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From the moment they first began sleeping together, there were few surprises to the nature of Erik’s interests.
Simply one of the benefits of being a telepath, one would think. But really, they’re both adults, and should one be interested enough in keeping matters pushed far beyond vanilla with any true regularity, it’s better to just be out with it from the start.
And Erik was: both interested and honest about it. He confessed to owning a spare closet with a few paychecks’ worth of assorted implements on day one.
Charles had been intrigued.
Very intrigued. He'd not had much experience in this sort of thing, which Erik enjoyed with apparent regularity. Fact was, there hadn’t ever been much call for Charles to get in touch with his masochistic side—at least not in any sort of fun way.
Even if he ever saw a glimpse of such things in the mind of a lover, it wasn’t something that would ever involve him. He never pushed it. People are reluctant enough just seeing a man with a few bust vertebrae without his pants on. Over the years, Charles had become somewhat resigned to thinking of any sex as rather a luxury.
Which was why it was such a glorious surprise, meeting Erik. Hell, the man looks like he stepped right out of an ad for men's corsets. It’s incredible getting him stripped down and straddling a wheelchair at all, much less having him ask right off, “and how would you feel about something a little more adventurous” and letting Charles look?
A man who wouldn’t flinch from telepathy or spinal cord injuries. Charles wasn’t sure that this thing with Erik wasn’t just a very long and delightful dream.
But everyone has to wake up sometime. And six months in—six completely enjoyable months, mind, full of nearly more sex than Charles knew what to do with,and the company and conversations weren’t half-bad, either—that’s when Charles did.
Six months in, and that spare closet hadn’t been opened.
Not once.
Charles had wondered, sometime in month two, whatever happened to all of that? By that point Erik hadn’t so much as held his wrists down, but in month two Charles could excuse it. They were just getting to know each other, he thought. It was reasonable for the “adventurous” portion to get put on hold.
But by now, he found the fact unavoidable. Erik wasn’t taking a single step toward his more sadistic leanings, and Charles was all too sure as to why.
Only a matter of time before he had to call it out.
“You aren’t going to break me, you know,” he snaps one day, and Erik makes a muffled hum of confusion.
Naturally, Charles determined that the absolute best time for this conversation is whilst spread-eagled on Erik’s bed, with Erik’s mouth around his soft prick.
Erik withdraws slowly, cupping Charles’s cock with his hand when he pulls off.
“I know,” Erik says, frowning. “I think I’ve done this a few times before.”
Charles pushes up to his elbows, glaring down at him.
“Yeah, you’ve done that before. And I appreciate it. God knows, I appreciate every minute of it, but—” he trails off, thinking of how to formulate this without completely ruining what he does have with Erik.
There’s no relationship without trust and respect, he recites to himself. He’s fallen in this trap before, accepting pittances and winding up with nothing at all. May as well be blunt about it, and so he jerks his head towards the locked door of the small spare closet.
“But what about that? Afraid you’ll hurt me?”
Erik lets his hand up. Slowly, he moves to sit by Charles’s side.
“Well. That would be the point,” he says. It’s meant as a joke, Charles is sure, but there’s something in Erik’s mind, in the tone of his voice, that speaks of being ashamed.
Good, Charles thinks. That’s a start.
“So that is the problem.”
Erik frowns, staring at his hands. “I don’t think you’re weak,” he says. It comes out a little too quick. “I just…” he meets Charles’s gaze again, looks at him searchingly. Whatever he sees, he slumps, as if defeated.
“Yes,” he admits.
The word sparks indignation, the anger warm in Charles’s chest. At least it was only a six-month investment, he thinks. In the scheme of things, that’s nothing. He’s spent years in relationships before figuring out he was being protected, like he wasn’t much more than a child. Six months is a reasonably good turnaround.
He’s about to just tell Erik off, collect himself and get out. But he wonders.
Could he push the matter? There’s nothing much at stake here. How soon would he have even this much of a chance to try out some kinky sex?
“Well, you won’t,” he says. “I’ve had five back surgeries. What’s the worst you think you can do?”
Erik doesn’t break eye contact, not this time. They hold it for a while, neither one speaking, before Erik answers.
