Charles had yet to put on quite enough weight to where he could sit just anywhere for any notable length of time, so while he ordered his drink he mentally convinced the young woman in the comfy leather seat that she'd study much better in the quiet of home. Really-he needed it more than she did; he had no idea how long he'd have to wait here for his partner's mistress to show up.

"Why can't you just leave this alone?!" Raven had downright shouted at him over the phone when he'd confessed that, for all the time he'd been given, he still wasn't quite at the point where he could put Erik out of his misery and make a decision-make the decision he wanted. "Why do you have to torture him like this? Why did you have to sleep with him if you didn't mean anything by it?"

Charles had done his best to explain, but it was made difficult by the fact that his explanation sounded paltry even to himself; petty, juvenile. Erik had had a meaningless fling. Charles had never had a meaningless fling. He wanted a meaningless fling-he needed one, not for revenge, although he wasn't so blind as to imagine that that wasn't part of it, but to understand what it was, what it meant. And really, it wasn't like he'd had lots of options. What club was he going to go to to hook up with someone while he was still so sickly, frail, scarred and unsettled. Who was he going to get like this? Erik had really been the only option.

"That's bullshit, Charles," Raven had growled back, and then turned plaintive, emotional, and he realized he'd upset her horribly with this new betrayal. She'd only barely forgiven him for not throwing himself into Erik's arms at first sight. Why had he for a moment imagined she'd be able to look on this objectively? "If you'd heard him. If you'd just heard him on the phone when he told me-how happy he was. How absolutely ecstatic-"

He'd cut her off there, not wanting to get into it, because he didn't need her telling him that Erik had been happy. She'd heard him on the phone from three thousand miles away. She hadn't been there, sweaty and sated as Erik was laughing, crying, kissing his face, whispering so they wouldn't wake Alex and Sean, "I love you-I love you." She hadn't been there in the morning, Erik whistling and blasting ABBA, making him tea and smiling like a little child-trusting, happy. She hadn't been there, telepathy following every bout of euphoria, every thrilled thought, every height of ecstasy.

He didn't need her to tell him he'd made Erik happy for once. He didn't need her to tell him how much he'd let the man down again.

Charles hadn't wanted to say anything. What was there to say? "Yes, last night was lovely, but it doesn't mean I love you any more than it meant you loved Logan. It doesn't mean I want to be with you any more than it meant you wanted to be with Logan." Erik didn't deserve that kind of brutal honesty. Erik didn't deserve the brutal feelings he was experiencing. Didn't deserve the confusion of what, exactly, he was feeling because he did love Erik although he didn't want to and he did want to be with him even though he didn't know how to make that happen. He wanted badly, tortuously, to fall back in love with the man, to collapse into it as into a feather bed-but one sharp spike was keeping him pinned where he was, and no matter how much weight he put against it, it just wouldn't give. It seemed self-involved and despicable to try and explain that to a man who had waited for him for twelve years and was now continuing to wait.

Hadn't Erik done everything for him? Hadn't Erik shown him every kindness? Hadn't he shown a saint's patience for his antics, his demands and his snipes and his bad attitude? Why couldn't he just do what Raven told him to-let it go and love Erik the way he had proved he deserved to be loved? Why wasn't Erik's own goodness enough to budge that one last spike free, as it had all the rest?

No, he hadn't said any of this to Erik, hadn't let on in the least. When Erik joked with him he'd joked back, when Erik smiled he smiled, when Erik kissed him he kissed him back, when Erik had done more...well, he couldn't pretend that had been a great hardship on him.

Still, Erik was too much a part of him to not notice that something wasn't quite right. Wasn't the way it had been when they'd lived for each other's smile, wasn't the way it should be or the way he wanted it to be.

By the weekend ABBA had been replaced with Billie Holiday all over again, Erik started rereading De Profundis, had taken to "accidentally" falling asleep on the couch, and Charles felt worse than ever. Erik didn't chew him out for leading him on, didn't cast him injured glares, didn't reprove him in the least. He took in all in stride, and Charles felt like a little child, acting up, throwing a tantrum, testing a martyr of a parent.

