The White Queen and her Shadow King sit on their throne, safe behind the psionic shields of the Walled City. The armies of Genosha batter uselessly at the gates, a war locked in stalemate. Magneto, camped in the frozen mud, receives word the Citadel intends to send a telepath to the front lines. The same telepath he met two years ago, who sat across a carved wooden chess set and offered Magneto the first friendly smile in a lifetime. The same telepath who still haunts his dreams.

“It’s alright,” Erik breathed, caring a hand through Charles’s floppy hair. He could still feel the warmth of Charles’s mind inside his own, and surprisingly, it didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.

Sensing this, Charles nipped affectionately at his shoulder before placing a kiss on the same spot. “I really can leave if you want.”

“No.” Erik’s answering thought surprised even himself. He knew that he and the man he was now moving to kiss would never work. They could never work if Charles couldn’t see how dangerous it was for mutants to come out into the open. But somehow none of that seemed to matter as much when their lips met tenderly once more. If Charles sensed any of his thoughts, he didn’t acknowledge them. Instead, he opened his mouth to Erik’s eager tongue, sending wave after wave of acceptance and happiness to the other man, the golden threads of the bond connecting their minds growing subtly stronger.

The problem is it's very hard to tell when a superhero is recklessly endangering himself versus when he's accepting the very real dangers of the job. Tony, who is the embodiment of reckless on a good day, doesn't know if Captain America is throwing himself into his work because it's his work, or because secretly he wishes he were dead.

It scares him. And the fact that it scares him also scares him. Tony is used to being a shallow jerk; he's very good at it. Caring about Steve to the point that he worries if the guy goes off his own personal radar for more than an hour is seriously fucking with him.

In the meantime, there is the Word, and the Word is WikiLeaks. Actually, to be perfectly precise, there are thirty thousand words in a document leaked out of the American military establishment, and every thirty thousand of those words (from the little ones like 'the' to the big ones with friends linking arms like 'somnacin peptide correlation') is on the subject of the once-shadowy practice of dreamshare. The 'once' part of it starts to look extremely lovely to Eames, so bathed in nostalgia is he when the public sinks their teeth into the WikiLeak and CNN and the BBC start broadcasting stories with titles like 'GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED DREAMING?' There are panels and panels, Stephen Colbert makes a musical episode out of it, the American president is forced to deliver speeches, alongside press conferences with upper military personnel, and Eames goes to hide in Liverpool for a while.

Charles didn't have to imagine the feel of scratchy sheets against bare skin; he had only thought of it when he was immediately feeling it from Erik. Since he couldn't seem to pull his awareness away completely, he settled on attempting to rest as quietly as possible in the outermost part of Erik's mind, just lightly aware of the body's sensations. Erik was asleep in 5 breaths; and then deeply asleep, well past dreaming or feeling the tightness in his ribs or -- because he slept so very deeply -- being aware of the memories that Charles accidentally tripped across as he scanned Erik's body, in case there was something serious that he'd missed earlier.

There was the perpetual tightness in the back of Erik's neck, the tension from his head being held firmly in place while Shaw tortured him as a child, every day for the first year he was in his care, less often after that. There were the fingers that had been systematically broken with a small metal hammer until Erik had been able to flatten the hammer into the shape Shaw desired. And there was a sick feeling associated with the inside of his left forearm, a sense of loss of self and dignity that was the tattooing of the identification number upon his entry to Auschwitz, and that was when Charles felt tears leaving hot tracks slipping from the corners of his own eyes toward his ears, before falling on the pillow with tiny slaps.

He couldn't possibly sleep. He kept watch over Erik's slumber until the ship's engines slowed and she eased into port.

Faith, he repeats to himself as he sets off (still dizzy from the physical contact, trying to keep his breath) equipped with nothing but a sword and a purse- and good, thick winter wear. He looks ridiculous, he knows, and people stare at his fur cap and thick cloak as he walks out of the city.

"I'm going to die," he murmurs in his native tongue as the guards of Westchester let him out. He stands outside the iron gates, allowing himself a moment of reflection. He's going to die. He's going to die for a small boy Raven hasn't let go of for a dozen years. He's going to go there and find a grave, or a tumble of bones on the knoll, and no one will know how fruitless it all had been for him because he'll never been seen again.

Ah well.

It is at times like these that Erik finds it hardest to decide what tack to take. Because yes, Charles is his lover, and he goes to sleep beside him and wakes up beside him, and tells him about his day and hears about Charles’ in turn, but Charles is also his prisoner, and Erik is Charles’ jailer, and sometimes the urge to bend the human to his will rises so strongly in Erik’s throat that it’s all he can do to scowl disapprovingly and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder, to squeeze it just shy of too tight. “I’ll not have you waste away to nothing, Charles, when I swore to Raven that I would keep you safe. What would she say if she saw what you’re doing to yourself?”