“You’re right.”
Charles tries not to look impressed. It’s not what he expected.
“I’m going to get some things,” Erik adds, “try to keep your eyes closed.”
Now Charles can barely shield his thoughts, which are almost entirely oh, shit, that worked?. He’s still a bit suspicious, of course. Not about what Erik could do—the negotiation phase, that Erik managed to get through early on—but that Erik could just be coddling him, even now. All the same, he gives in to his curiosity. Relaxing against the pillows again, he waits, listening to Erik walk across the room, to the faint noise of him opening the door, to the clatter of something unknown.
It’s tempting to open his eyes again, or to slip into Erik’s mind. He could learn right now, Charles thinks. He could see what Erik’s planning, if he’s even planning anything at all. He could see how weak it is that Erik truly thinks him.
But the suspense is enticing, the wait only stoking the slow warmth of arousal, and he'd rather his illusions of how Erik perceives him be kept as long as possible. Charles remains still, eyes shut, his mind focused inward. The sound of Erik sorting through the closet, the coolness of the pillowcases beneath him, that’s all that he allows himself to focus on while he waits.
He can sense Erik standing beside the bed for a moment, likely placing whatever he’s got on the bedside table and taking his sweet time with it, too. Charles shifts a little.
“Impatient?” he hears, and he has to scoff.
“I should say so, I’ve been waiting six months.”
There’s a stillness, Erik pausing again. Then he moves, the mattress shifting as he kneels once more by Charles’s side.
“I can only apologize,” Erik says. That alone is annoying, like Erik’s just going condescending on him, but before he can pay it much mind there’s something wet and shockingly cold running up the inside of his arm, wrist to shoulder.
“Jesus,” he yelps, despite himself. At least Erik doesn’t take it as a sign to stop, he laughs and the sensation happens again, another broad swipe, just to the side of the first.
“At least I know you aren’t cheating,” Erik says. Whatever he’s doing, it’s not so unpleasant now that Charles is expecting it. It’s just peculiar, and annoyingly it is not unpleasant, he thinks. Just odd, and cold, and—he sucks in a breath as Erik drags whatever-it-is hard over one nipple—and smelling harsh and antiseptic.
Rubbing alcohol?, he wonders. He can’t help squirming a little under Erik’s attentions, the wet motion skating up his ribs. What is Erik planning? Getting painted with alcohol is certainly bizarre enough to make him curious, he wants nothing else than to sneak into Erik’s thoughts and find out, yet…
Erik rubs the antiseptic—and Charles is sure that’s what it is, rubbing alcohol, has to be—slow and freezing across the skin low on his abdomen. It’s over-sensitive there, the lowest point Charles can feel fully, and he tenses.
“Hmm,” Erik says, moving the sensation slightly higher. Charles bites his lip, annoyed at himself.
“That wasn’t a ‘stop,’” he grumbles.
“I know. I wasn’t stopping,” and he doesn’t, that cool touch drags further and further up, tracing his collarbones. “But I will soon. This isn’t the main course.”
Well, no, Charles wants to say. Of course not. But the way Erik said that—the lascivious tone, the words themselves—Charles shivers. At least he can excuse it on the alcohol, drying his skin to gooseflesh.
“Main course? You planning to cut me up?” he asks, and there’s something he’d really not considered, but surely he’d have read something from Erik when they’d watched that ghastly Hannibal show—
“Not quite.” Erik brushes his cheek gently before he’s standing again. He’s just finished tracing down the inside of Charles’s left arm, the tender inside of his wrist the last patch.
Charles has had most of his torso and his inner arms rubbed down now, and he tilts his head toward Erik, listening and waiting.
There’s a crinkling sound, something being picked up, or maybe a package being opened.
“‘Not quite?’” he repeats, joking. He hopes Erik can’t see his pulse pounding, that his powers aren’t refined enough to sense the iron in blood. He’s impatient and aroused, but despite his earlier insistence—despite the fact he truly doubts there’s much Erik could or would do to hurt him—he’s nervous, too. “Something like it, though?”
