12/10/00
X-Men movieverse
PG-13
Charles Xavier/Erik Lensherr (they who shall later be Xavier and Magneto)

The boys (and they are boys) are Seeing America. Xavier gets hungry.

Copyright disclaimer: Dig it, man! Marvel Comics. Bryan Singer. 20^th Century Fox. Be cool, for no bread passed into my hands, and I scorn worldly possessions.

Sex disclaimer: If you can't cope with some m/m smooching, it's time to get a reality check.

Notes:
Damn it, if they didn't want that movie slashed, they shouldn't have cast Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan opposite each other. That said, my versions of the boys are much younger than the versions we saw on the screen. Xavier's twenty, so figure it for about 1952, timewise.

Title from Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers in a Dangerous Time."
 
 

Fragile Bodies of Touch and Taste
by Jane St Clair

That night they were ravenous.

Erik kept them moving through the first hours of the dark, hands on the wheel like he could feel the car's inner life. Wonderful hands, really. Graceful in a way Charles had never seen in a man before. Long fingers trailed back to long wrists that vanished into the still-buttoned white cuffs of his shirt. Immaculate.

Charles remembered waiting by the car in his chair earlier that day when Erik came out of the filling station. He was beautiful in that sunlight. Brilliance filtered even through the heavy trees, cut across the station's painted-plywood walls and struck the car hood, filled the unoccupied space of the road. And then Erik, who stepped so carefully down the two small steps that Charles could never have surmounted, came into it. Luminous, standing there. White shirt perfectly ironed even in the day's heat, pressed pants, heavy, clunky immigrant shoes that Charles had never been able to persuade him to abandon. All of his white hair slicked back and shaped into a graceful arc around his head, decadently long in comparison to the military fuzz that most men were wearing. Snowy radiance around him like something holy.

Erik turned, caught his eye. Jerked his chin at the second shed out of which a woman was selling fruit. Asking if he wanted something. Charles nodded. Followed Erik over without leaving his place, just lurking at the surface of the other man's mind.

With his mental touch so light, Charles got only faint impressions of what happened next. Erik asked for something -- he had a flash of the smell of peaches -- and waited, aloof, while she bagged them for him. She must have heard his accent; it was still present in the hard edges of his words. And tilted her head, and asked her next question, something simple, is that everything, maybe, in German.

Erik only looked at her.

"Come on, little one. How often do you get to talk to your own people?" Her smile. Crooked peasant teeth.

Those long, beautiful fingers unbuttoned those perfect cuffs and rolled the left sleeve back to his elbow, exposing the string of numbers that lay static just under his skin.

"You aren't my people."

Charles could feel her shock strike him in a long wave even at a distance of fifty yards. Hard on its heels there was regret, and a kind of sick fear.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't . . ."

"Take your money." Erik took the peaches, turned his back on her, walked back. Paused to lay the bag on the car's hood and rolled his sleeve back down to his wrist.

"Erik, I --" He didn't know what. He hadn't found any kind of balm for the damage that Germany had inflicted on his friend.

"Do you want to leave? I'll lift you into the car if you're ready." For the length of a single breath, he was graced with the brilliant smile Erik unleashed only very occasionally. A reassurance. And he nodded, and was lifted.

They kept driving. Charles found the bag of peaches at some point and opened it. Cradled the fruit into his hand for long minutes while Erik watched the road. Sank his teeth into its flesh only when he couldn't resist it any longer. The instant it touched his mouth, he realized how much it felt like human skin. And by then, there was juice running down his face and the smell had exploded through the car.

Erik reached over without looking and took the peach out of his hand, lifted it to his own mouth and bit, then returned the remaining fruit. Licked the escaped flavour of it away with the delicate tip of his tongue.

That was the fifth day of their trip. Charles had spent two weeks planning it. Since the night they'd sat across from each other at dinner in New York, and he'd watched Erik watch the room. Shadowed blue eyes that focussed and refocused constantly, reading everyone for possible danger. They only centred on him when the two of them were fighting; even a spirited conversation only demanded half of Erik's attention. So Charles had started a fight. Words he couldn't remember now, but the sentiments were those they'd been baiting each other with for months. That Erik behaved like a hunted animal. That it was a hideous way to live, and couldn't he rest and trust someone, please, just once, just for an hour. Please. Pleading in the midst of the anger for Erik to relax. Erik's fear was a palpable thing, a dangerous thing. It consumed whole cities.

To which Erik threw back, predictably enough, that he had reason enough to be watchful. Wouldn't the people in this room be interested to know of the monsters among them? Himself. Charles. He'd seen how people reacted to difference.

Erik was paranoid.

Charles was naive.

What happened in Germany and Poland was horrific, but it didn't reflect the nature of humanity. An exception -- an appalling one, but an exception, not the rule. For them, and for other mutants after them, it was going to be different.

All right, then. Prove it.

In that moment, he'd been Erik's absolute focus. It didn't quite show in the man's face, but even at his most alert he tended to look like a sleepy cat. Something about the eyes. They'd looked so satisfied when he only nodded, accepting the victory and moving past it with the grace of a man who took no particular pleasure in winning.