At least some good had come from his crippling guilt. He'd started to actively look for Logan. To search for the answer of his last spike.

Erik had told him every single thing about the man, had let him into his very mind regarding it if that's what it took for Charles to get over it. It had helped, but the fact was Erik just knew too little about Logan to give Charles the peace of mind he required. Erik couldn't tell him what Logan's last name was. Or if Logan was his real name or if maybe it was actually just a nickname. He didn't know how old he was or where he'd grown up or what he liked.

"When I couldn't stand it any more," Erik had tried to explain, refusing to let the tears stinging his eyes break free. "I'd call him. He'd come over. I'd get it out of my system and he'd be gone by morning. I didn't want to talk to him."

But Charles did.

He needed this information from the source, needed some information, and Erik was apparently incapable of giving it to him. If this is what it took for him to make a decision, if this was the information he was lacking to figure out how to be with Erik again, how to get past this betrayal, then this was what he had to do. Even if he wasn't quite proud enough of it to tell Erik about it. To admit that it wasn't enough that Erik had told him everything he could, had shown him his every intimate memory of it, that his patience and love and goodness wasn't enough to decide with.

Gulping down his cold chai, Charles started to have second thoughts.

God, what was he doing here? What was he hoping to gain? What was he really waiting for, when it came to Erik? What sign was he waiting on to tell him if he was doing the right thing, if he was giving in or letting go? Was it good to let sleeping dogs lie or was it cowardly to let all that hurt go without standing up for himself? Was that spike something to loathe or was it the last of his self-respect, holding on to his past mistreatment out of principle? Oh, how could he believe that? That if he let Erik in too easily the man would have no reason to behave so well, would return to his old ways, would hurt him all over again. Hadn't the man shown how unlikely that was in his own right? What was Logan going to tell him about it?

Only what Erik was like when Charles wasn't around, what kind of man he was, what he was like when he wasn't on his best behavior, not twelve years ago but today.

Did he need Logan for that? he questioned suddenly, unsure. Why was he going to trust a complete stranger more than the man he loved, than the man he'd loved since he was eighteen? The man who'd sat with him every day for twelve years, without fail, without falter.

This is stupid, he realized, all at once, in such a rush that it made him lightheaded. He was being stupid. He needed to go home. He needed to call Erik and ask him to come pick him up early and forget this whole stupid day, just put his arms around the man and get along as well as he could on his own. Rip himself free from that spike and go on maimed if he had to but to go on. Try to make it work the best he could with the input he had, with the answers Erik could give him, and not worry about any answers that might be just a little bit further outside that scope.

He had his phone out of his pocket and ready to dial when he stopped all at once. A few blocks away, Logan walked into his range.

Slowly, he put his phone back into his pocket and pressed his fingers to his temple.

Immediately, the mind filtered more clearly into view, and Charles' breath stilled in his chest, shocked by the amazement that this plan had actually worked. Like a fisherman with the image on his line, he sent out Logan whenever they left the house and simply waited for a bite.

Eventually, as he was bound to, he got a bite.

Logan, that first mind had responded, and Charles had gasped in his car seat, making Erik jump. He'd latched onto that mind. The man from the apartment upstairs. Keeps tromping in at all hours of the night. What's his fucking job? What brings him storming in at three in the morning and why doesn't he try in the least to be quiet about it? It had been easy after that, once he'd recovered from his shock, to work out a plan. There was a cafe down the street, the perfect place for a stakeout. When he told Erik he wanted some time out and about on his own the man had initially balked, only giving in when Charles explained he'd just be sitting there, just quietly sipping his drink on his own-it wasn't like he was saying he was going to go out and play football with no one to watch out for him. He wasn't completely daft.

Still, he'd imagined he was going to have to wait around a few times, at least a few days, maybe even weeks, before he ran into the man. He hadn't expected this to all be happening so quickly, for Logan's mind to loom larger and clearer in his own as the man stalked closer, a tiger slowly approaching his hiding spot.

