"You should have left me to die," Erik said hoarsely from the bed.
Yesterday, he'd had an alarmingly high fever and at times had seemed to be hallucinating. He'd been somewhat vocal during the day, seeming to be trying to tell Charles something, but even attempting to read his mind had not made his intentions clear. His fever had broken overnight, and now that he was lucid he was apparently determined to spout nonsense on purpose to make Charles think he was relapsing. Thankfully, his mind, if a bit muddy at a moment, made enough sense now that it seemed he did, in fact, know what he was saying.
"Just because you've left me to die on five separate occasions doesn't mean I'm about to do it to you." Charles directed his chair toward Erik's bedside so he could feel his forehead. "I've always prided myself on my ability to rise above."
The sour look Erik gave him at this was cheering, as it was the first time in a week he'd been well enough to take offense at something Charles had said to him. "You're a fool, then. You should be on the Blackbird."
"You couldn't be on the Blackbird. Where you go, I go." At this point in most arguments, Charles would have chosen to fiddle with his ring, to remind Erik of all the ways things were different between them now, or simply to distract him. Now, though, he was somewhat concerned doing so would contribute to Erik's previous stomach upset, and so left it alone. "Do you remember anything that happened?"
Erik scoffed, then had a coughing fit. "I'm ill, not senile. I remember everything."
"Well, good," Charles said. "I'm glad you seem to be feeling a bit better."
He'd known it was bad when Erik, who had previously found living out of the Blackbird soothing—or, well, as soothing as anything could be, in these dark days—had begun to vomit even more explosively whenever they'd hit some turbulence. Then, he'd begun to vomit because they were moving all. Then, because they were sitting on an abandoned tarmac, surrounded by metal. In the end, there had been nothing for it: Charles had had Hank and Ororo drop them off at this remote, wooden safehouse with the understanding that they'd be back once the next few supply runs were finished, and that by that time Erik would be better or...better.
He'd stopped vomiting so much once they were here, but some of his other symptoms had worsened. Charles would have given a very great deal to have been able to take Erik to a hospital, instead of submitting him to his own inadequate nursing skills.
Now that he was awake, and lucid, Erik looked as if he had much more to say—then again, when didn't Erik have much to say about any decision Charles had made without not only consulting him, but doing exactly what Erik thought he should do—but also as if he were too exhausted to really dig into it. Unsurprisingly, he began to drift to sleep within the next few minutes, though not before saying, "It was two times. Not five."
(It had been eight, actually. Charles had gone with a lower number to spare Erik's feelings.)
***
The next time Erik woke up, he continued the argument with, "And now you'll get it. It'll be worse for you."
Where Erik hadn't been entirely serious about being left to die (oh, he thought he'd meant it, but Charles knew damned well that self-sacrifice was the one thing Erik would never go through with. God help him if he'd left Erik and Erik had lived after all), he truly was concerned about this. His mind was still a confusing jumbled of unfinished thoughts, but near the top of it were memories, tinged with fear: Charles in hospital bed after hospital bed, every time he'd wound up there due to ordinary pneumonia. Of course, this being Erik, he wouldn't bother to remember that Charles had had twice as many hospital visits due to Erik tossing various objects around without first taking Charles' location into account.
"I had my flu shot last year," Charles said. If it were the flu to begin with, which they couldn't be sure of. If a new strain hadn't developed, and even Hank didn't know enough about it to be certain one way or the other. "At any rate, if I were going to get it, I'd most likely have developed symptoms already."
"We need you, Charles." Already Erik seemed to be struggling to stay awake.
"And I need you," Charles said, though he was unsure if Erik even heard this, the latest in the never-ending debate over which of them was the most useless in a battle against creations which had neither minds nor metal parts, when they'd once been forces to be reckoned with.
***
The next day, presented with a small bowl of chicken soup and a few crackers, the former of which was exactly what Charles had been helping him to eat since the beginning of his illness, Erik sniffed and said, "This came from a can."
As if fresh food of any kind hadn't been a rarity for nigh on a year now.
"As it happens, we're all out of chickens for me to slaughter fresh for you," Charles said, and despaired.
***
Erik was decisively on the mend, a fact that became ever more evident over the next few days of complaints. It was too hot. It was too cold. He had too many pillows, and too few. He was hungry, he was too full. Charles' reading lamp was keeping him awake from the other room, somehow, even with the door closed. His highness was up in the middle of the night and wished to be entertained, and never mind how desperately Charles needed a few hours' sleep.
Before long, Charles half-wished he could leave Erik here after all, and come to pick him up when he was completely well again. At the same time, he found himself softening at odd moments, every time he remembered how he'd once have given a great deal indeed to be by Erik's side when he was sick, to have the opportunity even to learn that as stoic as Erik could be when he was on the brink of death, he turned into a gigantic infant the moment he was no longer in grave danger. There'd been a time when, as much as he'd loved Erik, he would never have believed they'd ever have the chance to know each other this well.
***
Even so, Charles had never been so grateful to see anyone as he was to see Hank and Ororo upon their return.
"Oh good, you lived," Hank said to Erik, with somewhat less than the usual amount of insincerity—he'd never liked Erik much and would never trust him, but he knew as well as any of them that they stood a better chance with Erik than without him.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Charles said, so cheerily that it caused Hank, who knew as well as anyone that Charles' own sincerity was often the exact opposite, to give him the side-eye. "Excuse me, I have to reacquaint myself with my cockpit."
What he really meant was that he was going to reacquaint himself with Cerebro—but even he couldn't say that with any sort of cheer, these days. Where once there had been new wonders to see every time he immersed himself in all the minds of the world, there now was little to see besides death, and less that he could give to anyone he met this way. A few minutes of his company, perhaps, but he couldn't fool himself that it meant much.
He couldn't have been under for more than a few minutes before he felt someone nudging him, someone calling his name from the shore.
He came back up, set the headpiece aside, and snapped, "What?"
Erik—and of course it was Erik, it was always Erik who harassed him about not spending too much time in Cerebro; even Hank preferred to have nothing to do with him when he was using Cerebro these days, and he'd endured Charles at his worst for a few long years in the 1970s—looked very tired. It was only now, seeing him in the same seat he'd sat in so often before, that Charles realized how thin he was, how much weight he'd lost when he'd had so little to spare to begin with.
"What are you doing up here? You should be in bed," Charles said, softening yet again.
"I'm sick of being in bed," Erik said, the bristling beneath his words making it clear: he'd accepted being coddled by Charles, but now that the others were back, that was all over.
Erik shoved a cup of water at him, which Charles took and sipped from, knowing that otherwise he'd never hear the end of it. He'd brought sandwiches up, too, which Charles nibbled at even while Erik's thoughts ruminated darkly on the staleness of the bread, and then about Hank and Ororo for not having stolen any flour, meaning that once the few loaves they'd brought had gone, there would be no more until the next supply run.
Then, when there was nothing but crumbs left on the plate, Erik said, "And what did you see in Cerebro today?"
Much as he hated this part, it would have been even more loathsome to have no one with whom to share this burden. And so Charles told him, in as few words as he could manage.
Afterward, both exhausted, they retired together to their bunk in the back of the jet. Before he drifted off, Charles had a moment of clarity, the kind that had come so often in the first few months after Erik had joined them, and which had happened somewhat lesser often lately, as he grew used to Erik's constant presence in his day to day life. It wasn't anything he didn't know, that didn't cross his mind on a daily basis—but it wasn't often, these days, that it took his breath away the way it did now.
"I'm so glad you're here with me, darling" he said, and neverminded Erik's snore.