Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Erik was taking the subway home when he saw him. He froze in his seat, as if sitting very still would make him harder to see, but he needn’t have worried; Charles was lost in his own world. And Erik wasn’t afraid of seeing him, merely startled, confused, hopeful, elated. And then slightly angry, because Charles’s face was covered in bruises and looked years older, and his vibrant blue eyes were vacant and dull. He was dressed well enough at least, in a thick pullover and jeans; so he had some money or care, he was just working hard for every penny of it.

Erik knew he was going to approach him. That was inevitable. Fate had dropped this gift in his lap and he was going to snatch it up. But there were a few minutes before his stop, and he studied his quarry before making his move.

Then with one elegant motion he rose from his seat and moved to the empty one in front of Charles, sitting sideways so he could look at him. The injuries looked even worse from here, some fresh, some older. Erik waited patiently. Charles’s eyes flickered up and past him, a brief glance, then they snapped back, clearing. Erik watched the recognition dawn slowly and exquisitely on his face, and was thrilled when Charles’s first response was to smile. Unfortunately, his lip was split and smiling pulled it; his hand flew up to his mouth at the sting, and then his gaze dropped and his eyes filled with tears, shame etched on his features.

Erik pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dangled it in front of the boy, who took it but brushed his tears away with his fingers instead. “There you are,” Erik commented, as though he’d merely misplaced Charles for a while. “You’re coming home with me.”

Charles looked up at him sharply, and Erik reached over the seat to cup his chin, caressing an intact portion of his red lips with his thumb. “I-I can’t,” Charles responded, reluctantly. “I have to meet someone.”

Whoever he had to meet was not a friend, more likely a client or his pimp. “No.” Erik was used to being obeyed, and he raised an eyebrow challengingly at Charles when he didn’t immediately agree.

“Al-alright,” Charles agreed softly, and Erik dropped his hand. He looked like he was thinking furiously, about logistics perhaps, and Erik gave him a moment.

“I’ve thought about you a lot,” Erik told him finally. “I wondered what happened to you.” He should have looked for him, he chided himself; he would’ve been easy enough to find. “Not working cocktail parties anymore?” he asked dryly, scanning his injuries again.

“No,” Charles responded quietly, and the last six months seemed to flash painfully across his face. His eyes drifted towards the walls blurring past and started to unfocus.

Erik cupped his chin again, bringing him back to the present. “Do you remember my name? It’s Erik.” He didn’t want to start with a pop quiz.

Charles tried to smile again, but it came out as more of a smirk as he favored one side of his mouth. “I remember. I’m Charles.”

Erik gave him a small smile. “Oh, I remember.” He remembered gasping and moaning, apprehension turning to delight, those blue eyes big with wonder, those pale cheeks stained red—as they were becoming now under his heated gaze. Then he backed off abruptly. "Don’t worry. I can see you’ve had enough for tonight.”

Hurt flared in Charles’s eyes and he straightened up, backing away from Erik. “I have,” he agreed coolly. “I have to meet someone.”

And they were back to square one. Emma would smack him upside the head at this point. “I’m not impugning your character, Schatzi,” Erik stated mildly. He was walking off this train with this boy; there was no need to plead his case. “I’m just saying you look tired. Do you want to get something to eat first?”

Charles slumped again, leaning against the back of Erik’s seat, and Erik ran a hand through his hair. They had met exactly once, for just a few hours, and hadn’t spent that time in deep conversation; but Erik felt comfortable with him, the way he did around so few people, those he’d known much longer. He shifted to press his lips against Charles’s temple. Maybe it was because he’d rarely met anyone like Charles, someone so… earnest? Honest? Sincere? Something along those lines. Remarkable for anyone, in Erik’s experience, even more so for a rentboy.

“Do you want me to square it with someone first?” Erik murmured in Charles’s ear.

The boy’s head snapped up, alarm on his face. “No,” he said quickly. “They would—” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t meet them. They’re dangerous.”

Erik smiled slowly, and almost responded that he was dangerous too; but either Charles wouldn’t believe him, or he’d be frightened. Erik didn’t want to deal with either one right now. “Alright.” The train started to slow. “This is us.” He stood, holding onto the pole in the center of the aisle, and reached his hand back for Charles. The boy stood stiffly, sore and exhausted, but took his hand.

They exited the train and Erik kept a firm grip on him as they wove through the light crowd. Normally he took the stairs up to ground level, but this time he went for the elevator, holding Charles close with an arm around his waist. The boy leaned into him, head resting on his shoulder, until they had to exit.

“It’s three blocks,” Erik informed him. The sky was dark, but this neighborhood was well-lit with streetlamps and headlights. “Do you want a cab?”

“No, I can walk.”

He held himself alertly, eyes darting into every shadowed alley and doorway they passed; he was used to worse neighborhoods, and looking after himself. “Your last job,” Erik began, gesturing to Charles’s face. “Is that a punishment, or part of the fun?” Why anyone would want to damage that pretty face, he didn’t know.

“Yes,” Charles replied darkly.

Charles was not going to see that person again. Charles was not going to see any of them again, including his pimp. That was Erik’s decision. He didn’t want to say so just yet though—wait until they were indoors, where it was harder to get away. Any attempt at rabbiting would not be about reluctance to accept Erik’s offer, he felt, just shock at Charles’s sudden change in circumstances. Erik felt oddly calm about it himself, but he was used to make momentous decisions quickly.

They approached the front entrance to Erik’s building, which was lit up like daylight, and Charles slowed, dragging Erik down. “What?” he asked.

“You live there?”

“Yes.” Erik started walking again, and again Charles stopped him. Erik gave him a look that was not impatient, merely expectant. He could stand on the sidewalk all night waiting for the boy, though he’d prefer not to.

Charles licked his lips nervously, winced as he tasted the cut. “Is there a back entrance?”

Erik regarded him thoughtfully. “I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you, Schatzi,” he stated, then smirked. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“No, I—” Charles was still reluctant. “Aren’t you afraid people will think…?”

He trailed off, leaving Erik to fill in the blank. Think that he hired prostitutes? That he liked boys? That he beat the boy prostitutes he hired?

“Does it look like I give a f—k what people think?” Erik asked, curiously.

“No,” Charles admitted, smirking slightly. He did, though. He’d have to get over that.

Satisfied, Erik turned and continued on to the doors, towing Charles behind him. A uniformed doorman jumped out to hold the door open for them. “Good evening, Mr. Lehnsherr,” he greeted cheerfully.

“Good evening, Darryl.” To Charles’s horror, Erik stopped them in the doorway. “This is Charles,” he introduced. “He’ll be staying with me a while.”

Darryl turned his friendly smile on Charles. “How do you do, Charles? Pleased to meet you!”

“Fine, thank you,” Charles replied with only a slight stutter, his manners kicking in from somewhere. “And you?”

“Oh, just dandy, sir, just dandy,” Darryl asserted.

Erik gave them an amused look and turned to leave. “Have a good evening, Darryl.”

“You too, sir!”

They crossed the opulent lobby, with its crystal chandeliers and plush furniture, the desk clerks attentive even at this hour. Erik stopped by the front desk to pick up his mail and introduce the head clerk, Monica, to Charles as well. She was more reserved than Darryl but completely professional. What they said about him in the back room, Erik couldn’t care less; he paid well for good service, including Charles being recognized and given assistance if he need it, and that was what he expected.

Finally they made it to the bank of elevators, specifically the one marked PH, and Erik pulled a card from his wallet to swipe. “You have your own elevator?” Charles surmised. He’d seen such things before, at the parties he used to frequent.

“Yes,” Erik confirmed, drawing him into it. “It doesn’t open directly into the apartment. Security. Don’t ever open the door to someone you don’t recognize,” he warned. “Call down to the front desk and ask if they’ve sent anyone up. And even then don’t open it if you don’t feel comfortable.”

This speech did not seem to put Charles more at ease. “Does that happen a lot?” he worried. “People trying to break in?”

“No,” Erik assured him. “It’s never happened. I just wanted you to be prepared.”

Charles nodded and leaned against him again, like he had at the subway station, only with even more relaxing of his alert façade, given the privacy. That was good, Erik wanted him to feel safe here. “I’ll get you your own key cards tomorrow,” he planned. He made a mental note to contact his assistant and say he wouldn’t be in tomorrow—Charles would need his attention and reassurance, he predicted. But he couldn’t afford more time off right now, they had several big projects going on and he needed to make the major decisions on them. Though potentially, he could have meetings at his apartment, if Charles would be—

Charles stumbled suddenly, just standing in the elevator, and Erik caught him automatically. “Sorry,” he blurted, embarrassed.

Erik frowned and turned him so he could look at his eyes. “Did you hit your head before?” he asked clinically, wondering if the boy might have a concussion. “I can call a doctor—”

“No,” Charles insisted. He was intensely uncomfortable with the idea of a doctor, that was easy to see. “I just—fell asleep. For a second,” he explained sheepishly. “I’m just—I’m knackered, really.”