Gasping, beginning to panic slightly, Charles ran through the plan in his mind, gripping his cain painfully. Go out. Onto the street-correct side of sidewalk. Logan approaches on his path to his apartment, sees Charles, recognizes Charles, stops in his tracks. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" Charles would ask, softly, politely, as un-antagonistically as possible. No, not "buy" that was too bourgeois. "Get" that's what he'd say. No, "Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?" Yes...yes, exactly.

Yet he didn't move. He just sat there quaking, staring out the window, stared as Logan passed silently by, chewing on a thick, dirty cigar and Charles was too surprised to be angry at his missed opportunity.

Logan smoked? How could he smoke? Erik hated smoking. He wouldn't even let Charles smoke clove cigarettes in college and those had smelled so nice. "You can smoke them if you want to," he'd growled petulantly at nineteen. "But I'm not kissing you if you do." How could he kiss Logan, sleep with Logan, who smoked not clove cigarettes but outright cigars?

Gulping, pressing his fingertips to his temple again, he forced himself to relax back in his chair, and he followed Logan up to his apartment.

Fucking asshole, that's what he was. Taking the fucking bus home like an idiot. Say what you wanted about Erik but at the least the man always gave him a tenner for taxi fare.

Charles gasped, kicked out in surprise. Erik. He said Erik. He did think of Erik. He knew it. Trembling, he pressed back in, pushing aside Logan's current grumbling about how Whatever-His-Name-Was didn't know how to treat a man, would be lucky if Logan didn't clock him straight in the face if he ever saw him again.

Erik, he reminded. What about Erik?

Erik, too, Logan lunged at the thought like a harassed animal, snarling and biting at anything that approached close enough. The sharp, wild thoughts felt like broken glass grazing his skin, between his skull and his brain. Charles took a breath, grit his teeth, but didn't give up the field, listening still. He'd punch him too. He'd thrash the lot of them, these assholes he always fell in with. He didn't deserve this shit, that was for damned sure.

Huffing, Charles strained to draw him away from this wrath, to calm him to the point where he could be drawn in any clear direction besides violence. Erik. What was Erik like? When had he last seen Erik?

Logan shook him off immediately, bristling under even his gentle drawings, but Charles just growled and came back to it. For all his snapping at the leash, Logan had still followed beautifully, was thinking of Erik, of seeing him at that fucking swank party dressed up to the nines. He'd been too surprised at seeing the boyfriend if that's what he was, sitting there in real life although he was in a wheelchair. Logan had always thought he'd died years ago, when he thought of him at all.

Logan didn't want to think of him, and after a rush of anger at him he thought back beyond him, to the last time he'd had a shot, the last time he and Erik were together. "We can't do this again," Erik had grumbled, putting his clothes back on even though they'd only done it the one time and usually Erik could be counted on for a full night before he got kicked out.

Charles fell out again out of shock, because Logan wasn't remembering it right. That's not what Erik looked like: the imperious brow, the sneering mouth, the sharp, predatory eyes. Blinking, he rushed back in.

"It's none of your business why," Erik was snarling, teeth flashing, eyes blazing. Wrong. Even when Charles had pissed him off beyond belief, that's not what he'd looked like-Erik was always more devilish than animalistic with his snarling.

Logan was still proud that he'd got the last word, tackling Erik to the bed, hissing "I'll see you again. You're not as strong as you like to think. I'll see you again," before Erik threw him off with his powers, tossing him against the wall like a fucking doll.

Why did he even care? Why did he even want to see Erik again? The man was a bastard. There wasn't a single good thing about him, besides his cock, and even that only barely made him worth it. He was haughty and dismissive, so fucking holier-than-thou, like some king, the emperor of douches.

No, Charles grit-that wasn't right. Erik was probably the least imperious person he knew. He wasn't above antagonizing people into backing down when he could, that was true, but kingly? Holier-than-thou? All Charles could think of was the quiet way Erik made him tea, the way he smiled and got excited about a good chess move, the way he alternately growled and flirted and pleaded with his physical therapists when he thought they were being a bit too rough with him.

I don't care if I do never see him again. Logan thought. Let that gimp boyfriend have him. They fucking deserve each other. If Charlie likes em brutal and tight-lipped and heartless then good fucking luck to him.

