balancingminds | (no subject)

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erik

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Charles is tired and everyone at the Facility is feeling a bit too close. Cerebro is at the point where they can start finding and meeting other mutants which he should be celebrating but he's not ready yet.

Dealing with Javert in Milliways and wondering if everything will come together has left him tired of selling what he believes. He goes up to the roof to watch the sun go down, there's some space up here.

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"Yes, but you're not terrible, Erik. Powerful, dangerous, arrogant and fascinating but not terrible,"

He smirks and leans forward to clink Erik's glass.

"All those words save arrogant aren't exactly insults, Charles," Erik mildly remarks, arching his brow as he takes a sip of his alcohol now that it's been baptized, so to speak. "And even arrogance has its uses. I'm glad to hear you find me fascinating, however," he muses.

"It does, yes, people don't question you when you know even when you perhaps shouldn't know. Oh I do, I'd also add intriguing, because I've seen parts of your mind but you are unlike anyone I've ever met,"

Erik has a way of making some of his words feel rather small and he's good with words.

Erik raises a brow at the compliment, finding it pleasing without being insulting given that some compliments that he was inclined to receive were over things he would rather not be discussed, fully. "Well, then, if you're only going to say pleasant things about my mind, please continue."

"So the trick to gaining your company is flattery. I'll remember that."

"Perhaps I'm a vain man and I enjoy to hear compliments." It's partially true, but Erik's self-confidence has been built upon his knowing belief in who he is and his strength. He knows he can survive anything. He knows that he is better. "And your company, Charles, is easy to procure. One need only ask."

That surety is something Charles understands, he knows how important it is know yourself and Erik knows much of himself, "I think you can be vain as can I. I'm glad that I can simply ask."

That level of intimacy is a rare gift.

Erik takes a long sip of his drink, regarding Charles curiously as he relaxes into his chair. "Are you going to tell me more about your encounter with this strange man who took apart your shields, then? Or am I left to guess?"

"No, I'll tell you. His name was Slenderman, apparently he's a tree god of some sort and a scary story in certain worlds. What keeps me sane and together is that I always know where I begin and others end. No matter how deep I go into another person's mind, I can always find my way back to what makes me. Somehow he took those shields and that certainty and poked holes in them until I felt I was coming apart at the seams,"

His eyes stay on Erik as he wants him to understand how he works, this isn't something he shares.

Erik narrows his eyes as he tries to fathom precisely how that would work. It truly is terrifying, but the question on his mind is how. It makes him shiver and fear, given that it sounds all too like what the enemies of his youth wanted of his people. "And what does he do to people who aren't like you?"

"He manipulated people, our fear was his power. Some of us like me were going to be sacrificed to him somehow. He brought nightmares and other troubles but I wasn't aware of most of them,"

Charles takes a shaky breath as he remembers that house.

"I thought that I'd been put in an asylum."

Erik imagines that an asylum might be a genuinely petrifying fear for Charles -- one that couldn't be shaken easily -- and he tips his head to the side to regard him. "You're not, though," he points out. "You're here. Safe. You were stronger than him."

"Not as much as I could have been. I lost my grip for a time and that's not something I can ever let happen again."

"I'm rather shamed to think I wasn't there to help stop it," Erik remarks, feeling not as though he ought to be Charles' protector, but rather that he should do it because of their friendship and whatever more that Erik did feel. "That I didn't sense something was awry."

"I didn't have a door while it happened and was in Milliways. You didn't see me at my worst and you would have known. I've wanted to tell you about this but it was a strange time,"

He would have liked Erik's help at the time, but he knows that Erik cares which means rather more.

"And yet, you've seen me at my worst whenever you choose to glimpse into my mind," Erik remarks in reply, arching his brow as he reminds Charles of this fact. "And now, I can mend it only by drinking? Is that all I can do?"

"That's not all you're doing,"

The can do is harder to answer, because no its far from all that he could do, but there's Iris. Iris who he forgets about when he's with Erik but knows he shouldn't. He wants more than he can ask for.

Erik isn't sure where to take such a comment. He settles for giving a thoughtful hum and studies Charles as though he's the one who has learned to read minds. "In your imagination, yes, perhaps I do more."

His gaze is on his drink which he turns in his hands as there are worry lines as he frowns. Erik's phrase makes him smile though its bitter,

"Yes but that's another sort of intimacy that I can't ask for. You listen and argue and understand."

He looks partly up at Erik, he loves Iris but Erik constantly changes everything whenever they're together.

"The only person who says you can't ask for it is yourself," Erik points out, feeling as though he doesn't like to be accused of restricting Charles from doing anything. "I'm not the one who says you can't."

"No, I didn't say you were, but since I recently went to the Trojan War to find Iris. I don't feel like I can. That doesn't stop me thinking about you and wondering but I feel that its not fair to ask."

Erik scoffs and shakes his head. The rest of the drink is gone quickly and he leans forward, feeling the bite of impulse on his tongue. "You're the only one holding back, Charles," he informs him heatedly. "You're the only one with barriers."

Its easy to match Erik's lean though then he ends up in a place that feels vulnerable but he doesn't mind it, not at all,

"Yes, they are a part of how I work. Would you like to come into my head? You're always welcome there."

"No, Charles," Erik replies calmly, hands folded in his lap as he sets aside his drink. "Why would I encourage myself to run into a wall made up of a woman? You might not think it, but she dominates your mind and your thoughts. I may be welcome, but not where I want to be."

"Why can't you both dominate or share my life, since you do?"