Archive of Our Own ^beta

Erik wins. He smirks teasingly, his eyes glinting with that familiar spark from before Cuba. Charles wants to believe it. That this affection isn’t a tactic of some kind, or maybe Erik’s twisted way of saying thank you for rescuing him 9 years too late. It’s not real. Can’t be real. 

Not after the way Erik looked at him before. The coldness in his gaze as he listed off every mutant Charles allowed to die, the congealed disgust growing more and more with every word. The harshness - No, whatever love Erik had for him before Cuba was long dead. Charles knew that. 

He had known that for years, since the first marigold petal. He was just waiting for Erik to catch up. It shouldn’t be long now.

Charles gave Erik a wan smile, not meeting his gaze. Instead he finishes the rest of his scotch and glances out the window, gazing mindlessly at the clouds. It’s easy to be mindless these days. Erik huffs under his breath, the screws in the window shuddering. Charles raises an eyebrow without turning his gaze away from the cirrus cloud shaped like a wolf.  the ligaments still. Erik stares at him for a few more seconds. Then he pushes himself to his feet, every footfall reverberating across the room. 

Charles downs two more glasses of scotch before the plane lands. The burn spreads through his veins, numbing the self-pity and shame. Erik glances back at him when he finishes the third, his gaze festering with revulsion. Charles swallows down two leaves.

They find a hotel by the embassy, smaller than Charles usually prefers. They’ll need two double rooms. They can’t trust Erik not to fuck off in the middle of the night. Charles bites the inside of his lip. Erik and Hank won’t share a room. They barely tolerated each other before Cuba, and now Charles suspects Hank might finally finish choking Erik out if gets the chance.

Logan and Erik aren’t quite so hostile. Still, Charles worries them sharing a room will either end with them fucking or stabbing each other. He doesn’t have the emotional capacity nor enough cocaine for either right now.

Charles lets out a low exhale. There’s no helping it. “I’ll share with Erik, assuming he doesn’t have any objections?” 

“Of course not, old friend.” Erik’s words are clipped, the smirk from before back on his face. He gazes at Charles with a severity that makes him want to fold in on himself. Charles wonders what answers he’s trying to find there. It doesn’t matter. Charles doesn’t have any left to give. 

Erik wrenches the room keys out of the receptionist's hands. He flings one at Charles, which hits him squarely in the chest. Charles fumbles with it, nearly dropping the key. Erik laughs, warm in a way that makes his chest ache. The receptionist clears his throat, his gaze flicking between the two of them suspiciously. Charles offers the young man - Gabriel -  a tight smile. He reminds himself to leave a hefty tip in the morning. He doesn’t need his powers to know what Gabriel thinks about them. God knows what scene Erik will cause if the authorities get involved.

“Are you sure, Charles?” Hank wrinkles his nose as he says it. His gaze is tight in that way that means he disagrees, but respects Charles too much to make him see reason. Condescending, but he’ll take it. Logan raises an eyebrow, his gaze knowing in a way Charles resents, because nothing is going to happen between him and Erik. 

“I’ll be fine, Hank. Erik’s not that ungrateful.” Charles keeps his words light, even as he feels his stomach start to lurch. He wishes it was the whiskey. But he knows this sensation too well for that, the leaves scraping along the inside of his throat, the stem filling his esophagus to the brim. 

He usually gets more warning before he vomits up a garden. But then Erik’s not usually mere inches away from him, his expression confirming everything Charles has suspected for the better part of a decade. That might speed up the process. 

Charles rushes down the hallway, sweat already gathering at his temples. He’s grateful they’re on the first floor. Charles reaches room 112 within a matter of seconds. It’s still not fast enough. The petals open little by little the closer they get. Charles presses a hand over his mouth to muffle the painful little whimpers threatening to break free. His hands shake as he tries to force the key inside the lock. He fails twice before the door swings open, and he’s too grateful to be embarrassed.

Charles bolts through the door, practically hurling himself across the entryway to the bathroom. He falls to his knees in front of the toilet, barely getting the lid up before he starts retching. The marigolds come up fully bloomed, the orange-gold petals stained with blood and bile. The fourth drags the stems' spiky edges across his tongue. Tears prick at his eyes. No. He won’t cry in front of Erik. Not when his shame is already so on display. The coughs keep coming, blood-soaked petals decorating the hotel room floor.

Erik braces a hand against his lower back, long fingers splayed respectively above the dip of his hips. The grip steadies him. The last blossom passes, the burn in his lungs fading to something almost manageable. 10 flowers. Enough to make Erik a bouquet. Charles laughs wetly at the idea, but a coughing fit takes over, more petals decorating the floor. Erik holds him through the last few spasms, his hold gentle. 