And Charles winces, face crumpling with the old pain as though Erik’s hand on him had dug into a half-healed wound, and lets Erik lead him to the table, and press a glass of water on him, and when their dinner comes up from the kitchens he eats it, slowly, as though his stomach has forgotten its purpose, as though each mouthful is a meal.

If only he had been a mutant, Erik thinks, then none of this would have been necessary. Although -

Had Charles been a mutant, then he might never have been Erik’s.

"Oh, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong room."

Erik looked confused, then annoyed. This seemed to be a strategy Charles was fond of – when he was losing an argument, he would say or do something unpredictable.

Charles continued, his voice taking on a sarcastic edge, "You're looking for conference room C. That's where you'll find all of the other Holocaust survivors whose mutant powers manifested as they were being dragged from their last surviving family member, thereby catching the eye of a homicidal sadist who went on to imprison and torture them for years. Yes, I believe all of those individuals meet on Thursdays."

Erik felt a twitch in his right arm.

Raven proves to be more than a companionable roommate. She plays jazz on a little radio in the corner, but it’s down low and she’s quiet. She doesn’t bother him when he’s working. But he knows she watches. He never thought that jewelry making was interesting enough to watch. It comes so easily to him, doing anything basic is rather more a chore than fascinating to him. But that’s what takes up most of his time, silver rings and engravings. Setting stones and repairing ancient pieces that once belonged to someones Grandmother or Aunt.

Over the course of two months he divines that Raven has a brother who calls her every Friday. The dance studio is run by a woman named Angel and above them live Sean and Hank. Sean blows glass with a kiln on the roof of the building but keeps a room with Hank. Hank is huge, blue, furry and blushes furiously whenever Raven pays him any attention. He knows that Hank is a certified genius, as explained to him by Sean as he worked to free the kid from the metal cage of the elevator that had gotten stuck, again. The strange noises and once a rather violent explosion come from Hank’s experiments which he assures everyone are legal. Erik is dubious of that, but Hank is nice and he brings back sandwiches from the deli down the road when he goes out.

The situation is ideal. Erik had blushed when Raven told everyone in the building that he was socially awkward and they should leave him alone. Apparently what she says goes, because no one in the building really bothers him past asking him if he’s going to want lunch or if he’ll lock up when he’s done. It suits him just fine.

"Okay, it's late," he says. "Obviously neither of us are making good decisions. Here's the deal. I don't call the cops, you sleep on my sofa tonight."

Mike frowns at him. "What's in it for you?"

"No headline tomorrow reading 'Teen runaway found frozen to death'," Harvey replies. "I have exams coming up, I don't need the guilt."

"Oh, excellent," Xavier said earnestly. He looked like a delighted teenager. "I- oh, I'm sorry. Do you have jet lag? It's night in, in Germany, isn't it? You can go sleep. You can start tomorrow morning."

Erik stared at him. It just hit him, like that, that he had a job. He remembered his plan to walk back to the nearest village. Take buses until his money ran out. See the Statue of Liberty (towering metal HIGH distant). Jump off a bridge or a dock.

Xavier's eyes had gone a little wide. Erik wondered what he was getting. Just vaguely pleasant surprise, he supposed. Thank god he was only a low-level empath. "I'll show you to your room," he was saying. "It's next to the library. It's an adjoining room, actually. I'm always in the library. So it'll be more efficient like that, I suppose. I hope you like it here."

"Thank you, Mr. Xavier," said Erik, more intensely than he'd intended.

Xavier touched the back of his hand gently. "Charles. It's Charles."

“It is far to early in the morning for this,” Erik said, following him after a moment. Wanda and Pietro were good enough to allow him to sleep on weekends, fixing their own cereal and peacefully watching cartoons until at least ten. This was not supposed to be interrupted by handsome men needing help with pianos.

"Plenty of people seek comfort from the person that hurts them in the first place. Especially when that person is the only contact they have."

Erik yanks his arm from Charles’ lazy hold. The mix of emotions on his face makes Charles unsure if he’s going to throw up, cry or deck Charles in the face. Charles braces just in case but doesn’t back down.

They find him asleep in places all over the Mansion – the library, the study, an empty lab, his bedroom – on the floor (always on the floor) and it doesn't matter who points him to his bed, they never find him in it.

"I'm sorry." Charles sat up--propped himself up--beside him, slightly dizzy. "Sorry. I've said something wrong. Sorry."