Charles stayed up that night, studied maps, checked details, and the next day he called his parents about the money. Six days after that to arrange the details -- a bank draft, a car -- and another two to persuade Erik to humour him in this. Four more to pack, and to contemplate what his life would be like while he was completely at this man's mercy. The family's money had provided a rare and beautiful thing in his collapsable chair, and he was grateful for it, having spent more months than he cared to recall in a quasi-Victorian horror that he'd taken great pleasure in destroying later. But he hadn't yet mastered the art of lifting himself into vehicles, and Erik's inclinations didn't always match his own. He could force his friend to help him, he supposed, but Erik would never, ever forgive him. So he'd left his dependence on the other man as an offering between them -- a vulnerability on his part to balance Erik's mistrust of the people they'd set out to observe.

So far Erik hadn't challenged him on it. He was there usually before Charles asked for help, steadying and spotting when Charles could manage most of a task for himself, lifting dispassionately when it was necessary. Charles realized he'd been hungry since Erik had lifted him that afternoon. For those few seconds, his face had been pressed into Erik's throat, and what he'd smelled sank tendrils into his body. Wonderful. Beautiful. Warm body-smell with a delicate edge he couldn't place.

The road's dark gave way to the lighted court of the next motel. Erik left him in the car and went to find them a room. Came back with the glow of the main office back-lighting him. Charles could imagine wings in the midst of that aura. One of the rebel angels.

And later, both of them in the darkened room, lying fully clothed and silent on twin beds. The close air and dust were things Charles had come to associate with Erik's safe havens. Hidden corners where the soot in his greying hair made him invisible to patrolling storm troopers. The prefabricated apartment in Israel that had already started to smell of the desert only a few months after its construction. The attic of the house in Westchester county where he retreated like a fugitive to read in the still hours of the afternoon. Somewhere that Charles couldn't reach him; too many stairs between them when even one was too much of an obstacle. Since he'd lost the use of his legs, the only way Charles had seen those corners of the house was through Erik's eyes.

Or the haven of Charles' own rooms, the ones he had to be carried to these days, where he took care of as many things as possible himself, and ignored the dust that settled on those things that remained stubbornly out of reach.

He wondered what his parents thought they did in the afternoons when both he and Eric simply stayed at the mansion, closeted together for hours with even the servants locked out. Probably, his family thought that they were lovers. He supposed it wasn't implausible. But he wondered how aware they were of Erik's brittleness, the constant underlying threat that he might shatter at a wrong touch.

Whatever he knew about Erik, he'd gathered in those hours. Liquid sunlight in his room, and both of them stretched out on his bed, fully clothed and half-asleep. Watching each other. He'd felt Erik's guard relax gradually, reassured by Charles' silent promise that nothing could penetrate the walls of the house and the psychic walls he'd erected around them both. Sleepy bedroom eyes under their silver lashes. His own mind's eye absorbing every surface detail, then stroking palpably to let Erik know that he was slipping deeper.

//warm light warm body hand resting on my hip sun in my eyes reflecting off the painting's glass Charles' body smell warm quiet so quiet in here//

It was the first time he'd touched Erik's thoughts and not felt dirty afterwards. There wasn't anything present that he could feel like a rapist for touching, only a drowsy awareness of his surroundings and a startling trust in Charles' ability to protect both of them.

That trust was missing, now, but Erik hadn't left him yet, at least. The motel room's dinginess swelled around him and muffled their breath. Charles would have been more than content to rest if Erik had been within arm's reach. He hadn't entirely reconciled himself to being a cripple, yet; he would have loved to be able to get up and crawl into Erik's bed with him. Bury his nose in that slick white hair and whisper love and protectiveness into the hollow places in his mind.

He was starving, he realized. He hadn't eaten since early afternoon, and his body was achingly hollow. The remaining peaches were somewhere in the depths of the car; for an instant, he decided he'd get up and get them, then remembered that he couldn't. And cursed, silently, in all the languages he'd learned so far. English, French, Latin. "Choice" words that Erik had taught him in Polish. He was shocked to find that there were tears prickling behind his lids.

Rolling onto his side was a greater effort than it had been once, but he could manage it. He needed a few minutes of privacy, even if the only barriers between them were the curve of his body and the shallow space between the two beds. Closed off, he could let the ache spread a little, wallow for a minute or two before he shunted the self-pity away.

Behind him, Erik said, "Will you be alright if I leave for a few minutes?"

"Yes." Thinking, go away. He could feel the other man behind him, very close. Go away.

The door closed and left him in the warm darkness.

He stayed there, curled and aching, pitying himself for a twenty-year-old boy who would never walk again. He'd traded that mobility for a new set of senses, but there was no one who could teach him to use them, and too often he simply had to close them off. Blinded and crippled both. Not fair. And travelling with an emotional cripple whose mental touch scraped like broken glass at unpredictable moments. Someone ought to have locked them both in some dingy attic, not turned them loose to wreak what havoc they could on the American countryside.