Charles takes a few deep breaths, steadying himself. The fit passes. Charles leans back until he’s pressed against Erik. For a moment, he lets himself relax into the solid warmth of Erik’s chest. Then Erik pushes a lock of sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, so much longer than it was when they first met, and reality crashes back down. Charles bats his hand away. He tries to wriggle free from his grip, but he’s exhausted and gives up as quickly as he started.

Erik doesn’t let go.

He hauls Charles to a standing position, ignoring the shakiness of his legs. Charles doesn’t know if it's from the coughing fit or the serum fading. He hopes for the former. He turns in Erik’s grasp, his smile wan. The loathing from before has left Erik’s gaze, replaced with terror and remorse. His knuckles turn white as he grips Charles more tightly, his right thumb digging into Charles’ hip hard enough to leave a mark. “Hanahaki disease?”

“Don’t worry, Erik. It hasn’t progressed to dangerous levels.” Charles promises, his voice scratchy from where the petals caught on his pharynx. He doesn’t add that it won’t be long, with how often and violently he’s hacking up flowers as of late. It used to be once or twice a week. Now it’s daily. Another year or two, and the physical embodiment of his unrequited love for Erik will be wrenched out of him by the hour, until he can’t eat or sleep, until he can’t breath without showing the mark Erik left on him –

Well, hopefully Hank will find a cure by then. 

Erik must be thinking the same, because the horror in his expression doubles. He lets go of Charles and stumbles back like he’s been shot. Charles nearly tips over. He stays on his feet and takes it as a victory. He doesn’t have much of those these days. Erik’s face crumples, the terror in his gaze giving way to despondency. “Why?” 

“Why am I vomiting up flowers? I suspect it has something to do with you lodging a bullet in my spine and then fucking off with my sister.” Charles hisses, despair imbuing every word. Erik recoils. A hollow victory that makes Charles’ lungs burn. He slips past Erik, reaching for the minibar key. Erik watches him, his lips thin and some of the coldness from the plane back in his gaze. Good. Charles holds up a miniature bottle of whiskey like a peace offering. “Care to offer your own theories?”

“I didn’t leave you. I asked you to come with me.” Erik grounds out, his expression rigid. “You said no.”

“I said no to your war, not to you .” Charles’ hates the way his voice cracks, the tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. Erik shakes his head, lips thin and gaze disbelieving. He never has been able to separate himself from his cause, never understood how Charles could be so devoted to one and not the other. And Erik … well, Erik was willing to let him bleed to death in Cuba the moment their paths diverged. Charles stands a little straighter at the thought, even as lungs throb treacherously. He’ll have another bouquet ready for Erik by the morning at this rate. “And it doesn’t change that you didn’t send your teleporter back for me or check up on me once after Cuba.”

“I wanted - I never stopped loving you. You know that.” Erik murmurs it like a plea. He takes a step toward Charles and reaches a hand out toward him. His thumb brushes the inside of his wrist and Charles shudders. He almost lets himself believe Erik, trust the yearning in his gaze, the way his lips are still pursed in a silent prayer. It would be so easy to let himself fall again –

And then he remembers how Erik looked at him a few hours ago, the kind of empty hatred most people reserve for cockroaches. Erik doesn’t love him. He loves a ghost.

Charles snatches his hand away, a few of the mini bottles clinking against floorboards. 

“I think the evidence speaks for itself.” Charles shrugs carelessly. They shouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s too late. Their love is embedded in the bullet and they left it behind in Cuba, eroded by time and grains of sand. Sometimes Charles thinks everything good about him was left behind there too, the bones of who he might’ve been warped beyond recognition. He’s what is left. Still, Charles can’t help glancing up at Erik, his gaze longing. “I hoped that you did, once.”

Erik shakes his head furiously, the tiny bottles shuddering and lifting up from the ground, only to collapse a second later. The horror is back in Erik’s eyes, a bone deep fear Charles can’t understand. Not from Erik, not for him. Erik reaches his hand out again, only to drop it when Charles flinches from his touch. “I …”

“Did you never doubt that I still loved you? All those years?” Charles asks, his voice little more than a whisper. He steps over the bottles and past Erik, pointedly not meeting his gaze. He doesn’t want to see the answer before he hears it.

“Constantly.” Erik admits, shame heavy in his voice. It shouldn’t be. It’s no different from Raven nor his mother. Charles’ love has never been something that people can believe in long-term. Erik turns toward him, all fire and grief, and Charles can’t help meeting his gaze this time. What he finds breaks his heart all over again. “You never should have in the first place.”

