said wryly. “But your tolerance of my cardigans must be love.”

Erik ran his hands down the length of that cardigan, stroking Charles’ sides, before bringing his hands to the buttons. “Anyone who doesn’t love you in a cardigan is crazy,” he said firmly, even as he did his best to get Charles out of the said cardigan.

Charles wriggled beneath him, doing his best to aid with the removal of his clothing, shrugging out of his cardie and shirt, leaving him breathless and half-bare. A flush spread from his cheeks all the way down to his pale, freckled chest, staining the flesh pink with his pleasure.

Erik spread his hand across the skin, feeling the heat of the flush. He smiled—the one Mystique always told him had too many teeth to it—and dragged his palms down, over the sensitive skin of Charles stomach, to the button of his trousers.

He maneuvered the fabric over Charles’ hips, pretending he didn’t see the way the other man stilled under his touch, turning his head to the side, cheeks pink with shame rather than arousal.

Instead, he touched the skin he revealed as reverently as possible, stroking equally over Charles’ hips—which he could feel—and his thighs—which he couldn’t.

Every inch of you is perfect, Erik broadcast the thought as loudly as possible as he peeled Charles’ boxers away.

Charles’ fumbling hands wrenched his own pants off in turn, and then they were naked and in each other’s arms.

For long moments Erik could do nothing but kiss him, feeling the slide of their flesh as they pressed closer and closer.

It was a strange feeling—knowing he had been here in Charles’ bed just a few weeks ago, touching him like this, and yet also feeling the weight of the years of their separation, feeling like he was coming back to Charles for the first time.

He remembered touching him, kissing him, loving him, those few short weeks ago.

But he hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the gift he was being given, being invited back into Charles’ bed, after everything that had happened between them.

There was forgiveness in every touch, in the spreading of Charles’ thighs and the wetness of his mouth. And in the stroking of Erik’s hands, the press of his tongue, wiping away the taint of Charles’ lies, wiping the slate clean.

“Can you turn over?” Erik asked, words spoken into Charles’ warm mouth.

“Yes.”

Charles flipped himself easily, despite his legs, and relaxed into the bed, spreading himself out for Erik.

It was a beautiful sight, the expanse of pale flesh laid bare before him, demanding his touch. He almost couldn’t believe he was being allowed to do this again, but somehow he felt like the balance had been restored between them.

That they weren’t together in spite of everything, but because of everything that had happened between them.

Erik brought his lips to Charles’ back, kissing a path along the clusters of freckles he found there.

His skin was salty and slick, and Erik couldn’t help but drag his tongue along the other man’s spine, hearing him gasp and moan.

And then there it was—a knot of scar tissue, raised and pink and white, ridged where the flesh around it yielded. It was big and ugly and Erik kissed his way all over it, apologies and reassurances and promises pressed into the flesh.

“Erik,” Charles whispered, voice rough and broken. “Is it—alright?”

He sounded small and unsure, and Erik pulled back, gazing down at him in wonder. “It’s amazing. You are amazing.”

“But, my legs.” His face was turned into the pillow, words muffled.

Erik frowned, reaching down to grasp at the back of Charles’ thighs.

“What about them?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. I didn’t the last time.”

Charles turned his head then, meeting Erik’s gaze. “You didn’t know, then.”

“Know?”

“What it was like—before. What it was like when I was normal.”

“Oh, Charles,” Erik slid down to the bed, curling close to the other man. “You were never normal. That’s what I’ve always loved about you.”

Charles flushed unhappily. “But, the sex was better, before.”

“It was different, before. I want you, just like this.”

“I just don’t want you making comparisons. And being disappointed.”

“Charles,” Erik said, voice gone serious. “We said we were going to do this, you and me. To move past everything that happened before. I want to be with you, just as you are now. Don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Fantastic,” Erik offered him one of his sharky grins. “Then I’m going to fuck you until you can’t remember what happened five minutes ago, let alone years.”

“Oh,” Charles groaned, going red for an entirely different reason.

Crawling over him, Erik stretched out to cover Charles’ body with his own, skin against skin. His lips brushed against Charles’ ear, making him shiver. “There’s no where else I’d rather be,” he whispered.


________________________________________________________

A/N: Just the epilogue after this! Thanks to everyone who is still reading!

Epilogue

Comments

[ladywilde80.livejournal.com]

This fic is gorgeous!!!

[poor-medea.livejournal.com]

Thank you!