There’s another pause, the peripheral awareness of Erik moving. His skin feels warmer, like the temperature went up in the room, or the lights became brighter, and he startles when Erik finally touches him.
It feels off, and he realizes in an instant. Erik’s wearing gloves.
“Something like,” Erik agrees. He leans in, gives Charles a light kiss, moving like he’s careful to keep their bodies apart. “You’re exquisite like this, Charles,” he says.
“Why, because I’m keeping my telepathic hands to myself?”
Perhaps it’s unkind, but he can’t help asking, and he can feel the falter in Erik’s breath.
“No. Of course not, though—I’d hope you were enjoying something of that. If you’re not—”
“It’s fine. Don’t mind me,” Charles interrupts.
“I have to, right now,” Erik says. He sounds a bit amused, maybe even fond. “It’s a part of what we’re doing here, remember?”
Charles doesn’t say anything, feeling a touch annoyed with himself. When it seems Erik is happy to wait him out, he answers.
“Yeah. I got it. Mind away.”
“Thank you for your permission,” Erik says, deadpan. Charles brushes his mind then, light enough to feel his amusement and nothing of what he’s got planned. “You’ll say, if anything is too much.”
“Yeah,” Charles agrees. It seems a bit too casual though, even for him, even when he’s not expecting much. So he pushes assent through the connection before gathering his powers back once more. “Promise, remember the secret code and everything.”
He doesn’t expect he’ll have to use it, but there’s no way he would forget. Not that he’s self-destructive enough to be outright wishing he’d have to say a safeword they’d picked out a half-year back, but it’d be nice to at least be doing something that vaguely implied he might, at some time, have any reason at all to even have one.
Seemingly in answer, Erik pinches up a bit of skin, maybe an inch beneath his clavicle. “Good. Then tell me, if this is too much,” and Charles is ready to snap at him—seriously, pinching, is that it, Erik?—but all he can do is gasp.
It’s a sudden, sharp pierce of sensation, one that only fades into a dull throb as he breathes, and it’s shocking enough that there’s no keeping his eyes closed. They fly open automatically, beyond his control.
Erik’s standing over him, one hand braced on his chest, the other held steadily in the air, a handsbreadth away from Charles’s skin. His gaze is steady, he’s watching Charles with his features carefully blank. As if he’s willing his own reaction away, as if to see the purest form of Charles’s.
Charles looks down at his own chest. When he twists his neck to see, the discomfort builds again.
Of course it does. He breathes out, more than a little astonished. Of course moving hurts, because moving pulls the skin around where Erik has pierced him. The needle looks massive, pinned through his flesh, but—
He closes his eyes again, sighing. It doesn’t hurt now, not exactly. Just a pulsing, his body reacting to something foreign. He reaches his mind out to Erik’s, reading and sending his reassurance, and he’s not surprised to hear Erik sigh. Relief and arousal, he can tell, and he’s intoxicated by how Erik is focused so completely on that metal right now.
It would be this, he thinks, but it’s not a bad thing.
Not at all.
“Okay?” Erik asks, his thoughts seeking a verbal confirmation—doubting their connection, he’s that nervous—and Charles nods.
“Quite. Thought I’d said I’d let you know.”
“Yes, well,” Erik pinches his skin again, the mirror of where he’d first done.
This time the needle’s much less of a shock. He hasn’t withdrawn completely from Erik’s mind, so he can even feel it when Erik uses his powers to lift the needle from the packaging, when it hovers effortlessly through the air and pauses by his skin. He can sense it when Erik holds carefully still, concentration centered utterly on the sensation he gets from the bevel penetrating through tight flesh. Again, it’s a stab of pain that pulses into a throbbing.
Erik doesn’t ask if he’s okay after that one, or the next—this time lower, a point about an inch from the first—or the mirror to that. Each needle is a separate spark, a map of tiny injuries that build into a steady burn, a slow cascade of warming and exquisite pain.
They’re silent together through it, for the most part. Once or twice, Erik pauses, whispers aloud to remind Charles to breathe, but that’s it. There’s no questioning, no nervousness left in Erik’s mind. There’s little more than his hunger for Charles’s splayed-out body, than the ache of his neglected arousal, than his keen awareness of every last molecule of stainless steel that lies embedded beneath Charles’s skin.
