XMFC/Down and Out

[diecastking]

Erik remembers New York vividly. He has been to the city many times, as man and boy, hunter and prey.

He has stayed in the best hotels Manhattan has to offer, but he is most at home on the streets. Among the homeless and destitute, he feels more at ease than he ever has in university libraries or officious banks. These are his people: the disenfranchised and dispossessed.

Erik knows, at heart, he is a soldier, a killer. He has been deluding himself that he was tamed, a housecat, a man fit to be a companion - a father.

No more.

The illusion has shattered and he knows now he is a man who would rather see the love of his life murdered than survive in captivity. He could not suffer to see Charles suffer, so he preferred to snuff out his life.

Even days later the thought makes him sick. Erik pulls his old greasy coat closer around him, the disguise for which he traded his leather jacket. He has some money in his pocket for food, but his bike is stashed where no one can find it and he doesn't know if he can bear to look at it again.

He can't bear to be reminded of what he's thrown away by reverting to nature.

Comments

[guideshapelead]

"Our bath," Charles points out.

"Our bathroom, our bath. My bubbles."

[diecastking]

//Our home//

He is warm, for the first time in days, and the ghosts from the drawing room recede from the powerful heat of his love for Charles, with Charles. Their love.

[guideshapelead]

//Yes// Charles agrees, and offers his arms up to Erik, allowing himself to be carried the rest of the way to their bathroom.

//Always that.//

[diecastking]

Erik is tired and weak from his days on the street, but he will not turn down an opportunity to hold Charles close to him, to remind himself that he is alive in his arms.

He carries him through to the bathroom and sets him oh-so-gently on the chair, running the bath hot as his eyes constantly flick back to his lover. To check he is there, he is real.

[guideshapelead]

"Are you going to get in with me?" Charles asks, an amused quirk to his lips.

"Or are you just going to watch? Because I'm not the dirty one."

[diecastking]

"Together," Erik says. "I just...I don't think I can take my eyes off you, Charles."

[guideshapelead]

"Sit me on your lap and you won't have to," Charles points out with a smile, pushing himself through the rising water to make space behind him for his fiancé.

"You can stare at me all you want. I'm flattered by the attention."

[diecastking]

Erik turns off the taps, and quickly throws his dirty clothes into the hamper. He is aware that his ribs are more pronounced than when he left, his musculature lapsed, his skin sallow.

But he does not want Charles to dwell on that. He hurries to slip into the bath behind Charles, drawing him close and running his hands over his damp skin.

[guideshapelead]

Charles rests his own hands over his thighs, pressing them down under the water to keep them from floating inelegantly up to the surface of the bathwater. Leaning back, he lets his head rest on Erik's shoulder, smiling up at his lover.

"Welcome home."

[diecastking]

Erik presses a kiss to the flushed skin of Charles' neck. "It is good to be home," he says. "Thank you...for finding me."

[guideshapelead]

"I always will," Charles promises, and then thinks again.

"Though, I would rather it wasn't necessary to do so."

[diecastking]

Erik is silent for a long moment.

"I have hurt you," he says in a low voice. "When that was exactly what I hoped to avoid. I don't know how you can forgive me."

[guideshapelead]

"Because I love you," Charles says, as though the answer should be obvious, twisting his neck so that he can kiss Erik's cheek.

"And I have you back, now, where you belong."

[diecastking]

Erik responds by capturing Charles' lips, a slow burning kiss.

"I do not know how I have lived without you."

[guideshapelead]

"Barely," Charles observes.

"I can feel your ribs in my back. Tomorrow I will make sure Alex prepares you a feast."

[diecastking]

"My stomach will take time to adjust," Erik says, with the tone of one who has starved before and knows the consequences.

"Alex may have to save his feast."

[guideshapelead]

"But not for too long, I hope?" Charles is disappointed. He had been looking forward to a feast.

[diecastking]

Erik laughs.

"I would not keep you from it," he says, amused. "I like to watch you eat."

[guideshapelead]

"I like you with some flesh on your bones." Charles will eat, but he will see that Erik eats too. He wants his lover restored to his normal self, as soon as possible.

[diecastking]

Erik skims his hands down Charles' sides.

"I could say the same," he says sadly. "You've been ill."

[guideshapelead]

"I do not sleep well without you," Charles will readily admit that much.

"I had... many seizures."

[diecastking]

"I have caused you so much suffering."

Charles may forgive him, but he does not know how he will forgive himself.

[guideshapelead]

//Less of that now, please// Charles silently begs.

//Can we just enjoy being back together?//

[diecastking]

It is easy to let the memories slide away with Charles' warm wet skin against his cheek, the evidence of the past days slipping into the bath water and clouding it with his sins.

//Yes, Headmaster//

[guideshapelead]

//Don't call me that// Charles laughs across their connection.

//You are no student of mine//