A Machine Without Feelings (Cherik) | ✓

ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔖𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫

"At first I thought it was Anna-Marie," Charles said, the vivid image of the ghost's face seared into his mind. "But I saw her face, Erik. It was not her. It was a woman that I had never seen before."

"You must have been half in dream, Charles," Erik said, smoothing down the young man's hair as he sat trembling in Erik's lap, head buried in the crook of Erik's neck. The two of them had returned to Erik's bedchambers, Charles having shown him the tattered and ripped clothes that were no more than a pile of scraps now. Erik's face had darkened, before he grabbed the torn fragments and thrown them into a box, hiding them from sight.

They now sat on Erik's bed, the master still dressed in his shirt and pants, while Charles had been given Erik's discarded coat. Charles held the garment tightly around his slighter frame, breathing in the comforting scent of his partner.

"I was not dreaming," Charles replied adamantly, Erik sighing.

"But who else could it have been? If it was not Moira, Angel or Lorna, then who else besides Anna-Marie?"

"Erik, I know what I saw. It was a woman that bore none of their faces, but I had heard her voice before. That laugh. It's haunting. Erik, why are you not more concerned? I am sure she was the same one that set your bed aflame all those weeks ago!"

"Charles, it's just not possible," Erik said, fingers stilling as they threaded through Charles's hair, tickling the nape of his neck. "You were frightened and half asleep, and your nerves were already frazzled from your nightmare. It is not uncommon to see things. I told you before that Anna-Marie is... a singular type of person. She drinks, heavily, and that makes her do erratic things at times. This was one such occasion. No one was hurt, and I will reprimand her in the morning."

Even though he did not converse with Anna-Marie as much as the others, she did not strike Charles as an alcoholic. Charles was very familiar with the type, considering his own mother was always drowning at the bottom of a bottle.

"Erik-"

"Charles, please rest, you're shaking and cold, and I worry," Erik murmured, pulling back to kiss Charles's forehead and lips, helping lower the man into the bed. Charles did not take off Erik's coat, finding it comforting even if it swamped him in size, and Erik smiled down at the sight of his Charles bundled up in his clothes.

Erik pushing Charles's floppy brown hair back from his cherubic face, the young man looking up at him, still a touch frightened but comforted by the feeling of Erik beside him.

"Stay," Charles whispered, Erik nodding, not needing to be told twice. He settled himself in the bed beside Charles, gathering the smaller man into his arms and wrapping himself around him like he could protect him from all of the horrors of the world.

In Erik's arms, Charles was no longer scared of ghosts or phantoms or shadows. He wasn't afraid of Kurt and Cain Marko and the Red Room, and he wasn't afraid of Erik being kept away from him behind a locked iron gate, in the arms of someone else.

Before he drifted off, Charles thought about what Heathcliff said, about love being unbreakable by anything other than the will of those in love. Maybe it was foolish, like Erik said, but Charles couldn't help but find the notion beautiful. For Charles, there was a string tightly knotted under his left ribs, which was similarly knotted to a similar string in Erik. They were bound, and the string would not snap unless one strayed too far, leaving the other behind.

Apart from that, nothing else could cut the string that bound the two of them; not ghosts, nor subordinates, nor potential wives. Charles thought that nothing could come between them, because Erik was his likeness, as he was Erik's.