"It's nothing." Erik's thoughts flashed in strobe, working hard to repress the images: Charles picked up only pain and silver and the war. "I'm going to go for a walk." Erik swung his jacket off the chair, flew his key from the dresser into his hand, and was out the door without a backward look.

"Les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent," herr doktor sings, a small smile on his lips, unbothered by Erik's hyperventilating.

He puts down the scalpel on an already bloody tray, and picks up a small drill.

"Heureux, heureux à en mourir..."

--and then Erik steps back out of the room.

By the time the children wrench the door back open, Erik has already torn down the hallway and made it out the door.

None of them can find him.

He can see the line of Steve's bare back, the breath that pushes into his body, too fast, uneven, and he wonders what Steve sees when he looks at the wall.

"What year is it?" Steve asks.

"Twenty-twelve," Tony replies, and he sits up slowly, lets the sheets slide loose, doesn't touch. He remembers this – how he felt sure he would shatter. There are grey spaces, empty time where he thinks perhaps he did.

"What happened to him before?" Steve interrupts. There's a growing feeling of unease in his stomach, and worse, he recognizes it. Ever since he walked away from Tony he's mentally been cataloging the way Tony hunched around his injured shoulder, favoring his arm, and the unsteadiness in his hands, and the way he swallowed like there was some sort of sour taste lingering in his mouth. He recognizes the symptoms—not precisely, but close enough.

Because the real problem, as the film portrays it, is that Erik's entire life is consumed by his trauma. Like, he appears like someone who wakes up every day ready for someone to come and drag him back to the camps. THAT IS HIS LIFE. All his training, all his actions, you get the sense he's still living in survivor mode, like there's a chance that if he stops fighting they'll finally catch up with him.

And that is, you know, sometimes the product of profound trauma. And to say that such things happened to people IRL after the Holocaust is to say nothing. Erik's portrayal is actually incredibly realistic, in terms of Holocaust survivors, especially in the 60s (oh boy, Israeli history and how it all ties into this, I can't even).

And it's interesting to contrast that with Charles, the asshole who redefines privilege. And you know, when Charles is all ~shocked~ that Erik wants to kill Shaw, and he tells him killing won't bring him peace you kind of wanna go FFFF WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT. Like, Charles' whole life philosophy is based on how he imagines the world to work, having never encountered real hardship. In the beginning of their relationship you see this especially well. Erik is the guy with the plan, the guy who knows where he's going and how, Charles has some ideas but mostly he's still figuring everything out.

More than anything else, he just wanted Tony’s company. It was part of being together to share the same bed, or he’d always thought so, and, well, it was lonely and oddly disorienting, lying in Tony’s big bed by himself while Tony was working down here. Steve didn’t mind—well, not much—but he would have preferred Tony there with him. And it couldn’t be good for Tony to keep the hours he did, anyway.

They played in silence for a long time, Charles clearly having the upper-hand this time since Erik’s mind was elsewhere. He was distracted by the lingering shakiness from his nightmare and Charles’s presence at the foot of his bed, the warm, clean smell of his soap surely soaking into Erik’s linens. Everything about Charles felt and looked and smelled like quiet comfort to Erik, and he was terrified by this. Comfort made you soft and complacent, and Erik couldn’t afford to lose the hard edge of his anger until Shaw was dead and the world was safe for people like them.

"Erik, please," Charles babbles with no idea what to say next. If Erik steps out that door -- Charles has no idea if he'll ever return, to their shared project, to their friendship, to, dare he even hope, a shared bed. Erik stands still as if cast of pale metal, his shoulder a bulwark between them, and Charles hesitantly begins, "I know there are open wounds in your soul, my friend." Erik doesn't even breathe, and the air grows thicker and thicker, but Charles pushes his words out against it anyway. "I hope you know I would never willingly disturb them. But Erik?" Who takes a slow breath, lashes quivering faintly on his cheekbone. "If I keep away from all your scars too, I'll never touch you at all."

“I trusted him,” Tony laughs. “Joke was on me. He came into my home, used my own tech to paralyze me, then pulled the arc reactor out. Then he left me to die. Fun story, huh?” “Not really,” Steve tells him, trying to keep his voice even. The thought of someone doing that to Tony, of violating his trust like that -- it brings up something fierce and hot in his chest. Tony could have been dead before Steve even knew him and that -- “Touching it made you remember.”