Laughing softly at himself, already rubbing the handful of tears away.

"That's an interesting sound. What's so funny?"

Charles started, then rolled over. Erik was perched on the other bed, watching him. He had a pocket knife open in one hand and a peach in the other.

"I'm impressed," Charles said. "I think that's the first time you've ever managed to sneak up on me."

Again that smile. He could only get faint impressions of it in the dark, but Erik's mind opened slightly with it, and he was mentally stroked by the soft, almost innocent pleasure the other man offered.

"I thought you might be hungry. We missed supper." Long, pale fingers carved a slice of fruit away from the central stone and offered it to him, balanced across the blade. He leaned forward and took it, let it slide into his mouth.

"Thank you. Can you help me up?"

"I probably could, but stay where you are."

"I can't eat like this." Balanced between his side and back, half-turned towards his companion.

"You can if I feed you."

"Bastard. Help me up."

"Charles, please." Wistful.

He gave in. "This isn't fair."

"You can do something terribly unfair to me later."

Long fingers brushed his hairline for a moment. Already far back on his head. He was going to be bald before he was thirty. Another in a long list of things that weren't fair.

"Aren't you the one who goes on about the benevolence of the world?" Erik again, laughing. Charles cocked his head off the pillow. "You're broadcasting."

"Sorry."

He let his head drop back in frustration. The day had been beautiful, but at some point in this evening he'd been thrown off, and he was still fighting his way out of misery.

"Shh. It's alright." Muted strains of Polish underlying the English.

More fruit, stroking over his lips. He opened his mouth to it, but couldn't reach it immediately. Its rough inner curve brushed his teeth and retreated. Only came fully into his mouth when he let the small begging sound at the back of his throat break loose. And then he could chew and swallow.

The next piece that touched his lips he snatched and chewed desperately. More soft laughter. A silence. And then Erik bent over him and locked that wonderful, delicate mouth onto his. Kissed him, so deeply that he could have been eating the other man. Peach flesh in his mouth, in Erik's, passing back and forth between them. Teeth rubbing against his own.

Sometime in that kiss, he pulled Erik in close enough that the other man was lying across him. Hands on his shoulders lifted him hard to Erik's mouth. He was going to be eaten. He loved it. He wished he still had the use of his legs, to lock the other body against his.

Then more laughter, close against his face. "I was about to give up on ever seducing you. How dare you be so beautiful lying there?"

He might have answered, but his belly growled. "Erik, I'm hungry."

Hard peach flesh in his mouth and another kiss. He wasn't sure how much of it he swallowed and how much Erik did, but he opened his mouth for the next bite and shared it too.

Erik's thigh between his was only a soft demand compared to that mouth. The hard pressure of muscle and bone rubbed against his groin, made him whimper, but the mouth swallowed him. Fruit and warmth between them. This was the deepest touch they'd allowed themselves, and he was already aware that Erik was shaking.

"Are you alright?" Charles asked.

Erik nodded against the hollow of his throat, but didn't immediately raise his head. When he withdrew, it was only a little, and Charles could hear the knife scrape along the peach pit.

Clever fingers unbuttoned his shirt to where it tucked into his pants, then pulled the tails loose, exposing his chest and belly. Erik's shaded eyes watching him in the dark.

//is this alright//

//yessssss//

He'd expected a kiss. He wasn't prepared for the cold touch that began just below his nipple. The fruit traced over him, reaching his breastbone and then trailing down to mid-chest. Erik's mouth followed after it, opened wide and pressed in. Teeth scraped over his ribs. He was going to be a mass of bruises when this was over. Mouth on his ribcage, mouth on his belly, easing over the softer flesh.

Erik's hands against his body broke the peach slice into three segments, laid them along the waistband of his pants. Then the other man bent and took the first one, ate it with his mouth resting against Charles' hip.

He'd been pushing at the barriers that he and Erik had imposed on his psychic touches months ago. Too easy to be distracted by the wet mouth touching his flesh and the breath ghosting across his skin, too easy to go where he wasn't welcome. But he realized gradually that Erik was inviting him deeper. Had dismantled the barriers between them as well as any non-telepath could be expected to do, imagining himself naked from the inside out, then laying that nakedness against his lover's mind.

Wondrous, like another set of senses opened. He was sunk almost fully into Erik when the man bent and lifted the next bite of fruit into his mouth with lips and tongue. Tasted the sugars in it. The salt of his skin. Erik's desire and his brittleness laid out against him, wanting this and not truly ready for it. Begging for it. The third piece, resting below his navel, where the thin line of his pubic hair vanished into his trousers. Fantastically erogenous, and Charles found he had enough dexterity to arch against those lips.

//oh god please yes don't stop//

Licked him gently there for long minutes, then Erik slid back up his body and settled against him. Opened his mouth in a huge kiss that swallowed whatever he'd been going to say next.

Kissing him for hours in the dark, letting their bodies fit together. Thinking how he'd been starving for this.


jane
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