Charles pulled back, but on purpose this time, he was too angry to stay there any longer. Brutal? Erik? This was the same man who sat by his bedside for twelve years and read to him and waited for him, patiently and sadly and painfully. What about that was brutal? As for taciturn-just because he didn't want to talk to Logan, just because he didn't want to share with him, didn't mean he didn't want to share with someone. And heartless! This man whose heart he was breaking, portrayed as some ice-veined imperial twat without a care for anyone in the world...

Logan didn't know Erik at all if this was what he thought of him. Erik's librarian, the security guard at the condo, the barista at the Starbucks on his way to work, the receptionist at the PT office, knew him better and more fully. Charles would have been better off getting hung up on Erik's relationship with any of them rather than this stranger who remained a stranger despite such heady opportunities for more. It was like a man using The Count of Monte Cristo as a coaster, as kindling, as toilet paper. It was at the same time ignoble and pitiful and vicious.

He was struck, painfully, breathlessly, with his own stupidity, with his own mismanagement. God. God, the time he'd wasted. The love he'd suspected and mistrusted, and all for this. Only to find this anemic boogeyman at the bottom of. A sickly snake that cast the shadow of a cobra.

He was so angry, at himself for thinking so little of what he had with Erik, and at Logan for thinking so badly of Erik in his own right, that his anger was enough to drive him up and out of his seat, barely remembering to get his cane underneath him in time. He didn't care about excuses now, didn't care about pretences. All it would take was a momentary push of telepathy to get through the door, then he'd be able to shout at Logan to his heart's content, until he understood his own foolishness towards the man, the saint he'd been so harsh with.

He was upset and mindless with it, and it was hard enough walking even with full concentration. Two steps out of the cafe and it happened. All at once one foot didn't come forward the way it was supposed to and his weight was already shifting onto it with no way to shift it back, and he realized he was falling. It was too shocking, too fast, for him to cry out. He had only enough time to throw a hand out and realize with terror that this was going to hurt, a lot.

He closed his eyes and stopped breathing and waited for it. A pained grunt was knocked out of him as something connected with his diaphragm, and he opened his eyes in shock because he knew he had not hit the ground.

"Charles!" someone was shouting, and he stared at his cane, hanging in midair where he was laid across it, trembling by its dual metal ends.

Before he managed to look up, Erik was already pulling him upright, checking him over and dusting him off, hands quaking.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" the man was huffing. "You didn't have to come looking for me. Are you alright? Can you brea-"

He stopped talking, knocked into silence, when Charles was capable of controlling his own limbs again and used that control to grab Erik by the shoulders, clutch him as close as he could get him, feeling Erik's bones beneath his thin sweater.

"Charles," the man gasped anew, pulling at him. "Charles, god, what's wrong? Are you okay? I'll call someone. I'll call Hank. I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No," Charles laughed, or maybe cried, pulling back enough to look Erik in his terrified eyes, proving there was nothing the matter with him, putting his weight back onto his own feet to prove it even further. "I'm fine. Really...I'm fine. I just...I just missed you."

Erik blinked back at him, mouth dropping open slightly, sun catching on his ginger stubble.

"You what?"

Charles woke up early, but it wasn't his fault-the blinds were just so unbelievably thin in here, and there weren't even any curtains up to block the sun out. He wasn't upset though, he just lay there lazily, blinking slowly in the early morning light, thinking. He thought about the ache in his hips and if maybe he wasn't walking right on them or if this was just something he was going to have to tolerate until little-considered muscles restrengthened themselves. He thought about the book on his nightstand and about how, although he really did want to finish it, he would be most of the morning about it and he had so wanted to get out of the house today. He thought of the man wound round his body like a sweet pea plant, huffing sleepy breaths against his bare shoulder, hair stuck up and gingery in the sunlight, thin mouth turned up in a faint smile even in his sleep. He thought about how young Erik looked when he was happy, how easy it was to remember in him the boy he'd met and fallen in love with like a bolt of lightning, out of the blue and electric.