Erik stilled, wiping at his face with one hand as he considered. Would he help Charles with the house? Yes. He had nothing better to do, apart from staring at walls that didn’t stare back and trying to make noise enough to cover the silence in his head. But he got the distinct impression that Charles was asking more than that. The impression that, somewhere along the road, the other man fully intended on integrating Erik in his scheme to save the world. [Sequel to Make your wars]

Xavier shifted but didn’t take the blatant hint. “Did you know,” he finally tried again, “that by the time the light of the stars reaches us, some of those very stars have already stopped existing? What we see are only echoes.” Erik took a drag from his cigarette and asked without opening his eyes, “Are you flirting with me or trying to heal whatever trauma Emma has convinced you I suffer from?”

The motorcade ran ten minutes late, because of unexpected construction due to a water line break on the route. At 11:13 am, the President, his four primary agents, three staffers and Nate exited the cars and approached the building in front of a cordoned off block full of people. Patti Jankowski waited until the President was twelve feet away, pausing to wave at the group, calling out a promise to be back in a little bit, before she drew her gun.

He was fine when he handed Steve the tie, fine when he nonchalantly said he enjoys being tied up during sex, and several orders of magnitude more than "fine" when Steve took the tie with a smile and said, "I know just the right knot for that." But now, even though he's sure he's not in any danger, Tony can't shake the feeling at the edges of his mind. It doesn't make sense; he's pushed harder limits than this, in stranger places, with people he barely knew, back before the Funvee and life as Iron Man.

Tony's hands left his tie, and he took a step toward the screen as Captain America appeared, three microphones shoved up under his nose. He looked exhausted, deep shadows under his eyes, a very slight slump to his shoulders. Tony made a noise of exasperation and reached for his phone. "Pepper, I need to go be at the Mansion all this evening - yes, it's urgent. Yes, cancel it."

In which John learns to balance a kinky girlfriend, an asexual boyfriend, a ten-inch cock, his sister, the neighbours, his friends, and his blog. Some are more balanced than others. [Sequel to Touchy, Feely]

Steve jolts awake, heart pounding, the darkness shredded with images, sounds, smells that mean he can't find his bearings. He struggles to sit up, blinks at the walls around him, tries to clear his vision, but he's seeing one thing while knowing another, and his dresser's across the room, but there's leaf canopy, too, the sticky dirt of the jungle floor and the twist of sheets beneath his thighs.

He's tired. Steve is tired, in a bone-deep way that he can't quite parse, that doesn't really make sense. There are a lot of things he's gotten used to being over the years--disillusioned, furious, desperate, even scared--but tired isn't one of them.

In which there are stakeouts and a kidnapping (in that order), and Steve’s threats are not idle.

“How do you lose a full grown man with a broken knee in a hospital?” She shouts, striding down the linoleum hallway, the devil in a fucking brilliant D&G suit and a shirt by Herrera. She can just feel the death threats on the tip of her tongue, lining up for a kamikaze shower of verbal destruction on the fool at the other end of the line, the representative moron who let her baby brother disappear from his hospital bed an hour before supper.

He hates it. He hates all of it - from the damned ‘psychosomatic’ pain in his leg to the near-constant ache in his shoulder. If this is normal life, he wants nothing of it.

John put down his book and fixed his tremoring hand with a baleful stare. His conscious mind was fully aware that the flash and crackle over Baker Street wasn't tracer fire. Telling the difference between rockets bought in Tesco and Taliban rocket attacks was not much of a challenge for anyone who had lived in a warzone. But that didn't stop his body from reacting to the sounds.

They kept John hospitalized for three days, and therefore Sherlock too. The staff had searched for any sign of any reason why John would be able to speak but besides some scratches that were most likely self inflicted there was nothing. Trauma, they had said, his own mind turning against him and keeping him from saying a single word.

In which John can't sleep and Sherlock doesn't sleep, and it all leads somehow to Tyra Banks.

It wasn't anything Ray said, per se, but it was getting to the point where he could feel Ray's eyes on him, even when he wasn't looking. Ray had always been a skilled detective, and it was perhaps foolish to think that Fraser would be able to keep anything from him, even if it was something as innocuous as the fact that he was feeling disturbed by their current case. But what was he supposed to tell Ray, exactly? I'm sorry, Ray, but I'm off my game today because I've been having bad dreams?

Being married wasn't really like what Cam had thought it would be when he was younger. He wasn't exactly sure what he had thought it would be, but he knew it didn't match up. He probably hadn't thought that he'd be sleeping down the hall from his husband. And when he was much younger, Cam hadn't really thought it would be a husband. (Sequel to The Only One)

Cam was very afraid that his mom wouldn't like John. To most John probably seemed cold and unfeeling. He wasn't very affectionate and when he wasn't on duty, John didn't speak very loudly. She would be there for such a short time that Cam didn't think it was long enough for her to accurately gauge the depth of John's feelings for Cam. Cam wasn't sure he'd accurately gauged the depth of John's feelings. (Sequel to Sing To Me)

The thing about John that made Cam wonder the most--he was pretty emotionless. Cam had seen maybe, maybe two smiles grace his lips. He'd never seen John laugh. He'd never seen John get angry. He'd really never seen John as anything other than perfectly restrained. To most he probably appeared laid-back and easy-going. To Cam he seemed permanently broken.