Erik could imagine what he’d been doing to become so sleep-deprived, and it angered him. But he only said, “I should invest in some better elevator music, hmm?”

“Yeah, a bit more energy,” Charles laughed. “If the ride’s going to be so long.”

“All the way to the top,” Erik shrugged. Usually he didn’t even notice, so preoccupied was he with his phone and its endless emails, reminders, and texts. Which, since he’d thought of it—“Do you have a phone?”

“Yeah.” Charles pulled the battered cell phone from his jeans pocket and Erik couldn’t help looking askance at it. “Well, it’s—for work,” Charles explained awkwardly. “Not really mine.”

Erik made a quick calculation. “Give me your number,” he instructed, pulling out his smartphone, which had all the latest bells and whistles. “But don’t put mine in there.” In case it should fall into someone else’s hands. “I’ll get you a new one tomorrow.” With a GPS chip, so he could track the boy wherever he went—which ought to not be very far, at least at first. “You can call my cell or office from the landline, I’ll leave the numbers for you.”

When he looked up from his phone Charles was frowning at him. “You told the doorman I would be staying here,” he recalled. “And the desk clerk. And you’re giving me keys? And a phone?” He seemed rather confused by this point. “Are you sure you haven’t mixed me up with someone else? Someone you… actually know?”

Erik grinned, slowly, until he was showing an unnerving number of teeth, and Charles had gone from smiling back to looking slightly uncertain. The elevator deposited them on the top floor right on cue. “You seem trustworthy to me,” Erik tossed off finally. “Come on.” Charles hesitated in the elevator, as if suddenly wondering what he was doing, following a near-stranger home. But he must do that fairly often, with his job, and Erik was certain the evening would be more pleasant than what he normally faced. Quickly Charles hurried behind him as he keyed the door open.

“Very nice,” Charles complimented of the apartment, in an understated way. He’d seen places like this before, and he drifted towards the wall of windows as Erik hung his jacket up.

He seemed very pensive when Erik joined him, his bruised face reflected in the glass. “The city always seems so beautiful from up high,” Charles commented, gazing out on the velvety darkness strewn with lights like stars. But so ugly from street level, his tone seemed to imply. He was far too young to sound that melancholy, Erik thought.

“The woman you were with,” Erik began. He could picture her, elegant, East Asian heritage, about as classy as a pimp could be while still peddling flesh. He searched his mind for her name. “Vivian.”

Charles took a breath, like he’d been hoping Erik wouldn’t remember her. “Yes?”

“What’s this about, then?” He gestured towards the bruises on Charles’s face, making eye contact only in the window reflection. “You were her golden boy, why would she hire you out for rough play?”

“She wouldn’t,” Charles responded shortly. He turned away, wanting to wander off somewhere but not sure where he was allowed to go. Erik grabbed his hand and towed him towards the hallway. “Vivian’s dead.”

Erik glanced back at that, navigating around the island in the kitchen. “Someone moved in on her operation,” he surmised, leading Charles into a bathroom.

“Yes,” Charles agreed, but with confusion in his tone. “How do you know that? What is it you do again?”

Erik dropped the lid of the toilet and guided Charles to sit down on it, looking over his injuries with a critical eye. “Engineer,” he answered, knowing this did not actually help. “This might hurt a little,” he added, probing at the darkened skin.

Charles hissed. “But how do you—”

“Does the rest of you look like this?” Erik interrupted. “Take your clothes off. I know some unsavory people,” he finally answered, assessing every wince as Charles worked the pullover and t-shirt off. Bruises mottled his pale flesh, though none as large or dark as Erik had feared, and he knelt at the boy’s feet, prodding gently at his rubs. “Nothing broken, I think. Does anything in particular hurt?”

“Not in particular, no,” Charles answered, trying hard to seem comfortable with their respective positions. Erik liked to think that stemmed from a genuine attraction, and not merely the novelty of Charles not being the one on his knees.

Then Erik reached for the button of Charles’s jeans, since he obviously wasn’t going to do it himself. Immediately Charles reacted, his hands going to the same place, not quite daring to stop Erik’s but twitching like they really wanted to. Erik stilled his fingers but maintained his hold on the fabric, looking up into Charles’s slightly flushed face. It was endearing, to retain modesty in his profession.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Schatzi,” Erik stated mildly. “I want to see you other injuries.”

“I haven’t got any,” Charles claimed quickly.

“You know, somehow I just don’t believe you,” Erik replied, daring Charles to prove him wrong. Someone who liked to hurt pretty boys for fun did not stop with the face and ribs.

Charles glanced away, biting his lower lip, which then stung and drew tears to his eyes. Erik waited patiently to see what he would do, mentally listing the options he was prepared to allow. “Could I… not, right now?” Charles finally asked, excruciatingly polite. “They’re not serious, I’ll be fine in a couple of days.” He spoke with the voice of experience, which made Erik’s temper flare.

He was adept at not showing this, however. “Of course,” he agreed, releasing Charles and standing smoothly. “Let me treat the rest.” Charles was too relieved, and amazed, to object and Erik quickly applied some disinfectant and band-aids. “Replace as necessary after you shower,” Erik instructed. “I’ll get you some clean clothes.” For the first time he left the boy alone, retrieving some pajamas from his bedroom. They would be too big but Charles was only sleeping in them. Charles hadn’t moved when he was gone, apparently, perhaps unwilling to see how he looked in the mirror. “We’ll put your clothes in the wash,” Erik planned, handing over the pajamas. “You’ll need some ice and some food.” He liked having a mission, in this case caring for Charles; it kept his mind off his fury for those who had mistreated him, though they would be receiving their own plan soon.

The stark light of the bathroom made Charles seem unnaturally pale, his brown freckles standing out and making him seem even younger. “Thank you, Erik,” he said, encompassing more than just the clothes. He was clearly still confused about why he was being helped, but perhaps was growing closer to accepting it.

Erik cupped his chin. “Don’t try to smile, Schatzi,” he warned lightly, letting his fingers stroke the boy’s skin gently. Charles pursed his lips and nodded, their redness so tempting. But Erik didn’t want to start anything he could properly finish; the boy was in no shape for it right now anyway. So reluctantly Erik let him go and turned away, back towards the kitchen.

A few minutes later Charles reappeared, looking slightly sheepish in the too-big clothes. “Washer’s over there,” Erik told him, nodding at the closet. He was stirring up some soup on the stove. “Just throw it all in. You want me to do it?”

“No thanks, I’ve got it,” Charles assured him. His clothes really hadn’t been that dirty, but it would feel better to put on clean ones in the morning. And besides, Erik had always felt there was something so intimate about doing your laundry at someone else’s house. It seemed to signal a certain amount of trust and vulnerability, especially if those were the only clothes you had with you.

The washing machine started up with a comfortable hum and Charles hesitantly took a seat at the island, relaxing slightly when Erik glanced back and didn’t chide him. “Ice your eyes first,” Erik advised, of the ice pack he’d left on the counter. “On and off regularly. You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

“No,” Charles confirmed, applying the ice. “What are you fixing?”

“Vegetable beef soup,” Erik told him, tasting a spoonful. He judged it hot enough and started scooping some into a bowl. “My mother made it.”

“It smells delicious,” Charles told him. From the prominence of his ribs Erik had noted earlier, Charles did not get as much food as he should. Erik planned to change that. He had a feeling his mother would be happy to help.

He set the bowl and a spoon in front of Charles, leaning on the counter to watch him eat. After a couple of eager bites Charles noticed this and became self-conscious, wondering if he was doing something wrong. Erik merely raised an eyebrow; Charles should get used to being closely watched from now on, at least until he had put his old lifestyle behind him.

“Are—are you going to have any?” Charles finally asked, and Erik backed off.

“Just a little,” he decided, fixing it for himself. “I don’t like to eat too late.” He leaned back against the counter, the island between him and Charles, holding the bowl under his chin as he ate and watching the boy at the same time. A little uncouth perhaps, but at least Charles wouldn’t think him stuffy.

Charles coughed a little, and Erik set his bowl down. “What would you like to drink?” he asked, opening the refrigerator. He glanced at the contents, which were mostly alcohol and caffeine, and pulled out two bottles. “Juice and water, I think,” he decided, setting them in front of Charles. Then he loosened the lids for him. “You don’t have any allergies, do you?” Those who did usually didn’t last long in professions that put them at the mercy of other people.

“No,” Charles confirmed, taking a sip of the juice. “Thank you.” Whatever he was thinking about Erik’s motivations, he seemed resigned to getting whatever positive things he could out of the situation, like a full belly. “Um, does your mother live around here?” he asked politely, making conversation. He was a star at that when Erik had first seen him.

“In the suburbs,” he replied dismissively. That was not important right now. “Who moved in on Vivian’s operation?” If he had been looking for the boy, he would have learned all this by now, and maybe spared him some unpleasant nights.