Smiling, he decided on a whim to do something for the man, any little show of good-grace and affection. He kissed Erik's brow and pushed himself up and out of bed, waking and startling Dantes, to make the man some hot chocolate, just the way he liked it, with real bittersweet chocolate and an indecent heap of cinnamon and nutmeg.

He was immediately dragged back down as Erik tightened the arm around his waist and fenced him in.

"Wha?" the man grumbled.

"I'm getting up," Charles laughed, straining. "Let go of me you groggy git."

But instead Erik wrestled him to the mattress and lay overtop him, skin sticking together where the covers weren't tangled up between them, burying his face in Charles' throat and humming happily.

"No, I don't think I will," he mumbled.

"We're just going to stay in bed all day?" Playing with the man's hair and feeling his breath warm and humid on his collar, he forgot why this was a bad thing.

"Yes please," Erik growled, kissing his neck and reaching under the covers to wrap his arms around Charles' bare waist.

"I've been in a bed for twelve years," he reminded, as if Erik needed reminding. Charles needed more reminding on the fact than he did, more often than not. "Let's go out and do something."

Erik stretched against him, long and limber like an underfed cat, the words coming out groaning but approaching real wakefulness. "Like what?"

"I don't know. You're not going to be off work forever. We've got to take advantage of our time off."

Erik rolled off of him, still staying pressed to his side, and blinked thoughtfully-Charles could feel his eyelashes on his bicep, and the gears turning on the edge of his mind; he pressed in further.

Winter. Damp, Cold. Sick. Pneumonia.

He frowned, confused, and pressed in even more.

This was supposed to be his vacation. Surely he should go on an actual vacation. Get out of the city for the winter. Away from the cold, away from the damp. Too much chance of him getting sick. Of getting pneumonia. Charles wouldn't survive another bout of pneumonia.

The bone-chilling terror this thought sparked in Erik was too much for him and he had to pull away, breathing sharply.

"Are you okay?" Erik asked, nervous, fully awake now.

"Fine..." He waited for the usual huffing tirade-stay out of his head, his mind was his own private property, it was not a playground for Charles to bide his time in whenever the mood struck him. It didn't come, as Erik simply nuzzled closer to him. He jumped ahead of it anyway, just in case it was on the way. "I'm sorry about that. About peeking. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Erik balked. "I like it."

"You what?" Charles squeaked, turning to the man. Erik just gazed, sleepy but happy back at him, those bright gray, blue, green, everything eyes sparkling.

"I like it," Erik smiled at him, and touched his jaw, his cheek, moved on to petting his hair. "I like feeling you there."

"Can you feel it?" Charles asked, surprised. He'd thought he was getting very adept at his telepathy, and it wasn't usual for a good telepath to be sussed out like that.

"It feels warm," Erik explained, closing his eyes and touching the base of his skull. "Like a fish swimming in warm water. I like knowing it's you."

Heart expanding heatedly inside of him, pressing against his ribs, he grinned and turned the man onto his back before sliding atop him and kissing him deeply. He dutifully ignored the dull ache from the bruise that damned cane had left him.

"I'm not going anywhere," he whispered seriously, stroking Erik's stubble. "You know that, don't you? I'm never going to leave you again."

Thin lips pressing together for control, Erik bought himself some time as he watched his own fingers caressing Charles' unruly hair.

"That's not always up to us, Charles," he murmured finally. "I know you wouldn't if you had the choice, not now, I think, but you might not have a choice."

"Well, I survived pneumonia the first time," Charles joked, taking his weight off the man with his elbow propping him up and combing Erik's hair back, thumbing through the smatterings of silver, dignified and strangely, arousingly manly. "And anyway, Hank said himself that my lungs are much stronger these days."

" 'Stronger' does not mean 'impervious'," Erik growled, eyes closing in bliss despite his real frustration. "Come on, we won't have so much time once you're back at school and I'm back at work." Charles didn't respond to that. He still hadn't decided if he would go back to school, at least not right away. He still hadn't figured out the point of it yet. He'd been going to school to blaze the path of mutant genetic study and when he woke up the movement was already ten paces ahead of him. Could he even play catchup if he got back in that field? Maybe he should find something he could make more of a mark in now. "And they've got our deposition-we won't be needed at the hearing. Come on, California's great in the winter. No blizzards, no massive down jackets-just sunshine and Disneyland and oranges."

