"You're loud, you know," Charles said, not their first time but one of the first times, halfway between a coordinate in Kansas and the next in Arizona with nothing else along the way.
Charles was the loud one; Charles was the one who always winked at Erik when he shushed him, saying that even if anyone did suspect through thin motel walls, there was nothing at all to worry about, he could take it away from them again quick as a, well.
Still, Charles obviously expected to be asked, and Erik had found he didn't mind giving him what he asked for. Especially not when they were like this, sticky and sated, today's room dark now where it had been merely gray when they'd entered. "Loud how?"
"In here." Fingers on Erik's temple, a light touch, so cautious compared to Charles dropping to his knees, Charles straddling him on the bed. "You shout in here."
Erik sniffed. "I certainly can't shout out here."
A laugh from the dark, but Charles didn't try to argue. "I know you can't."
For all Charles' carelessness in those days, the swagger and surety that Erik knew even then as a danger, for all the ways in which he did argue with Erik and try to change him, there was this: He never once suggested that Erik should try to be anything but what he was, when they were like this.
***
You're loud, Erik didn't say, the first time after the beach. Not the first time he'd come to Charles' house since, but the first time he'd wound up in Charles' bed. He'd left his helmet on the nightstand when he stripped down, had known Charles would hear everything when he followed him underneath the covers, and yet had been unable to turn away. He should have, he knew that. Charles was as dangerous as he'd ever been when they were together; more, now that they weren't.
Yet although Erik's own mind had remained silent—the control deafening in its own way, after everything that had used to be there when they fucked—Charles' had been full of everything, from the moment Erik crawled beneath the covers and they kissed. Charles himself had been nearly silent, all soft grunts and whispered 'no, that's not quite—try here, now,' but Erik had still managed to hear his anguish, passed somehow from Charles' skin through to his own, a strange aching song that would linger in Erik's mind and under his skin for weeks.
"I should go," Erik said instead, and if one last thought (Not already? Please—) came through as he pulled away, all Charles had to say then was, "All right," in a steady voice that belied everything beneath.
***
It was like that every time, and every time Erik swore he wouldn't go back. There was so much work to do, and Charles was not interested in his part of it. That was fine, he'd decided—it was good for there to be a sanctuary for the children, and so part of his work was to ensure that that sanctuary was not breached. His work enabled Charles', and if it was thus good for the two of them to talk sometimes, it didn't mean they had to go to bed.
Yet for every time Erik managed to stay away from Charles' house, and for every visit where he pretended he didn't notice the invitation, he always found himself breaking a short while later. When he did, he'd end up in Charles' bed three times a week for a while.
"I can't do this," he said, the first time it went that way, the song so loud in his ears after Monday's visit, and Thursday's, and now it was Saturday night and it was five times as loud as it had ever been before. It was more than deafening; it was blinding, as well. "I can hear your thoughts. When we touch. I don't want it anymore."
He'd waited to say it until they were tangled together in the dark, and so he couldn't miss the answer when it flashed through Charles' mind: Oh, Erik, and I'm sorry, and I didn't realize—
But what Charles said was an unconcerned, "Stop, then."
"That's not," Erik said. "But you—"
There was no point complaining of the same thing Charles had so often mentioned despairing of: The difference between people's words and thoughts, between what they wanted and what they would try for. The easiest thing, Erik had always thought, was to take them at their word, and not worry about the rest.
So he'd take Charles at his. It didn't have to be any more complicated than that.
***
It became more complicated, not all at once but gradually. For all Erik's intentions, he came back again and again, following the same pattern; for all Charles' grief, eventually other things began to come through, too. When Erik leaned down to kiss him, when Charles reached over to haul him into bed faster; those moments after, when Erik stayed beyond when he had always left before, because now there was a new thread in the song. Something warm, intertwined through the loss and the longing; something that was becoming fond not only of Erik's presence but of the way he took his leave.
"You like it when I go," Erik accused, once.
He expected Charles to agree—once, Charles had argued with harsh statements, saying that Erik wasn't a monster, and was so much more than a weapon, too; now, he preferred to say 'That's right. Don't let the door hit you on your way out'—but this time, Charles paused for a moment, then considered. Whatever he was considering, it didn't come through, and then Erik climbed out of bed, to be sure it wouldn't.
"It's not so much that I like it as that it's become familiar," Charles said at last. "Part of the ritual. You come in one way, leave in another way, but the whole is the same, every time."
"And?"
"Well, it means you'll be back," Charles said. "I can even tell when it will be. The set of your shoulders on the way out is really quite telling."
Erik scoffed at this, though perhaps he shouldn't have, as he discovered when he arrived through Charles' window twelve days later to discover a note on the dresser saying that he'd gone to a conference and would return on Friday.
***
Years later, Erik didn't mean for the last time to be the last time. Although he could never seem to keep himself away, it was Charles who had the problem, not him. It was Charles who leaked everything, the moment they touched. Erik could keep on like this forever—
Except this time Charles was quiet, from the first moment they kissed on through the rest, his mind sewn closed as if there had never been a mortal wound there. Erik had wished for so long that Charles would stop, yet now he found himself reeling, as if he had lost something he needed, depended upon. Something that, when it left him, he returned to Charles to re-capture.
"What happened?" he demanded. "Where did you go?"
Charles considered him again, the days of knee-jerk jabs long behind them. "I've decided I'm finished making myself vulnerable when it's never going to get me what I want."
"And what is that?" Erik demanded.
"Don't act as if you don't know," Charles said. "Don't try to tell me you don't want it, too. Half of that was always you, after all."
Erik had suspected, more than once, that Charles was doing it on purpose, that he could turn it off if he pleased; he'd never once suspected there was a reason it called to him so strongly, seemed to fit so well inside his own mind.
"—I didn't know that," he said.
"Well. You're not a very good telepath, then, are you?"
The young man who'd have stormed out that window only to return in three weeks' time had gone the way of those knee-jerk jabs. There was gray in Erik's hair now; Charles had given way to his vanishing hairline years ago and begun shaving what was left of his.
For all Charles' carelessness of his own thoughts over the years, he'd never once asked Erik to stay. His mind might have screamed it, but it had never come out of his mouth, and so could be safely ignored. Erik had never concerned himself with it. It had never kept him up nights. They had parted for a reason, and he could live with it because Charles was nearly always with him. The distance was what it was—
But Erik didn't want it here. The idea that he would leave in an hour or two, and remain alone...
Once, he hadn't been terrified of loneliness. But he'd been young then. He'd been a fool.
"If I say I'll stay," he said. "If I were to say that. You would stop hiding. You would come back."
"Perhaps," Charles said, and if Erik thought he heard a certain triumph there, his suspicion was confirmed a moment later, when that as well as joy sang through them both in the clearest, most breathtaking note of all.