This was not Charles’s idea of light party chat, obviously, and he squirmed in his seat. Erik wondered if he should offer him a cushion, or if that would be too much. “This guy from the South Bronx,” Charles finally described uncomfortably. “He—he’s just a thug. He didn’t have the connections Vivian did, so he had to find new uses for us.” He toyed with his spoon instead of eating.

Erik set his own empty bowl down deliberately and walked around to Charles’s side of the island, taking a seat next to him. “You’re not using the ice,” he chided mildly. “Shall I hold it while you eat? Or would you rather hold it, and I’ll feed you?”

Offering to hand-feed Charles was probably going too far; but Erik couldn’t resist the idea. Unfortunately Charles reacted by setting both the ice pack and spoon aside and turning to face Erik in his chair. “Why are you doing this?” he wanted to know, frankly. “Why are you helping me?” And what do you want in return, his eyes added.

Erik smiled a little and tried to project sincerity; he often tried to project sincerity to cover up his true feelings, so it was difficult when he wanted to convey what he really felt. “I like you, Charles,” he said simply. “I’ve thought of you often since we met.”

This was not enough for Charles. “I’ve met a lot of people,” he replied stiffly. And none had acted as Erik had.

That was because there was no one like Erik. He held out his hand, palm up, casual but silent until Charles slowly took it, and Erik caressed his skin gently. “I think you have a lot of potential,” he went on, “and I want you to have the opportunity to realize it. Surely you must have had some ambition in life other than this.” He gestured vaguely towards the bruises on his face but encompassed everything about Charles’s life that he knew of, including his time with Vivian. A pimp was a pimp, and that was Vivian; but in the brief time Erik had known her, he got the impression she was a reasonable person, who would have seen the business sense in letting Charles go, for enough cash and Erik’s goodwill. This new fellow clearly had little reason or sense. “Maybe you would like to go to school,” Erik suggested, when Charles remained silent.

“Would you—” Charles’s fingers curled in Erik’s hand. “You would want to make some kind of long-term arrangement, then?” he asked, his tone struggling for matter-of-fact.

Erik let his hand go; it had gone limp and dead. “No,” he tried to clarify. “I’m not talking about something professional. I would like you to stay here because you want to.”

Charles was clearly struggling with this concept. “As… friends?” he suggested, not entirely successful at removing the sarcasm from his tone.

“Well, I’m hoping we’ll have sex again at some point,” Erik told him frankly, emphasizing the again. The memories sparked behind his eyes, as he hoped they did for Charles. “But only because you want to, and not because you feel obligated to.” He recognized there was a significant power imbalance between them at the moment; but he hoped that at some point Charles would feel that less keenly, would realize what he was contributing himself. Erik was startled suddenly to realize how far ahead he was thinking, how permanent—it was one thing to rescue a promising young person from the streets and given him a boost in the right direction, quite another to be imagining him as… a partner.

Erik broke off his gaze at Charles, sharking his head. He needed to project confidence to the boy, and he couldn’t do that if he was questioning himself. “You’ve had a long day,” he noted, standing and moving away. “Let me show you your room, you can finish eating in there if you prefer.”

He started walking down the hall, hands nonchalantly in his pockets, and after a moment Charles hurried after him, clutching his bowl and ice pack. “Right here,” Erik directed, opening the door and turning on the light. “Bathroom’s right there. Take a shower, have more to eat, whatever you like. I’ll probably send a few emails for work, then go to bed. We can talk more in the morning.” Maybe by then he would have thought of a way to explain things to Charles that didn’t scare him off. He shouldn’t be scared, should he? Erik only wanted to help him.

Well, not only. No one did anything in this life that was purely altruistic. Especially not Erik.

But the outcomes could be positive, whatever his motives, and Charles smiled at him, carefully. “Thank you, Erik,” he repeated. “I really—it’s nice to have somewhere… nice to stay for the night.”

Erik thought he was going to choose a different word, like safe, and he took a step closer to the boy, even if it felt like he was looming over him again. “I’m serious, Charles,” he stated. “I want you to stay here, I don’t want you going back to your old life. It’s not just for the night.” He paused, then added with great reluctance, “If you’d really rather stay somewhere else, we can arrange that, as long as it’s safe.” There were some units in this building available for short-term leases, Erik thought.

His eyes bored into Charles’s, and he wished that he could communicate his good intentions telepathically—normally the last thing Erik wanted was for someone to read his mind, but for just this instant, it would be useful, to make Charles feel more comfortable.

Slowly Charles nodded, his smile fading—not because he was unhappy, but because he was understanding the depth of Erik’s feeling, or so Erik hoped. “I would… That’s something I would like to happen,” Charles replied. He stopped short of committing to Erik, but that seemed to be more caution than anything else.

Erik nodded once; that was probably the best he could expect at the moment. “Goodnight, then,” he told Charles, resisting the urge to touch him one last time, and headed for his own room.

“Goodnight, Erik,” Charles responded, and Erik acknowledged this before leaving the boy alone. He suddenly had a lot of new things to put on his to-do list, and he just hoped Charles agreed with them.

Chapter Text

Flashback

The boy—the boy was beautiful, charming, sparkling like a gem even in the midst of a party filled with people who popped and fizzed professionally. Of course the boy was a professional, too, which meant Erik had to speak to someone else first.

She found him on the balcony, with the sense of opportunity really keen businesspeople had. “Lovely evening,” she opened, and Erik abruptly turned his back on it.

“Charles,” he responded, “is quite impressive. I don’t remember seeing him before.” And he would have remembered. “Is he new?”

Vivian gave a coy little shrug. “New here,” she replied vaguely. “I’ve seen you before, Mr. Lehnsherr,” she went on. Some people would be nervous that she knew their name; Erik was not. “I would not have thought Charles to your taste.” As in, male.

Erik made a dismissive gesture. “I’m open-minded,” he told her. “Is Charles?”

Vivian paused, as if considering. Erik could imagine she might actually care about her workers, a little bit—another pimp would have answered yes immediately, without caring what the hooker thought. “He’s only ever been with women,” she finally answered, but this was not necessarily a negative.

Laughter burst from inside the apartment; Erik had been tracking his host carefully and thought he’d better get back soon. “Then tonight will be memorable for him,” he suggested, watching to see her reaction.

Vivian was shrewd, not sentimental. “Double his usual fee,” she decided.

“Can I write you a check?” Erik deadpanned, which wrung a smirk from the woman.

“Half now, half tomorrow,” she allowed, as he discreetly pulled out his wallet. “You’re staying the night?”

“Yes. I’ll want Charles that long.”

That was fine with her. “I’ll go tell him,” she planned, but Erik stopped her.

“Let me talk to him,” he suggested, and Vivian raised an eyebrow. “See if he’s interested.”

“No refunds,” she said immediately, too classy to clutch her purse more tightly.

Erik smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t dream of asking,” he assured her. He was a man of experience, even if he had never dealt with her before. Vivian shrugged, letting him have his way; people liked to play their little games, to pretend that what they’d paid for had come to them willingly. It was all part of the fantasy, wasn’t it? “Good evening,” he told her politely, and left the cool silence of the balcony for the overheated flush of the party.

He made his play for Charles slightly obvious, sidling up to him where he was speaking to two other guests, both women. He was telling a story, something funny and self-deprecating; they were staring at his cherry-red lips and dazzling grin, his hands gesturing rapidly through the air, his crystal blue eyes so fully present. Or maybe that was Erik.

“Let me get you a drink,” he said, as soon as the story was finished. The boy’s drink was only half-finished in his hand; this was merely a ploy.

“Well, cheers, mate,” Charles agreed smoothly, nodding to the ladies as they left them. He probably thought he would be seeing them later.

“I’m Erik,” he introduced, as they sat at the bar. “I’m an engineer.” That usually dissuaded people from asking any more questions, though some took the opportunity to make a humorous quip.

Instead Charles nodded with interest. “Electrical? Mechanical? Nuclear?” The way he pursed his lips gave the staid words a double entendre, but Erik was impressed he knew them.

“Structural,” he clarified. “I keep the buildings up.” The bartender was probably retching at them.

“Do you design buildings?” Charles asked, sucking on the olive from his drink. “Like an architect?”

Erik spent a few minutes educating him on the difference between the two. Charles stayed focused and asked questions, as if they were two ordinary people at a party enjoying each other’s company. Well, not really, people’s eyes usually glazed over pretty quickly in Erik’s experience. If he pushed too far they often found someone on the other side of the room they just had to speak to, and Emma ended up stomping over to hiss at him for traumatizing her guests.

Charles chuckled suddenly. “Have I asked something extremely stupid?” he guessed, and Erik realized he’d been staring silently, lost in thought.

“No, no, sorry,” he reacted hurriedly. “I was just thinking that a friend of mine might like you.”

Charles straightened, subtly, pulled back the inch he’d given. “Oh? Is your friend here?”