The Washington D.C. tour stop goes horribly wrong when Kris and Adam are involved in an altercation with three off duty sailors that ends with one dead, Adam hanging onto life by a thread, and Kris accused of murder. A novel of love, desire, redemption, regret, and denial--not necessarily in that order.

He's found time, time that used to be wasted in sleep. It's actually sort of cool. Or would be, if he had anything to do with that time. He doesn't, and so he sits during the night, not reading, not watching tv. Just sitting, listening, sometimes thinking and sometimes just blank. Waiting, maybe. For what, he doesn't know.

It's none of your business, where they take Nick. That's for him to decide, or his family, since Nick is in no shape to make many decisions right now. The sedatives haven't had nearly enough impact. Or maybe it is simply that Nick is so massively traumatized that nothing outside full anesthesia would make any difference. You aren't sure. Aren't sure of anything any longer.

But word got around, oh yeah, the grapevine was healthy and bearing lots of fruit. By the next day everybody knew Nick had Moved Out. Nick had Freaked, with a capital F, and that stands for FUCKED, my friends, Nick LOST IT.

He didn't know why his parents were in Vegas looking so haggard.

The last person he expected to see in Nick's living room was Nick himself. Although the doctors were happy with his physical progress, Nick still had no memory of the past fourteen years, and there had been no mention of his being released from Desert Palm. (Sequel to Heaven & Hell)

He pulled the pillow off of his head and sat up, letting his legs dangle over the side of the bed. He scrubbed his hands through his hair. By God, it was still dark! The clock on the fireplace mantel said that it was five o’clock in the morning, though. He had slept the night through and was still exhausted.

I can hardly fathom, recalling it now, how the look on his sweet, weathered, still-boyish face could possibly have been so very vulnerable. What he was asking me was no more than what my brother had asked--to be well, and not sorry, so that he could see it. It meant he loved me. It was no threat or ultimatum, nothing he ought to have worried over no matter how masterful or (incredibly, unfathomably) wealthy I happened to be. But as I have already said, the man suffers from several bizarre misconceptions. Or perhaps we were so accustomed to having no money that having money had thrown his nerves into some disorder. I still don't know. I haven't the smallest notion. Ninety-five percent of him, at present accounting, is a complete mystery to me. But I already loved him and honoured him, so it was no great sacrifice to obey him as well. (Sequel to Four Minor Interludes for the Solo Violin)

The leaps of which I speak--the singular events which drew us exponentially closer each time they took place--shared a common theme which I find somewhat whimsical to this very day. They finally culminated during the business over The Red-Headed League, but on each separate occasion, my friend was playing his violin.

Thunderstorms bothered Steve. Tony had guessed at that fact before they'd been lovers. The way he always seemed to roam the halls of the mansion on nights major thunderstorms rolled through.

I endeavoured to make his agreement unnecessary; the dreams had, at any rate, not come as often as when I was in hospital. He, in turn, did not remark on what he above all others must have seen: the bills from the alienist, the chemist's deliveries, the periodic loss of appetite. It comes with the wartime neurasthenia, though I imagine there is a different name for it now.

"Okay, G, whatever," Sam said. They could deal with whatever was going through G's head in his sleep in the morning. The game had ended late, and unless this ended up being one of the nights G woke up in a cold sweat and shaking, he figured it could wait until they'd both gotten some rest.

Except when Sam came and picked him up he drove him home with him instead of one of the many choices by the beach. "Come on, you can be beach bumming at my place tonight."

Summary: After Reid goes off the rails in Texas, Morgan decides Reid needs a friend to support him through whatever he's going through. Several cases and "awesomely" bad sci-fi flicks later, they both realize "friendship" isn't exactly what they want...but sorting through the baggage that stands in the way of a closer relationship is more difficult than either of them expected.

He sits at her feet, shoulder brushing her knee, and watches TV with her. He refills her glass when she asks and he sits with her, feeling her go very still every time the clip of her video is played in the background of the newscast. Eventually, she crawls into bed and turns off the lights but leaves the TV on. She doesn't tell him to leave, so he stays where he is. Toward dawn, he checks and finds her asleep. He draws the blackout curtains, turns the television off and lies down on the floor beside her bed.