As for Charles, there is soon little in his mind at all. Perhaps this just started out as a dare, as an experiment, but the focused intensity of Erik’s regard and the pleasant heat spreading down his arms and chest… He becomes swept up, consumed by it. The pierce of each needle hurts, and Erik isn’t sparing any part of his upper body. Distantly, he’s almost thankful they waited this long—Erik is familiar with his body now, he knows the furthest point to pinch up Charles’s skin where he can feel it, low on his stomach and a few inches away from the root of his cock. When the needle pricks through, he shouts, the sensation startling and intense and new again.
He’s sure he’ll have to ask Erik to stop. He keeps waiting for the moment, when the culmination of pain will reach too much. As each piercing is mirrored, one after another, he’s sure it’ll happen soon. Erik almost seems to target where he’s learned Charles is sensitive, the places his body slowly rewired for pleasure. Metal now outlines all of them—the insides of his arms, the delicate skin of his sides, the curving invisible demarcation of where he can and cannot feel. And, eventually, he’s cursing as Erik apparently gathers his courage. A needle thrusts just beside one nipple, and again it’s mirrored, and two more bear through—
The twist of agony makes him shiver, makes his nipples pebble and another wave of discomfort wash through him. His fists tighten on the sheets. Fuck, he thinks, the needles in his forearms pulled by the motion of his arms. Fuck, this won’t be much fun soon. He waits, uneasy and impatient, for the next needle. For Erik to penetrate him again, to stick him where he’s truly vulnerable, to pierce the skin of his wrist or—god, or actually through a nipple. He waits, fighting the urge to squirm, and waits.
It seems an eternity passes. Certain Erik is just pausing, trying to get Charles to be complacent and relaxed so that the next stab comes as a shock, Charles says nothing. But soon, enough time passes that he becomes impatient. Eyes still closed, he reaches out with his power to brush at Erik’s mind.
He’s stopped. He’s truly stopped, not intending to continue, and that’s all Charles senses before he draws his mind back.
“Erik. I didn’t say the safeword,” he says. He keeps his eyes shut, indignation rising up in him once more. Why’d he even bother trusting Erik with this? He supposes he should be happy with what he’d got. The mattress shifts, Erik moving to settle over Charles, propped on his arms just above.
“No,” Erik says, voice is strained and gravelly. Charles nearly flinches when Erik’s fingertips skim gently up his side, parallel to a design of metal and skin. “No, and that isn't the point, but—I ran out.”
Ran out. It’s impossible. Charles had seen, had shared Erik’s ferric awareness of how many there were, and his eyes and thoughts fly open.
Erik isn’t lying. Charles senses that from his mind, first, looking up into Erik’s open face. He’s still honed in on every needle, and each one is—impossible or not—pressed through Charles’s flesh. Stunned, Charles stares up at Erik.
“I’ve never had anyone take that much,” Erik tells him. His thoughts, his expression—they’re singed with desperate, frantic arousal, but under that they’re so wrenchingly honest that Charles can’t possibly doubt him.
“Never,” Erik breathes, leaning down to kiss him. It’s feverish, biting, like Erik’s starved for him. When he breaks the kiss, he pushes up so he’s kneeling and no longer caging Charles’s chest, and Charles takes the invitation and looks.
The needles form a perfectly symmetrical design, orderly and esoteric. The hub and bevel of each one frames a small patch of skin, irritated pink in contrast to the pallor and occasional freckle, and Erik runs his powers through them all, making them vibrate minutely.
“Erik,” Charles moans. He’s too shocked to say anything else. Erik’s reaction is lovely, but seeing it himself… It defies words. He feels transformed, somehow, and Erik bows to kiss him in the few spaces where he remains unadorned, sternum and shoulder and wrist.
«You are flawless,» Erik is sending, «absolutely magnificent. I want you, I want you—»
And that’s all Erik’s mind can manage after that, he’s caught up in the sensation of the steel and Charles’s body.