That was a business question, and Erik realized the mistake he’d made—he’d forgotten who he was talking to. “No, I didn’t—I didn’t meant it that way,” he explained, regaining the conversation. “I mean, she would enjoy talking to you.”

“Ladies love me,” Charles claimed, with a cheeky grin. “I’m thinking of changing my name to LL Cool C.”

Erik burst out an undignified snort, and Charles laughed in turn—whether at the dorky joke, or the fact that Erik got it, they couldn’t say for sure. Probably best not to examine that one too deeply. For a moment, Charles just seemed pleased to have someone to laugh with.

Duty called, however, and he started to stand. “Well, thank you for the drink, Erik—”

Erik did not touch him, but turned on his stool to block an easy exit. “I would like to talk to you more,” he said leadingly.

Charles was used to dealing with this and prepared to unleash a disarming brush-off. Erik glanced over at Vivian, and Charles followed his gaze. To his surprise, the woman gave him the nod—he was not misusing his time.

This obviously threw him, and he tried to recover. “Um, of course, yes, I would like to talk to you more, too, Erik,” he said, with a mere semblance of conviction, but Erik didn’t mind. “Only—could we go somewhere more comfortable?” he asked, giving a wry smirk. “My bum’s getting sore here.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Erik replied dryly, and Charles coughed out a laugh that was partly nerves.

They walked across the room, Charles working harder than usual to stay casual, and settled on a couch. It was as out of the way as possible for being in the middle of a cocktail party, which was to say, everyone could still see them perfectly well. Maybe Erik was being rude; but he had spent several days with his host already, and been repeatedly told to enjoy himself and not work so hard. Well, now he was trying to do that.

“Where are you from?” Erik asked. Charles’s body language was tenser now, Erik’s less so.

“New York,” Charles claimed. He had a British accent, which sounded real.

“Me too,” Erik told him brightly, equally ridiculous. His own accent was a bit of a muddle.

“Everyone’s from New York,” Charles agreed, rolling with it. “That’s a very safe place to be from.”

The word choice seemed odd to Erik. “Safe?”

“I mean, umm—” Charles scrambled a bit. “It’s so big. Everyone passes through there, from every place. Where’s your favorite place to eat?”

Instead of answering this obvious redirect, Erik lowed his voice and leaned closer, trying to make a little more privacy for himself and Charles. “Have you never been with a man before?” he asked quietly.

Charles’s cheeks flushed slightly, endearing for someone who must talk about sex in much more graphic terms regularly. “Um, no,” he admitted, stealing a quick glance at Erik’s reaction.

He kept it neutral. “That seems remarkable.” He did not disbelieve Charles, however. “How did you manage that?”

“Er, Vivian is very… specialized,” Charles tried to explain. Only she had decided tonight that money meant more to her than niche marketing. Or maybe it was Erik’s goodwill she wanted—surely others had offered more for Charles in the past. He looked around a bit helplessly. “Could I get another—”

“I don’t want you to be drunk,” Erik told him firmly. “If you aren’t interested, that’s fine,” he added. He meant this sincerely now, even though his plans for the evening would be altered. “I already spoke to Vivian. It’s up to you.”

“Really?” Charles blinked as though he had no idea what to do with this concept, and that made Erik angry, even though he was benefiting from it.

“Yes, absolutely,” Erik promised him. “You can leave whenever you want.”

“Well…” Charles relaxed incrementally. “Okay. Not everyone gets my trendy jokes, after all,” he claimed, and Erik laughed.

“Please tell me that joke is not reflective of your musical tastes, Schatzi,” Erik rejoined. The endearment slipped out without him meaning to use it; but Charles’s eyes brightened at it.

“No, not at all, my musical taste is very sophisticated,” he claimed. “Along the lines of Cats and Weird Al.” Erik grinned, trying not to show too many teeth in the way Emma said was off-putting.

Charles did not seem put off. He seemed, in fact, like a remarkable creature to Erik, who had seen many creatures in his day. He was paid to be lovely and charming, to make someone feel like they were the only star in his galaxy, and yet, there was something so sincere about it. Erik knew every flavor of bulls—t there was, and he didn’t taste any of them on Charles.

There were a lot of other things he would like to taste on him, though.

“I like Delmonico’s for steak,” Erik stated, trying to put his inappropriate line of thought to good use. “And Ginger Lily for ice cream.”

Charles grinned, dazzling and real. “No one I know has ever heard of Ginger Lily!” he proclaimed happily, and Erik felt the warm glow of triumph. “What I love is how the basic vanilla is just as good as any of the fancy flavors. Like, ultimate vanilla.”

“I’m more of a Rocky Road kind of person,” Erik replied, trying not to turn every comment into a sexual innuendo.

It became more difficult as Charles began to relax, turning to face him on the couch with his knee drawn up, like they were just sitting in the living room at home, comfortable with whatever might happen next. Every so often one or the other of them remembered they were actually at someone else’s house, in the middle of a party—usually when someone was so gauche as to interrupt them. Vivian deployed her other minions skillfully to distract those who had hoped for a piece of Charles’s time, which was useful of her; as for those who wanted to talk to Erik, he had a very particular stare that usually drove them off, which Emma called his ‘why did you even come’ look.

Finally, after the third knowing wink from his host—he was really kind of an irritating man—Erik decided to bring matters to a point. “What?” Charles asked with a little grin, catching his pensive look.

“Would you like to continue talking someone else?” Erik asked him, trying not to pressure.

“Somewhere more private?” Charles suggested, wavering. “Like your room?”

“Yes.”

“And might ‘talking’ be merely a euphemism?”

Erik could not tell how he felt bout this. “It doesn’t have to be,” he promised, “though it would be nice if talking led to other things.”

Charles smirked, but there was something mirthless about it. “You do seem like quite the gentleman, Erik,” he commented, a bit archly.

Boldly Erik took his hand, startling him. “I’m no gentleman,” he stated. It seemed suddenly vital that Charles understand this, in some small way. “But I’m no monster either.” Deliberately he released Charles’s hand and leaned back. “It’s up to you, Schatzi.”

Charles gave him a long look, and Erik tried to be open to the scrutiny—he didn’t need to give everything away, to let Charles see what was important to him. After a moment the boy put his empty glass aside definitively. “Well, I’d like to continue this conversation somewhere even more comfortable,” he decided, a bit too nervous to be effectively flirtatious.

That was alright with Erik, flirtatious could be tiresome. “I know just the place,” he replied, holding out his hand. Charles smiled a little and took it, and together they stood and headed for Erik’s suite at the other end of the apartment. He acknowledged his host as they left—it was only polite—and finally let his imagination run free, thinking of ways to make Charles’s night unforgettable.

Chapter Text

Present day

Charles tried to be very quiet the next morning as he showered and snuck out to the dryer to grab his clean clothes. His injuries looked and felt worse, but that was typical; he’d gotten very good at assessing them and he knew these would heal soon, especially if he was given the food and rest Erik had implied.

He trusted Erik—not completely, not with everything, and there was always the issue of people who meant well but couldn’t deliver—but so far as it went, he thought Erik was a good person. Maybe a little too trusting—Charles ate a banana and contemplated the wallet stuffed with cash Erik had left out on the kitchen counter, along with his keys and pocket change. But the fact was, Erik had had multiple opportunities to treat Charles badly, and he hadn’t done so. In Charles’s experience, bad people couldn’t or didn’t hold themselves back that way.

And he seemed to have some idea how things worked in Charles’s world, at least a little bit. So hopefully, Charles reasoned, even as his stomach tightened with guilt, Erik would understand why Charles had to leave for a while, along with Erik’s cash supply.

Charles wrote a note, at least. He tried not to overthink it, because he didn’t have time—Erik might be up at any moment—and because what he wanted to convey was really stupid. ‘Thanks for wanting to help me, I promise your trust isn’t misplaced even though I’ve just stolen five hundred dollars from you and disappeared.’ I’ll pay it back, Charles wrote in the note. I promise. It sounded so pathetic he almost ripped the note up, but obviously leaving no note would be worse.

Cash in hand, he left the beautiful apartment and took the long ride down in the elevator. His battered cell phone had gotten several calls in the night; he knew who they were from and his heart pounded in his chest at the upcoming confrontation. But he had to do it, he couldn’t have someone like Valdez hanging over him if he was trying to start a new life. New York City was too small for that.

Charles slunk through the elegant lobby, wishing he had a collar to turn up against the eyes that watched him. Were they curious, helpful, suspicious, judgmental? He wasn’t going to stop and check.

The early morning street was chilly as he headed for the subway station, constantly second-guessing himself. Erik’s ideas had inspired him to break away from Valdez, even if he couldn’t allow himself to believe that someone like Erik was really willing or able to swoop in and rescue him. Or that he wouldn’t regret it later, when he saw how much baggage Charles toted along. But if he could be free from Valdez, at least, maybe he could get some kind of legitimate job, low-paying and thankless as it might be, and contribute towards society in a way that didn’t make him feel so sleazy and sick whenever he was alone. And find a way to pay Erik back for his involuntary monetary contribution, or even work it off.