Charles laughed and slid off Erik's bony frame, but not all the way, lying draped halfway across him and nuzzling into his beard.

"Have you ever even been to California, darling?"

"I couldn't go and leave you here alone!" the man balked immediately. Charles pet him into silence and kissed him affectionately on his scratchy cheek.

"I know, lovely." They simply lay there a moment, basking in each other's warmth. Charles mapped Erik's body with his fingertips, running the edge of his thumb over the man's sharp collarbone, the corner of his shoulder, the bulge of his bicep. Erik was finally putting on some weight it seemed, although Charles could still see too many ribs to please him. He thought of seeing Erik's body in California, in shorts and a T-shirt, with nieces and nephews climbing all over him. The thought did nothing for him. For one, it was barely fall now and that's now Erik dressed all the time. For two, the thought of sharing Erik with little kids who weren't good at sharing on their own, was dreadful. It would leave him nothing to do but talk to Raven, or Azazel, whom he still hardly knew.

"I don't want to go to California," he decided aloud, trying to sound determined rather than plaintive.

Erik didn't ask him why not. He just turned closer to him and spoke into his hair. "Well," he sighed. "Where do you want to go?"

Charles thought about it.

"Anywhere?" he asked, eager now. Why not? Erik was just going to panic more the closer it got to winter, to blizzards and dampness. By time the first frost came he'd be tense as a rabbit at the fox, and Charles wouldn't be able to block it all. Just because he himself wasn't afraid of catching pneumonia and dying didn't mean he wanted to spend his winter listening to Erik be afraid of it.

"Anywhere you want," Erik agreed, smiling. He amended it quickly. "Anywhere over sixty degrees on average, with no rampant disease or inter-country strife."

"So not North Korea you're saying."

"Among other places."

"Oh, I don't care about the country," Charles decided, excited. "All I want is a beach."

"A beach?" He had to wonder why Erik looked so surprised, so nearly haunted by that, as if he'd seen a white spectre rather than white sand.

"Yes. Someplace tropical, with a little bungalow right on the water. And all we'll do is swim and sun-dry on the sand and make love constantly."

He expected some sort of reaction to that, whether laughing or kissing or just an affectionate glance, but Erik just laid there, blinking at the ceiling and thinking. Frowning with this strange reaction, quietly, so as not to attract notice, he reached out. It was a waste, though, as he jerked hard enough to give the game away completely when he saw.

"What?" Erik questioned, suspicious. Charles blushed and didn't answer and that of course was enough.

Still, Erik just smiled at him and rolled his eyes. "Well, I guess it won't be a surprise now," and he put his hand out to draw something to him, but Charles shut him down immediately.

"No!" he shouted, lunging to smother Erik's hand under his weight. He blushed under his own flailing hysteria and smiled weakly as Erik laughed at him. Struggling to explain, he got off Erik's arm and shoved the man's nightstand drawer shut where it had nudged open, carefully not looking at anything in there, even though in his mind he could still see the small blue velvet box. "It was perfect, the way you thought of. Do it that way. I'll act surprised, I promise."

Erik smiled gently, contentedly back at him, and caressed his cheek.

"All right. All right, Charles."

A/N: Dah dah dahhhh! That's all folks! It's been great fun writing for all of you, and thank you so much for being so kind towards this humble little story. I don't have an epilogue planned for this one, but if there are any loose ends or weird things that have escaped me, please let me know and I'll go back and attempt to fix them. I've already decided to rewrite Darwin's second chapter, so I'll get that up either next week or the week after, but I probably won't change much of the actual information involved unless it's one of those loose ends things that have eluded me. I hope that you enjoyed reading, and I hope that if you did you'll drop me a line and stroke my ego (or you can tell me how much you hated it! that's always an option, too, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion!). See you next time hopefully!