“Don’t - of course I should have.” Charles is the one reaching for Erik this time. He cradles both sides of his face, his right thumb brushing against the corner of Erik’s lips. Erik doesn’t pull away. Charles leans in closer, until their foreheads are almost touching. The tears are coming in earnest now, but Charles can’t be bothered to stop them. Not now when Erik needs to understand that it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t love Charles, or that he left him. None of it matters more than Erik knowing – “You deserve to be loved, you deserve so much more than you ever allow yourself to have.”

“You said the opposite when you rescued me.” Erik reminds him with a raised eyebrow. His eyes are wet too, disbelief warring with something akin to hope. He brings one of his own hands up and covers Charles’ own, lacing their fingers together. Charles should pull away. He doesn’t. Erik’s tone is light when he next speaks, but Charles hears the uncertainty underneath. “And on the plane, for that matter.”

“I don’t forgive you now.” Charles says with a huff of laughter. His smile is more genuine this time when he presses their foreheads together. He squeezes Erik’s hand carefully. Then he untangles their finger and takes a step back so that his legs are supported against one of the beds. He slides down against the cushions, lets the artificial softness replace Erik’s firm grasp. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be happy. Just not anywhere near me.”

“Is that why you left me to rot in prison for a near decade?” Erik asks with a raised eyebrow, his smile turning sharp. Charles grimaces but refuses to look away. 

“I thought you were guilty.” Charles reminds him, tone bordering on prim. Erik scoffs, some of the softness from before fading. Good. That’s good. They can’t let themselves be trapped by a past neither of them fit anymore. 

Still, he owes Erik an explanation. It was easy to pretend Erik was guilty or that Charles actually cared if he was when he was alone in his room, thousands of voices screaming in his mind and a trail of white powder still clinging to his bottom lip. It was even simpler a few months later, the serum rendering him powerless and the fits coming more and more frequently, Charles chasing the pain away by self-medicating with 150 proof whiskey and cocaine. 

It’s harder with Erik standing right in front of him, his eyes haunted in a brand new way from before. One Charles never should have allowed. “I couldn’t have, not with how my powers were and then the serum and the Hanahaki diagnosis. I’m quite useless these days.”

Erik tilts his head to the right, his expression bemused. Some of that icy disgust from the plane is back, but also something else. Close to pity but not so cruel. Charles wishes it were. “Ah, so your self-pity kept me in solitary confinement. Here I thought it was your self-righteousness.” 

“Erik.” Charles’ tone is half-warning, half-bemusement. Charles has missed the way Erik used to cut him down with a few quick words, quietly judging Charles for all the things everyone else politely ignored. Erik hates him more wholly than anyone else has ever loved him, and what does that say about Charles? Erik flinches like he’s been slapped. Charles doesn’t know why. 

“I didn’t question your love just because I don’t think I deserve it. It’s because you’re a fucking martyr.” Erik snaps as he paces the small space between the two hotel beds. His entire frame hums with despair. He furls and unfurls his hands a few times. The overhead lights flicker on and off with each movement, casting him in an eerie glow. Maybe they’re both ghosts. Erik stills, turning so they’re face to face once again. He snarls, the wrath in his eyes almost incandescent. “Just shut up and drink your whiskey.”

“Such romance and you still didn’t cough up a single flower?” Charles asks dryly. He can’t quite hide the hope underlying his words. He thinks about Erik alone in that plastic prison, his only visitors the guards dropping off bland meals and new uniforms, or a few monsters studying him with clinical precision. How Erik must have spent day after day counting the minutes, trying to find the right activities to keep him tethered to the present. Meditation and mental chess games, pushups until his arms gave out, cold showers so he never got too comfortable – Charles is too much of a coward to think about what else.

“Not even a petal.” Erik promises. The rage still burns in his eyes, but there’s also so much affection there that it makes Charles' chest ache. He doesn’t deserve it. He leans back further into the pillows. His legs are up on the bed now. Charles doesn’t remember moving them, but that’s hardly surprising. He loses time more easily after one of his episodes.

“Good, I’m glad.” Charles murmurs as he presses his head against the pillow. His eyes are glassy again, his voice slurred. Exhaustion has been overtaking him little by little since they rescued Erik, the whiskey and the serum both taking more out of him than he likes to admit. He glances up at Erik and smiles, crooked and grateful that Erik was spared something. And selfishly, glad not to be yet another scar for Erik, who already had far more than he deserved. “I’m glad you didn’t love me that much.”

“You’re an idiot.” Erik says, though not unkindly. Charles hears a rustling of sheets, and closes his eyes. Chapped lips press against his forehead, Erik’s hands brushing his hair from his forehead. They linger there until he falls asleep. 

When Charles wakes up, he only coughs up a single Forget-Me-Not.