But live with Erik in that beautiful apartment, as friends? Friends with benefits? Charles could certainly see the benefits for himself, but what did Erik get out of it? Nothing he couldn’t pick up pretty easily whenever he wanted, being handsome, confident, and rich. Charles allowed himself to picture it for a moment, and to feel giddy with excitement at the thought of something real and wonderful waiting for him; then he crushed it, ruthless and painful, like squeezing a hangnail. That wasn’t going to happen. Erik might mean well, but he didn’t understand what he was getting into, and Charles couldn’t stand to see the disillusionment when he finally figured it out.

But Charles was taking a major step today because of him, because he had been kind and seen something worth saving and for that, Charles could be grateful.

He exited the subway in a dodgy part of town that he knew well; people recognized him and usually didn’t bother him because they knew he worked for Valdez, which was about the only advantage to the arrangement. Most people were still in bed at this hour, but a few lingered in doorways and at windows, keeping an eye on things, and Charles had the distinctly unpleasant feeling that he was being reported on.

He opened the back door of a crumbling brick building and walked stiffly up three flights of stairs, his muscles twinging. It would have been nice to soak in the massive bathtub in the bathroom at Erik’s, but he hadn’t had time. Best not to think about it anymore.

Politely Charles knocked on an apartment door and saw the peephole darken as someone looked out. Then there was the sound of several locks unhooking, and the door opened to reveal Hot Johnny, one of Valdez’s chief associates. He was not especially attractive, but had earned his nickname by being often in trouble with the police.

He smiled nastily. “Well well well,” he commented archly, as Charles stifled a sigh. “Pretty boy’s finally come back, huh? You know, Valdez has been tryin’ to reach you.”

“I know,” Charles replied shortly. “I’m here to see him. Are you going to keep him waiting?” Confidence was key with people in this world, he’d found, even if he was shaking inside.

Hot Johnny rolled his eyes but moved aside so Charles could enter. The apartment was often crowded, with hookers and enforcers and other shady characters who worked for Valdez, but this morning it was nearly empty, only Hot Johnny to follow him into the room where Valdez and another thug, Beans, were smoking and playing cards. Charles could see from this angle that Valdez had an extra card on his lap, which was just sad because Beans was already as dumb as his namesake. Valdez just couldn’t stand to take the chance that he might somehow win on accident.

The pimp glanced up at Charles as he entered, remaining cool. The room stank of stale smoke and beer, and large men who didn’t take personal hygiene very seriously. Charles thought longingly of the pristine sheets at Erik’s apartment and wondered, not for the first time, how he had ended up here.

“Where you been, chico?” Valdez asked. He sounded calm, like he cared more about his card game, but Charles knew this was deceptive. “I been callin’. You were supposed to come back here last night. That was the deal.” He spoke slowly, but Charles didn’t interrupt. “Even called Markowitz. He said you left him at eleven. So you shoulda been here by midnight with my money.”

“I have your money,” Charles finally assured him.

“I let you come and go by yourself, because you’re responsible,” Valdez went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Do I need to have Hot Johnny follow you around, make sure you get back here?” Although Hot Johnny would find that assignment horribly dull, he grinned broadly at Charles, as if willing and eager.

“I have your money,” Charles repeated, pulling out the crumpled bills his client had given him. He slapped them down on the table by the discarded cards. Then he added the money he’d borrowed from Erik. “And I have this.”

Valdez did a double-take at the extra bills, then tried to regain his cool. “Where’d you get more money?” Beans asked in confusion.

“None of your business,” Charles told him. “But I’m leaving.” Valdez did not react to this. Not that Charles really wanted him to react strongly, but he needed to know he was understood. “I’m not working for you anymore.”

“What is this?” Valdez asked, gesturing towards the money. He finally laid his cards down, giving up on the game. “Like five hundred bucks? Where’d you get that?”

Charles resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “The point is, you keep that, and I leave.”

“See, I think the point is,” Valdez parroted slowly, “that if you came up with five hundred dollars once, you can do it again.”

A cold feeling began in the pit of Charles’s stomach. “No,” he stated, trying to regain his confidence. “This is a one-time offer.”

“And what I think is really funny,” Valdez went on, and Charles heard the door click shut behind him, Hot Johnny blocking his exit, “is that you think five hundred bucks is going to buy me off.”

“It’s—it’s twice what Markowitz paid—” Charles pointed out.

“Yeah, for one evening with you,” Valdez noted. “You try to buy me off with two nights’ work? That’s f----n’ insulting.”

Charles tried to stay calm, think rationally. That was increasingly hard to do in the company of irrational men, however. “Is there a number that would work for you?” he asked, knowing it was a dangerous door to open.

Valdez laughed suddenly, and after a moment Beans and Hot Johnny joined in, with no idea what they were laughing at, beyond Charles. “Bring him here,” Valdez ordered, and suddenly Charles’s arms were twisted behind his back and he found himself slammed down on the table, his face only inches from the cash. His injuries from the night before protested as they were joined by fresh ones.

“You’re a pretty boy, chico,” Valdez told him, grabbing a handful of his hair as if Charles was going somewhere. “I always thought you were smart, too, but now I see you think you’re smarter than you are.”

“Wait, what?” asked Beans, and Valdez rolled his eyes.

“Just search his pockets,” he ordered, and the man patted Charles down roughly, coming up only with his cell phone and otherwise empty wallet.

Valdez chucked it aside in disgust. “Now I’ve got two choices,” he told Charles. “I can mess you up real good—not too permanent, but enough that you remember who the boss is.” Beans brandished his knife—that was the one thing he was good at—and Hot Johnny cackled, leaning painfully on Charles’s arms. “Yeah, the boys like that option,” Valdez noted. Charles felt his heart pounding in his chest, pressed painfully against the table, and automatically started to detach himself from the situation, the way he’d learned to do with his clients.

Valdez shook Charles’s head, trying to keep him present. “Or, I could send you back to whoever gave you that five hundred, and tell them that your rental fee is five grand—a week,” he suggested. Charles closed his eyes, glad there was nothing linking Erik to him for these leeches to find. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to pay Erik back after all. The thought of not seeing Erik again suddenly made him very sad.

“If you do that, do we still get to mess him up?” asked Hot Johnny with some disappointment.

“Only a little bit,” Valdez cautioned. “I don’t want to turn his sugar daddy off. Are we talking about a sugar daddy here?” he asked Charles speculatively. “Or did you just steal this from somewhere? Never thought of using you as a thief, might be useful for bigger cons. He’s got a trustworthy face, don’t you think, Johnny?”

“No,” replied Johnny, but that was obviously the wrong answer. “I mean, yeah,” he corrected himself at Valdez’s look.

“Wait, are we messing him up or not?” Beans wanted to know, losing his thread of the plot.

“I think not,” said a new voice, wonderfully and terrifyingly familiar. Charles feared he might be hallucinating, a sanity-saving daydream that he’d fallen into while his body was abused.

“Who the f—k are you?” Valdez demanded, which was just the sort of thing he would say in Charles’s fantasy.

“A friend of Charles,” the voice replied coolly, calmly, and Charles smiled a little, from where Valdez was pressing his face against the table. This was very vivid. “Let him go.”

“How do you think this ends?” Valdez asked curiously. “There’s three of us and only one of you, and I’ve got a dozen guys without shouting distance.”

“Well then I’ll have to do this quietly,” Erik concluded. There was a flurry of movement then, guns being drawn, and for an instant Charles felt a stab of cold panic. Everything seemed so real, but it couldn’t possibly be—

There were two faint pops, and Hot Johnny and Beans tumbled to the floor with a thump. Released, Charles straightened up quickly, stumbling backwards away from the table. Erik was standing in the doorway, dressed all in black with a gun and silencer like he was James f-----g Bond, his eyes mainly on Valdez but occasionally flicking to Charles.

“Pick up the money,” Erik ordered, his gun trained on the shocked pimp.

“Do you mean me--?” Charles asked hesitantly.

“You talking to me?” Valdez said at the same time.

“Charles, pick up the money, please,” Erik repeated, with more clarity and slightly gentler.

“Oh, okay,” Charles agreed.

“You gotta be clear, man—” Valdez complained.

“You, don’t move,” Erik told him, and he stilled with his hands up.

Charles stepped over Hot Johnny’s prone body to get the cash from the table. “I-I was just borrowing this,” he promised Erik, suddenly thinking that hadn’t been a great idea for new reasons. “I was going to pay you back—”

“This is your sugar daddy?” Valdez concluded, alarmed and impressed at the same time. Charles was feeling the same way himself, slightly more alarmed at the moment. “D—n, chico. Didn’t have to pop my boys, though,” he added in a harder tone. “That kind of thing makes me mad.”