Charles bites at his lower lip, swarmed by Erik’s emotion. “I want you to have me,” he says, far more honest than he’d normally be. He’s adorned and stripped bare, and though he should feel at the mercy of Erik’s mutation it’s nothing of the sort. It’s as if the needles are hooked into Erik, too; as if they keep him in unforgiving thrall.
«How,» Charles projects, pressing Erik to take his pleasure, and Erik shudders.
He straightens up again, slowly. He’s flushed, the lines of his body tense, and when he asks it seems to overwhelm him, he has to look away.
“Let me come on you,” he begs.
Charles blinks. It’s quite the proposal, and very unlike Erik. They’ve both been tested once, and they’ve been playing safe all this time. Maybe the probability of transmission would be low, but with his skin broken—
“You’re overthinking it,” Erik says, and he puts one hand on Charles’s hip. As Charles watches, he runs it down the pale skin of his thigh. “Here. I’d like—if it’d be all right?”
Worrying his lip again, Charles considers it. Erik’s hand keeps brushing downward, settling on the pathetic knob of one knee.
Charles likes to think his body image isn’t horrible. But from the waist down, he doesn’t have much illusion. If nothing else, he’s certainly not conventionally attractive. The muscles of his thighs and legs have atrophied over time, the bones sticking out, and while he thinks himself rather too pale as a whole, somehow his legs always seem particularly so. Erik’s caressed him there before, mouthed lingeringly up the insides of his thighs, even kissed his feet. But that sort of focus always makes Charles pause. Between his legs, Erik waits, stock still. His prick is full and heavy, the head smearing slick where it brushes his abdomen, and Charles sighs.
“Yeah,” he whispers, “yeah, go on.” He licks his lips, seeing Erik move back again, straddling his right leg. Erik’s practically groaning before he even gets his cock in hand, pumping for a few rough strokes where Charles can watch. Then he’s settling his weight on Charles, and he’s thrusting, face pressed to Charles’s side as he works himself.
He’s not at all quiet about it, moaning the whole time, low and helpless like each noise is forced from him, and his breath is hot against Charles’s skin. Now that his view’s blocked, all Charles can sense of what Erik’s doing is in the frantic pulse of his mind, in the desperate sounds he makes, in the flex of his shoulder and back. And being pinned—as it were—Charles doesn’t dare sit up, or even move his arms to get his hands on Erik, and it doesn’t seem Erik wants him to do much more than lie here anyway. In each needle, there’s the weight of Erik’s powers, heavy as his body; and maybe it’d be awkward, maybe he’d feel restless or ridiculous being splayed out and docile like this, but it’s over so soon.
Erik tenses and curses, and Charles groans, overwhelmed by the rush of Erik’s orgasm, lashing sharp through their minds.
Bracing himself against Charles’s thighs, Erik breathes deeply, head bowed. Charles watches, hardly able to breathe himself, as Erik collects his mind. He can still feel Erik’s powers, pooling under his skin. It’s difficult to be patient, and whenever he shifts the needles dig new furrows of pain.
“Ah,” he sighs, startled. Erik raises his head, staring again at his chest.
“Charles,” he murmurs. Sitting up, he knees to Charles’s side, strong and unselfconscious. On the pale stark line of Charles’s right shin, there’s a splatter of come. Charles swallows, and for a long moment, he doesn’t look away.
Erik strokes down the side of his face, and Charles turns to him.
“I’m sorry,” Erik says. He moves his hand slowly, bringing it over Charles’s neck and shoulder and arm in a long sweep, not touching.
The needles begin to retract, one by one.
“S’alright.” That’s all Charles can manage, gasping as the pull of Erik’s power dives through metal—and, by extension, him. The physicality of it is shocking, making Charles feel only stronger, more sexual, as the words replay in his mind once more. I’ve never seen anyone take so much.
«Never,» Erik pushes at him. «Much less on a first time.»
“I won’t underestimate you again,” he says aloud, tugging lightly at the needles crossed through Charles’s areolae.
Arching, Charles groans, low and desperate. He grabs at Erik’s shoulder, pressing at him to do it again, to never stop.
I’m sure we’ll see to it together, he thinks, loud enough for Erik to overhear, that you don’t.