“What do you want me to do, then?” Erik steps back, letting go of Charles and shoving a hand back through his hair, tired and frustrated and cranky with it. “Let them all go out there and kill each other instead of intervening? I can’t both provide the rule of law and refuse to interfere, Charles, you know that.” He sighs, looking at the other man’s frowning, disappointed face, and cannot be bothered to dissemble. “Do I want to protect mutant lives more than I do human lives? Honestly, yes. You know that about me already. I won’t pretend to be someone I’m not for you. But I’m trying to be fair.”
“I just think it’s a slippery slope,” Charles says, folding his arms and not meeting Erik’s eyes, looking down at the floor. The corners of his mouth are curled decidedly downward, and it’s an unpleasant change from the smile when he first woke up, one Erik has to work hard not to resent.
“If you can suggest to me an alternative,” not that there is one, not really, and they both know it, “then I will be happy to hear it, because this is killing me out there every day, and enforcing it is going to drain our already strained resources, and I would call the whole thing off if it wouldn’t mean facilitating a continuation of this murder culture.” A laugh chokes its way out of him before he’s even registered what caused it, and then the words are coming out of Erik’s mouth after, gravelled and dry. “Which is ironic, coming from a murderer.”
Charles looks stricken, and it’s too late to take those words and hide them somewhere Charles will never see them, though Erik would dearly like to try.
“I’m going to bed,” Charles says, face pale as milk, stepping back and walking away without a further word said between them. Erik stands in the living room and curses himself in every language he knows. It takes long enough that when he slips into the bedroom Charles is already asleep, and barely shifts when Erik lies down, snuffling a little into the pillow, curled in on himself on the far side of the bed.
XXXVI
They end up tangled in together the way they always do sometime during the night, and though for once Charles wakes up before Erik he doesn’t get up, is lying there looking at him when Erik opens his eyes, searching Erik’s face again for that unknowable something he always seems to be hunting down in the line of Erik’s brow, the narrow breadth of his mouth, unused to smiling.
“Do you ever find it?” Erik asks when Charles doesn’t say anything, unwilling to detach just yet, warm under covers in this hollow space between arguments, a moment taken out of time.
Charles startles, though he must have known Erik was awake. “Find what?” His voice is still raspy from sleep.
“I don’t know,” Erik says, letting his eyes slide shut again, heavy-lidded and impossible to hold. He shifts against the pillow, digs himself in a little deeper. “Whatever it is you’re hoping to find in me. You’re always looking, so I assume it’s always missing.”
There is a long silence, then, “Maybe I’m admiring it.”
Erik snorts, then gathers his will and rolls over, swinging his legs free of Charles’ and sitting up on the edge of the mattress, his back to the other man, stretching his arms out above his head and cracking his vertebrae back into place. “I have to go to work.”
“Erik,” Charles says quietly, and the tone of it is enough to make him turn against his will, twisting to look back over his shoulder to meet Charles’ gaze. “I might not always agree with your decisions,” Charles says, hands clenching in the covers where he’s pushed himself onto his elbows, and if nothing else his eyes are steady now on Erik’s, focused and awake. “Or your opinions which are, frankly, on certain matters, offensive. But sometimes I’m just looking at you because you’re important to me and I’m trying to understand, alright?”
“Is today one of those times?” Erik asks, curious, and at least Charles is honest enough not to lie.
“No,” he says, with only the smallest of hesitations first. “No, not today. Today I’m a human first and Charles second, and last night you told me my whole species is obsolete.”
FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 141/?
“I just think it’s a slippery slope,” Charles says, folding his arms and not meeting Erik’s eyes, looking down at the floor. The corners of his mouth are curled decidedly downward, and it’s an unpleasant change from the smile when he first woke up, one Erik has to work hard not to resent.
“If you can suggest to me an alternative,” not that there is one, not really, and they both know it, “then I will be happy to hear it, because this is killing me out there every day, and enforcing it is going to drain our already strained resources, and I would call the whole thing off if it wouldn’t mean facilitating a continuation of this murder culture.” A laugh chokes its way out of him before he’s even registered what caused it, and then the words are coming out of Erik’s mouth after, gravelled and dry. “Which is ironic, coming from a murderer.”
Charles looks stricken, and it’s too late to take those words and hide them somewhere Charles will never see them, though Erik would dearly like to try.
“I’m going to bed,” Charles says, face pale as milk, stepping back and walking away without a further word said between them. Erik stands in the living room and curses himself in every language he knows. It takes long enough that when he slips into the bedroom Charles is already asleep, and barely shifts when Erik lies down, snuffling a little into the pillow, curled in on himself on the far side of the bed.
They end up tangled in together the way they always do sometime during the night, and though for once Charles wakes up before Erik he doesn’t get up, is lying there looking at him when Erik opens his eyes, searching Erik’s face again for that unknowable something he always seems to be hunting down in the line of Erik’s brow, the narrow breadth of his mouth, unused to smiling.
“Do you ever find it?” Erik asks when Charles doesn’t say anything, unwilling to detach just yet, warm under covers in this hollow space between arguments, a moment taken out of time.
Charles startles, though he must have known Erik was awake. “Find what?” His voice is still raspy from sleep.
“I don’t know,” Erik says, letting his eyes slide shut again, heavy-lidded and impossible to hold. He shifts against the pillow, digs himself in a little deeper. “Whatever it is you’re hoping to find in me. You’re always looking, so I assume it’s always missing.”
There is a long silence, then, “Maybe I’m admiring it.”
Erik snorts, then gathers his will and rolls over, swinging his legs free of Charles’ and sitting up on the edge of the mattress, his back to the other man, stretching his arms out above his head and cracking his vertebrae back into place. “I have to go to work.”
“Erik,” Charles says quietly, and the tone of it is enough to make him turn against his will, twisting to look back over his shoulder to meet Charles’ gaze. “I might not always agree with your decisions,” Charles says, hands clenching in the covers where he’s pushed himself onto his elbows, and if nothing else his eyes are steady now on Erik’s, focused and awake. “Or your opinions which are, frankly, on certain matters, offensive. But sometimes I’m just looking at you because you’re important to me and I’m trying to understand, alright?”
“Is today one of those times?” Erik asks, curious, and at least Charles is honest enough not to lie.
“No,” he says, with only the smallest of hesitations first. “No, not today. Today I’m a human first and Charles second, and last night you told me my whole species is obsolete.”
“I didn’t mean you.”