Charles glanced down and realized there were large puddles of blood pooling under both men. “S—t!” he yelped, dancing away from it. There was definitely not this much blood in his fantasies, which seemed to imply this was all really happening. “Oh, s—t. I think they’re—” He crouched down by one, trying to turn him over. “Johnny—?” His eyes stared up at Charles, lifeless.

“Charles, what are you doing?” Erik asked, his tone calm but insistent.

“We should, um—like, CPR, or—” Charles did not have training for this sort of thing. “Should we call 911?”

“No,” said Erik and Valdez simultaneously.

“Charles, go downstairs and wait in the car, please,” Erik added.

“Yeah. Uh, right,” Charles acknowledged, standing. “What car?”

“My car.”

“Okay. What kind is it?”

Erik betrayed the tiniest hint of impatience. “Charles, you’ll know it when you see it,” he replied tightly. “Please go.”

“Right,” Charles agreed quickly. “Oh, do you want the money, Erik?”

“Erik, huh?” Valdez seized, as if this was important information. “Erik the Sugar Daddy. Well, I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement. That’s actually some of my money you’ve got there,” he reminded them, and Charles hesitated.

“Charles, hold onto the money for me,” Erik instructed. “Go down to the car now.”

“Right,” Charles said again, and this time he could see no further questions were allowed. Weaving slightly he hurried through the outer room and into the hall, automatically stuffing the cash in his pocket. He nearly tripped over another body there, another henchman of Valdez’s—no wonder Erik wasn’t worried about reinforcements.

No wonder! Erik wasn’t worried about reinforcements because he was a f-----g one-man SAS squad, to judge from yet another body Charles passed as he stumbled, light-headed, down the stairs. All thugs, all bad guys, no one would miss them—but they all had mothers, didn’t they, sometimes kids—probably still better off without them, given what Charles knew of them personally—but what did that say about someone who could take them down—

Charles stumbled out into the fresh air, where an enormous black car sat, perched ridiculously in the trash-strewn alley. A nice car like that would normally be stripped in seconds in this neighborhood, but leaning against it was a black-suited man with a long scar running down his face, his entire body giving off a very strong ‘don’t f—k with me’ vibe. Charles staggered and started to walk in the opposite direction.

“You must be the boy,” the man said suddenly, with a thick Russian accent. “Get in the car.”

“Th-that car?” Charles stammered, hesitating.

The man reached over and opened the back door. “This car,” he confirmed. “Erik’s car. You know Erik, yes?”

“Yes,” Charles agreed, and had little choice but to get into the car as directed. For a moment, after the door was shut and he was cocooned in the plush, silent interior, Charles felt an instant of calm—Erik had rescued him! Then he scrambled across the car, opened the door, and threw up on the gravel, because Erik had rescued him by killing everyone, and it didn’t seem like this was his first time.

The driver came around to look at Charles’s pathetic form. “You missed the car,” he noted. “Good. Back in. Here he comes.”

Charles looked up suddenly to see Erik exiting the building very calmly, hands in the pockets of his black jacket, like this was just an ordinary morning for him. The driver opened the door again and Erik settled in, pausing when he saw Charles still leaning halfway out the other side.

“Are you leaving?” he asked curiously.

“No,” Charles replied quickly, pulling his feet back in so he could shut the door. “Just—puking.”

Erik did not seem to find this odd. “Ah.” He flicked a switch on the door. “Home, please, Azazel,” he commanded. “You met Azazel?” he asked Charles as the car started to move. “My driver, and assistant. Very reliable, as those things go.”

As he spoke, he pulled his gun from his jacket and deftly removed the silencer, then checked it for—well, whatever one checked a gun for, Charles wouldn’t know because he tried to stay away from guns—

“I’ll get you a drink,” Erik decided, his eyes flicking over Charles cautiously. The middle seat back opened to reveal a mini-bar and Erik emptied a small bottle of scotch into a glass and held it out to Charles, pressed in the opposite corner of the vehicle. “Have a drink, Charles,” he persuaded. “You’ll feel better.” Charles took it, because yeah, he could really use a drink right now, and Erik carefully tucked his gun away, and then pulled out a wad of cash.

“You’re still holding that money for me?” he asked Charles, who scrambled to produce it, the bills shaking as he offered them to Erik. “Keep it,” Erik denied, and held out the rest, laying it on the seat when Charles didn’t take it. “We’ll add that to your college fund. A contribution from—what was his name?”

“Valdez,” Charles responded shakily.

Erik nodded and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes as if he’d gotten up too early that morning. “And the other two?”

“Hot Johnny and Beans.” Erik had the temerity to smirk faintly at the names, and Charles knocked his drink back, feeling a surge of boldness. “And Tall Fred in the hall, and Short Fred on the stairs—”

“Dear G-d, I got both Freds?” Erik replied lightly. “I had no idea.”

Charles did not find it funny. “Holy s—t, Erik!” he exclaimed, not sure how else to express what he was feeling. “You just—f-----g—”

Erik opened his eyes. “Give me your glass,” he instructed, and Charles handed it over, to be safely tucked away. “You can have another drink when we get home,” he told Charles. “And some more to eat, you could do with regular meals.”

“I’m not hungry,” Charles told him defiantly.

Erik shrugged. “Do you need to stop anywhere first?” he offered.

Charles thought of the tiny apartment he shared with too many people, all of whom were just trying to get by without utterly losing their humanity. “No,” he replied, gazing out the window.

Erik knew this was a lie. “You must have somewhere you stay, Charles,” he insisted. “Some clothes, or—”

“No,” Charles repeated firmly. He could not bring Erik among his friends, more danger in their already precarious lives.

“Fine,” Erik agreed. “I’ll buy you some new clothes.”

The proprietary way he said this might have thrilled Charles an hour ago, but now it made his temper flare. “I don’t want you to,” he snapped. “I don’t want anything from you, take your money back—” He pushed all the crumpled bills to the center seat. “Let me out on the corner—”

“Charles—”

Th car stopped at a light and Charles tried to open the door himself, but the locks wouldn’t disengage. “Just let me—”

Erik touched his arm, and he was right there, on Charles’s side of the car, crowding him into the corner he couldn’t escape from, a puddle of blood flashing before Charles’s eyes each time he blinked. “Charles, I’m not going to hurt you,” Erik tried to tell him.

“That’s just rather hard to believe, since you’ve been killing everyone else—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Schatzi,” Erik said soothingly, pulling him into an embrace despite Charles’s squirming, his feeble attempts to fight off someone who obviously had a lot more determination and expertise than he did. Erik’s touch was light, though; he seemed to be trying to avoid Charles’s injuries, and when Charles was finally pressed against him, he felt warm and real and, ridiculously, safe. Charles remembered how awful he’d felt taking the money, how awful he’d felt thinking he would never see Erik again because his idiotic plan had backfired, and he found himself clinging to Erik’s jacket, trying not to compound his humiliation by crying.

“Okay, okay,” Erik repeated, brushing his hair carefully. “You’re okay now. Did they hurt you?”

“No,” Charles replied, shaking his head. Not anything unusual, anyway.

“Did you really think five hundred dollars would be enough to buy him off?” Erik asked in a lighter tone, and Charles choked out a messy laugh.

“I thought—I thought—well, yes,” he finally admitted, and felt Erik chuckle around him. “I would have paid it back,” he added hastily. “I wasn’t stealing—”

“I know,” Erik assured him, like he really did know. “That was very dangerous, what you did, Schatzi,” he added more sternly. “I don’t want you doing dangerous things anymore. You’re done with that life. Do you understand?”

“No,” Charles admitted frankly. “I don’t understand anything, Erik.” The other man leaned back a little, to better look him in the eye. Still the same Erik from last night, from that night—but now Charles knew there was an edge behind his eyes, a steel that had nothing to do with boardroom deals or rock-wall climbing or whatever ‘tough’ things Charles had been imagining were part of Erik’s talents. He was a new beast, in familiar clothing. “How could you just—What happened to Valdez?” he wanted to know, or maybe didn’t. “How did you learn to do that? How did you find me?”

The last one was easy for Erik to answer. “I put a tracker on your phone last night,” he admitted, with the grace to look a bit sheepish. “While you were charging it.”

Well, that made perfect sense. “Did you think I would leave?” Charles asked him curiously. He hadn’t made up his mind himself for a long time.

“I thought you might,” Erik replied with a shrug. “If you just wanted to be away from me, I wouldn’t have followed”—he grimaced like this might not be entirely the truth—“but when I read your note, I realized you were probably just going to get into trouble.”

Charles could not deny that was exactly what had happened. “You seem very used to trouble,” he observed pointedly. “And not at all worried about the police.”

“No,” Erik agreed steadily. He was not going to give further details, but Charles pressed him with a look. “I know what precautions to take,” he promised Charles. “Can you think of anyone who will be so upset Valdez is dead, they’ll vow revenge?”

“No,” Charles admitted. “If anything there will be a free-for-all to grab power,” he described, imagining the scramble with distaste.

