Title: rest your head (on this heart of mine)
Fandom: X-men: First Class (Charles/Erik)
Rating: not explicit
Length: ~1500 words
Content notes: Kidnapping/captivity. Set sometime post-movie.
Author notes: Thank you to pocky_slash for beta.
Summary: Erik is shaking his head even as Charles speaks. "I told you, Charles, they're watching us. I'm not going to perform for them."

*****

Charles isn't precisely certain how long he's been here. It's impossible to tell, really, with no windows to show natural light, no clocks to mark the passage of time. He could count sleeps, but there's no way of knowing how long each one lasts. The food and drink he's been given (it always arrive while he is sleeping; he hasn't seen his captors once since he arrived) are obviously drugged with something to affect his powers, and he suspects there might be sedation involved as well.

So he's not sure what day it is, not sure whether it's day or night, but at some point he opens his eyes again, and the room is different.

He's not alone. Erik is there.

At first, he wonders if he is dreaming. He could be. He's certainly dreamt of Erik before. Erik is naked, just as Charles is beneath the blankets, no helmet or costume in sight. He's standing upright across the room, next to the door. He's facing away from Charles, and Charles lets his eyes drift up and down the firm lines of Erik's back, letting them pause a little longer on Erik's ass. Erik's lost weight since the last time Charles saw him, and it's not as though Erik ever had much flesh to spare.

Erik's hands are pressed against the wall, slowly trailing across the surface. Looking for weaknesses, maybe, or just getting a sense of exactly what they face. Charles watches, silently, as Erik makes his way to the corner.

Whatever drugs they're giving him haven't taken away his telepathy completely, just ... muted it. Everything is grayscale, where once it was full color. He has to stretch himself, make a concentrated effort to use it. He does so now, reaching out into Erik's mind gently, barely even a graze across it. And, God - even like this, reduced like this, under these circumstances, after all this time, the touch of Erik's consciousness is like cool clear water to a man dying of thirst.

Erik shudders, full body, and Charles watches as he bows his head against the wall for a moment, breathing in deeply, before he turns.

His face completely blank, but his eyes look tired.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Charles says, "but I am so very glad to see you."

Erik snorts and says, "I'm afraid I can't say the same."

He turns away again, back to the wall. Charles doesn't interrupt him again as he makes his way slowly around the room. Charles wonders if he's observing anything interesting. The room is bland, almost featureless, very little color and only a few pieces of furniture, the largest of which is the bed Charles occupies. Charles hasn't noticed any metal, only wood or cement, but perhaps Erik can sense something more helpful.

When Erik has finished his circle, he stops again at the door, sliding down to the floor, and sitting with his back to the wall. He brings his knees up and tucks his chin down towards his chest, closing his eyes.

"You're not going to sleep there," Charles says, and Erik's eyes flutter open. "Come here."

He isn't far enough into Erik's mind to read his thoughts, but he doesn't have to be. The hesitation is clear in every line of his body, so tense that anybody can see it for what it is. Charles feels it like a slap to the face, and just as surprising.

"Ah," he says, around something thick in his throat. "Ah, my darling. I hadn't realized you still hated me that much."

"I don't hate you, Charles," Erik says. He raises his eyes up to the ceiling and sighs. After a minute, he rises to his feet and walks to the bed. He helps Charles shift position, making room for himself, and then he lies down next to Charles, pulling the thin blanket back up over them both.

The bed's not large enough that they don't touch. Erik's skin is chilly everywhere Charles can feel it. Charles has a sudden memory of the two of them in some motel bed, sleeping curled up around each other so tightly; Erik's feet were always freezing, and he would brush them up and down Charles's calves and ankles, laughing at Charles's indignation. He wouldn't be able to feel it if Erik did that now.

He places his hand carefully on Erik's waist, willing some of his comparative warmth into Erik. Erik turns onto his side, so that he's lying, facing Charles. He bites his lip and stares at Charles, and Charles - he can feel something from Erik's mind, something strong and focused, but it's like reading text through a rain-soaked window. Everything's too blurry for him to make it out, to sense exactly what Erik is trying to say.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't understand. You'll have to speak out loud."

Erik looks surprised, pained, angry, in quick succession. He sucks in a breath and says, so quiet it's almost a whisper, "They have some sort of cameras or surveillance watching this room. I can feel the metal, but I can't get at it to disable it."

"Ah," says Charles. He hadn't realized that, but it stands to reason.

"It would have been better if you hadn't said anything before," Erik says. "Now they'll know we care about each other, Charles. That gives them the advantage. They can use us now, one against the other."

For a moment Charles is quiet, trying to take in Erik's words. They make something tighten in his chest, the back of his neck tingle, but he pushes the feelings away. He says, "They already knew, Erik, or they wouldn't have put us in here together."

It's Erik's turn to be silent.

Charles is not expecting Erik to reach out to him, his hand slipping around Charles's wrist in an effortless grip. Erik pulls Charles closer against him, showing off his strength in his easy manipulation of Charles's body. They're chest to chest, and Erik's arm is tight around Charles's back.

"Did they hurt you?" Erik says, lying his forehead against Charles's.

There's a sense of urgency to the question that's almost more than Charles can bear, at this moment. "No," he says, and Erik lets out a long breath. "No, they haven't hurt me. They've left me alone. They haven't even shown themselves to me properly. Their minds are ... strange, Erik. More like an animal's than a human's. I can't get anything from them, even when I feel them close outside."

He lifts his hand to comb through Erik's hair, thick and soft as ever, though with many more hints of silver than the last time he saw it. He thinks of his own hair, starting to thin. They're both getting older. He cups his palm around the nape of Erik's neck, letting his thumb brush lightly over Erik's throat, causing Erik to suck in a breath and press his nails into Charles's back. Charles still remembers every place Erik liked to be touched - that Erik still likes. He doesn't think he'll ever forget.

"We can't," Erik says, in a firmer voice than Charles is expecting.

"No," Charles says, letting his frustration spill out into his voice. "No, don't do that, not here, Erik, not like this. It's not fair. What's stopping us, here and now? What more do you need?"

Erik is shaking his head even as Charles speaks. "I told you, Charles, they're watching us. I'm not going to perform for them. We're not going to mate like two animals in a zoo to ... to satisfy their curiosity, or amuse them."

"That's not what I'm suggesting."

"No?"

"Erik," Charles says, "I don't care about them. It's not about them. It doesn't matter what they do, because they can't strip the meaning from this. This is you and me, here together - and they don't know what a mistake they've made letting us join forces - but fuck them. I don't care if they want a show. What I care about is this."

He kisses Erik, then. As kisses go, it almost makes up for all the time that has passed since the last time they did this, especially the moment when he feels Erik let go, let himself fall into the kiss. He pushes Charles onto his back, crawling over him, draping himself across Charles like a blanket. Charles wraps his arms around Erik's neck, holding him as tightly as he can. If he knew where, precisely, the cameras were, he might use his fingers to send an obscene gesture towards one of them - but as it is, they're better occupied.

Fuck whoever might be watching them now; he and Erik, working together, will take care of them in all good time, Charles has no doubts whatsoever. Working as a team, he would put the two of them up against much greater odds than this. It's just a matter of strategy, preparation, planning. It's just a matter of time.

And they'll get to that, soon. But first - they will have this, Charles thinks, private and for them alone, no matter what others might think.