“Well then.” Erik picked up the cash again, straightening and sorting the bills automatically. “Money does not make up for how they treated you,” he judged soberly. “But it’s the least they could do.” He handed the money to Charles, who took it this time. “And it may suggest, to someone who is very stupid, or who doesn’t want to put much effort in, that the motive was robbery,” he assessed clinically. “That’s about five thousand dollars.”

It seemed like a princely sum to Charles, but Erik probably had shoes that cost that much. “Five hundred of this is yours,” he insisted, counting off the grimy bills. “Please take it,” he added when Erik started to refuse. “I don’t want to—” He stopped himself, realizing how foolish he would sound. “Well, I already owe you,” he acknowledged with a sigh.

Erik took the five hundred. “I don’t think of it that way, Schatzi,” he stated simply. “I don’t want you to think of it that way, either.”

How could Charles not, when so much of his life had been defined by who he owed what, and how they wanted it repaid? Someone might do a small kindness just because they were a good person, but more than that—And what Erik had done was not small. Although some people might call the ‘good person’ part debatable as well.

“What do you do for a living again?” Charles asked him, and Erik quirked his lips into a smile.

“I’m the CEO of an engineering firm,” he replied innocently. “You can look me up. Magneto Enterprises. I didn’t name it,” he added hastily. “Someone in the ‘60s thought the name sounded cool and futuristic.”

“Well, I think it does,” Charles decided. Provided they did a lot with magnets, otherwise it was a bit confusing. “Aren’t you rather young to be a CEO?”

Erik barked out a laugh. “Thank you,” he replied, as if this was a compliment on his youthful appearance, but Charles really didn’t think he could be over thirty, and probably younger.

He was just going to leave it at that, apparently. “And does being the CEO of an engineering firm,” Charles repeated patiently, glancing around as they entered a parking garage, “involve tracking prostitutes and killing pimps?”

“No, that’s just a hobby,” Erik told him. “We’re going to walk a couple blocks, is that okay?”

Charles saw that they had stopped in a dim corner. “Sure, okay.”

They got out and Erik spoke quietly to Azazel for a moment, then clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly way and signaled for Charles to join him as he walked away from the car. “Is this where you park?” Charles asked in confusion, as Erik took his hand.

“Azazel is going to clean up the car,” Erik explained, and Charles felt guilty.

“I got the door open in time—”

Erik chuckled. “No, he’s going to make sure it can’t be identified as the car at a certain crime scene,” he clarified, because that was something you had to think about when you went around causing crime scenes.

“Part of your precautions,” Charles noted. “Should I wear a disguise?”

“No need,” Erik assured him as they stepped outside. “I own this building, and control all the security cameras in the area.”

“This is a very serious hobby,” Charles nudged.

Erik gazed at him for a long moment, and Charles knew he was being assessed. He glanced away, at the traffic picking up on the street—maybe he didn’t want to know any more secrets. His criminal savvy was obviously painfully limited, but one thing he had observed many times was how easily trust could be broken. And the higher the stakes, the more serious the consequences.

He started to break the silence with an inane comment. “Are you hun—”

“I hunt war criminals,” Erik stated, and Charles whipped around to face him. “On the side. Sometimes for money, often for free on my own.” He looked at Charles curiously. “Not many people know that.”

“No, I should think not!” Charles sputtered, before realizing what he was supposed to say. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Erik smirked slightly, as if there was nothing to tell—nothing believable, anyway. “I know you won’t, Schatzi,” he said, and they continued walking. “Were you about to say you were hungry?” he went on casually. “Let’s eat something at home, I can get delivery if there’s nothing—”

“Erik!” Charles protested, dragging him to a stop. “Are we really not going to talk about—” He glanced around, suddenly wondering if someone might overhear.

“Not here, Schatzi,” Erik replied calmly, as if it should be obvious. “We’ll talk at home. Come on.”

They walked a couple of blocks in silence, Charles not understanding where they were until they entered a keycarded, nondescript door and he realized they were in Erik’s building, the same from the night before, only they’d come in the back way. They were thus able to get to Erik’s private elevator without passing through the glamorous lobby again. “I wish I’d known about that this morning,” Charles sighed.

“I’d prefer you use the front,” Erik told him, “so people can keep an eye on you. I also own this building,” he added after a moment, as if sensing this might be relevant to Charles.

Charles was not sure what more he could be impressed by—awed, frightened. “Are you a real estate mogul, too?” he asked lightly.

“Yes,” Erik replied, seeming slightly embarrassed by this. “I inherited a lot,” he explained uncomfortably. “From my grandfather. The engineering company and some of the real estate.”

“I suppose that gets boring after a while,” Charles commented dryly. “So for a hobby you start—” Erik leaned down and kissed him right then.

“Cameras,” he murmured in Charles’s ear.

The younger man felt very foolish. “Right, of course.” He was going to have to be a lot more careful in the future. “I threw up,” he remembered with horror, cheeks flaming, and Erik smirked a little.

“You tasted like scotch,” he claimed. “Do you like corned beef?”

The question threw Charles, but his stomach answered for him. “Yes,” he said anyway, and Erik pulled out his phone, tucking Charles’s hand under his arm so he could text. “There’s a deli nearby I like to order from, they have very fast delivery,” he offered.

Charles was too entranced by the warmth of his hand held close against Erik’s body to register an opinion on the food. “Sure, whatever you like.”

“I usually try to keep kosher, more or less,” Erik warned him, sending the text order in and then reclaiming Charles’s hand.

“Oh, you’re Jewish? I suppose that’s obvious, if you keep kosher,” Charles corrected quickly.

“My mother is much more strict about it,” Erik admitted. “You can eat what you like, of course—”

“No, it’s fine, whatever you usually do,” Charles promised. He didn’t know what length of time Erik was envisioning here—possibly forever—or even what he himself was envisioning. He figured he could probably live without bacon, though.

They exited the elevator and Erik let them into the apartment. “I’ll get you a key later today,” he promised. “I took the day off work but I have to go back tomorrow. Do you want—”

“Sorry, could I go brush my teeth?” Charles interrupted, feeling incomparably grimy in the pristine white space.

“Of course,” Erik allowed. He pulled his jacket off, revealing his gun in a holster, and then took that off as well, raising an eyebrow as Charles just stood there.

“Right,” said Charles suddenly, and hurried off to the bathroom he’d used earlier, with the spare toothbrush and the towels he’s sullied.

Once alone he tried not to throw up again, because—how insane had his life suddenly become? Well, not really that much more insane, he told himself, giving his bruised reflection a hard look in the mirror. It was insane when he found himself selling sex for money. It was insane when he got involved with Valdez and his clients, who resembled characters in a Tarantino knock-off. There was even a little sliver that he allowed himself to remember from before—a golden life of luxury, then a stepfather from Hell. His life had always been insane, Charles concluded depressingly.

He tried to make himself a little more presentable, wary of taking too long, and emerged back into the enormous, sun-drenched living room to find Erik lounging on the couch with a drink. A bottle of water and another glass of scotch waited on the coffee table before him.

“Are these for me?” Charles asked, mustering a pleasant smile.

“Drink them both,” Erik instructed. Charles could see he was used to making decisions and seeing them carried out. “You’re probably still dehydrated.”

“Yeah,” Charles agreed, starting with the scotch. He sat down in the chair across from Erik, not seeing his gun anymore.

“I put it away,” Erik explained, guessing what his roaming gaze meant. “I always put it away. If you find a gun somewhere in the apartment, just leave it alone.”

“Do you have them hidden around?” Charles asked with a dry smirk, wondering if any more scotch might be forthcoming. “Like Easter eggs?”

“For emergencies,” Erik corrected seriously. “Do you want to learn how to shoot?” he offered, which Charles quickly denied. “You might feel safer—”

“No, that’s okay,” Charles insisted. Let him get used to this level of insanity, before he was molded into a sniper next. Erik sipped his drink and watched Charles speculatively, like he was waiting for him to make the next move. “Can we talk now?” Charles asked, trying to be smarter, or failing that, more careful.

“Yes,” Erik agreed. He straightened up, giving Charles his full attention, which the younger man tried not to be overwhelmed by. Charles could see it now, the way every move Erik made was deliberate, the way he was coiled like a predator, with the whole world as his prey. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Charles was used to dealing with dangerous people—Valdez, his clients. He began to suspect Erik was on an entirely different level—a dangerous man who could pass for normal, who didn’t need to posture or abuse the weak to show his power.

“What do you want to talk about first?” Erik prompted, and Charles realized he’d just been staring at him, thinking.

“Um, you hunt war criminals?” Charles repeated, and Erik nodded once. “Do you, like, have a license to do that? Like you bring them to The Hague for trial, or—”

“No,” Erik replied succinctly. “I don’t bring them back for trial.”

“Just—kill them right on the spot, huh?” Charles surmised, clearing his throat. Erik raised an eyebrow in confirmation. “Is there more scotch?” Charles zigzagged.

“Drink your water,” Erik advised. “You didn’t have much for breakfast.”

Charles was about to ask how Erik knew what he’d had for breakfast, then he realized Erik probably had all the bananas numbered and also knew exactly how much each one weighed, in case he had to use it as a weapon someday. Yes, best go easy on the scotch right now.

“Okay, so, you’re tracking a war criminal,” Charles proposed, “like with the Internet and stuff, and—what sort of war criminals? Like there can’t be that many Nazis left. I mean I know there’s other wars,” Charles interrupted, before Erik could answer, fearing he sounded dumb.

“No many Nazis, but lots of other wars,” Erik confirmed. This did not actually tell Charles anything new. “Pretty much anywhere there’s been a war, there’s people who have committed atrocities,” Erik went on vaguely. “The Balkans, Africa, Southeast Asia, South America—” He broke off with a shrug.

“Specifically,” Charles pressed. He didn’t really want gory details, he just wanted something solid, something real, he could cling to.

“It’s really not that interesting,” Erik claimed.

“Oh, I think it is,” Charles refuted dryly.

Erik considered what to tell him. “I learn things from the news,” he described generally. “From what people tell me. Finding a name and evidence of bad deeds is not the hard part,” he assured Charles.

“Is killing them the hard part?” Charles guessed.

“No, not really,” Erik replied thoughtfully. “That’s actually quite easy. Getting away with it is probably the most challenging part.”

“But you’re really good at that,” Charles assumed. “Like, you’re not exactly Jason Bourne, sneaking around off the grid, living in a cabin in the woods. Oh my G-d,” Charles realized suddenly. “You’re like Bruce Wayne! Billionaire playboy by day, Batman by night—”

Charles was completely serious about this analogy, if slightly loopy from lack of sleep. But Erik snorted at him in amusement, slightly ungainly and thus humanizing. “Bruce Wayne,” he repeated. “I’ll have to tell Emma that. I’m not a billionaire, though—”

“Who’s Emma?” Charles wanted to know.

“A friend of mine,” Erik explained, insufficiently.

“Who knows about your, er, hobby.”

“Yes,” Erik confirmed. “You know Frost Diamonds?”

“What—Emma Frost?” Charles sputtered. “You know Emma—Of course you do,” he decided. “All the Fortune 500 CEOs are probably a secret cabal of assassins, right?”

Erik’s lips twitched. “Drink some water,” he repeated. “Perhaps we should wait until after you’ve eaten.”

Charles drank some water. “No, no, no,” he insisted. “This is very serious. I understand it’s very serious,” he assured Erik. Humor was just another of his coping mechanisms for insanity. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“No one would believe you,” Erik shrugged confidently, but Charles wasn’t so sure.

“Probably people who’ve met you would believe me,” he decided, before realizing that was probably not a very smart thing to say. “I mean, you know, you’re not exactly… not non-threatening,” he tried to explain.

Erik blinked at him. “You know, you’re not the first to say that,” he admitted lightly. Then he turned serious again. “Do you feel threatened, Schatzi?”

Charles stared into his eyes for a long moment. “I should,” he finally responded, almost without meaning to, “but I don’t.” Bad people, he thought again, did not put themselves out for others, especially near-strangers.

But, being with a dangerous yet good person was still not necessarily safe. Look what happened to most of the Bond girls.

Charles was about to lighten the mood with a quip along these lines when there was a knock at the door and he tensed. “Who’s that?” The police, Valdez’s gang, some archnemesis of Erik’s because he surely had one—

“Lunch, I expect,” Erik replied calmly. He checked his phone, then walked calmly to the door and unlocked it, exchanging pleasantries and cash with someone before he returned with a bag. “Come eat in the kitchen,” he suggested, and Charles hurried to join him. “I prefer to keep food in the kitchen,” Erik went on, and Charles realized he had switched to ‘house rules,’ “because, as you might have noticed, the décor is very white and shows stains easily.”

“Food stays in the kitchen, right,” Charles agreed dutifully, sliding onto a stool as Erik dispensed food and plates.

“There’s a TV in here,” Erik went on, opening a cabinet, “if you want to watch TV while you eat.” He paused. “I understand people like to do that.”

“Not you, huh?” Charles guessed, tucking into his sandwich which was the best thing he had eaten in a long time. “You don’t ever just kick back with a beer and some pizza, and watch the game?”

“Which game?”

“Any game,” Charles shrugged. “I like football myself—soccer, I mean—but I’m conversant in all mainstream sports.” That was important, when his job was to charm strangers at cocktail parties.

“You find that relaxing?” Erik assumed.

Charles nodded. “I suppose to relax, you like to head to the—” He mimed a gesture.

“Shooting range,” Erik confirmed, which was what Charles had pictured but he couldn’t think of the term. “I also like athletic activities, though—water-skiing, snow skiing, rock climbing.”

Totally billionaire playboy sports. “Not really a team player, though, right?” Charles assessed, and Erik granted that.

“I used to get dinged on my performance reviews for that,” Erik admitted, which made Charles laugh, slightly too hard. He couldn’t imagine Bruce Wayne being given performance reviews, certainly not with any negative parts.

“So how did you—how did you get into this hobby of yours?” Charles asked, and Erik gave him a moment to clarify which hobby he meant, in case he really wanted to talk about water-skiing. “Hunting war criminals.”

Erik paused, as though carefully crafting an answer, that might tell Charles nothing. “When I was younger, I lost some people who were important to me,” he replied slowly. The words were measured, as though each one doled out caused fresh pain. “They were taken. By someone who had taken many other people, but was never brought to justice.”

Charles blinked, waiting for more, but Erik seemed to be done. “So now you bring people to justice,” he concluded. That was a much more positive way of thinking about it.

“I don’t know if it’s justice,” Erik admitted unexpectedly. “If they’re dead, they can’t hurt more people, and they can’t enjoy the profits of their crimes. A clean death is better than what they dealt out, though.” Charles feared this was too heavy a thought to allow his appetite. “I didn’t want it to turn into And Then There Were None,” Erik added more lightly. “I just do it and get out, and stay away from the theatrics.”

Charles laughed again, not because it was really funny, but because it was all so absurd. Sitting around discussing techniques with someone who was obviously a master assassin, though a principled one, driven by the need to avenge a personal loss and dispense justice to the world.

“C----t,” Erik swore suddenly, turning a dark gaze on Charles. “Do not start looking at me that way.”

“What way?” Charles asked in confusion.

“Like I’m the anti-hero of your favorite action movie series,” Erik described acidly, “with a tragic backstory and a romantic mission.”

“No,” Charles insisted, though he had to admit he kind of had been. “No, not at all. Well, a little bit,” he conceded, and Erik rolled his eyes. “Look, you saved me from some pretty vicious people today,” he pointed out, slightly defensive. “You marched in exactly like a romantic anti-hero and shot them all, and saved me.” If he thought about it too much, he became rather overawed, and he set his sandwich down, hardly able to swallow his last bite. “There’s not a lot of people in my life who would want to do that, and none who actually could,” he added softly.

“Don’t start thinking of me as any kind of a hero, Schatzi,” Erik said, but more gently. “Heroes get sloppy. Villains are the ones who have to be careful, stay sharp.”

Charles made eye contact with him, meeting the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t think you’re a villain, Erik,” he avowed. Then he tried for a lighter tone. “But I can go back to puking and trying to jump out of your car, if you want,” he offered.

Erik saw his point. “No, we can skip over that part,” he agreed. “Just—I’m an engineer, a business executive,” he emphasized, and Charles nodded, understanding the cover story was vital. “That’s real, that’s what I spend most of my time working on.”

“I bet you’re a workaholic,” Charles predicted, and Erik grimaced.

“So I’m told.”

Charles picked his sandwich back up. “Well, now you’ve got me to come home to,” he stated, feeling a blissful surge of confidence. “So you’re going to have to improve your work-life balance.”

Erik looked slightly startled at this, then smiled slowly. “You’re going to stay, then?” he surmised.

“I think you need someone to look after you,” Charles decided positively.

“Um, no, I don’t—”

“Someone who is used to moving in wealthy circles,” Charles went on plottingly, “who can be charming, and completely lie to people and make them believe it.”

Erik looked as though he was contemplating the wisdom of this plan—or rather, trying desperately to poke holes in it. Charles wasn’t worried, though. “You can’t like to me, though,” he finally specified, which Charles took as acceptance.

“Agreed,” Charles said, “but sometimes there will be things I don’t want to tell you about.” Flashes of another lifetime danced before his eyes and he blinked them away.

“Funny, I was just about to say the same thing,” Erik replied, giving the younger man an appraising look. Charles did not think Erik had thought him shallow—Erik would not be attracted to such a person, would not put his trust in them—but maybe he was suddenly realizing there were more layers to Charles than he had anticipated.

Erik was good at peeling back layers. But Charles was quite good at keeping them.

They made eye contact over the counter for a long moment. Then Erik nodded slowly. “Hmm,” he noted. “Well, this should be interesting, anyway.”