Imaginary

Erik is five the first time he sees Charles.

His foster father’s drunk again, and even as young as he is, he knows to get himself out of his house when Shaw starts cursing at everything that moves, eyes glazed and smelling like an overturned bucket of paint thinner.

Erik kicks at the dirt under his feet, walking in the street just because he knows his foster parents don’t care.

He’s been living with them for six months, and sometimes his foster mother still forgets his name. He wants to like Emma—she’s so pretty—but every time he looks at her she looks away, cold and uncaring.

Shaw pays attention, sometimes. Erik frowns. But not the kind of attention he wants.

Erik wishes he had real parents, like the other kids in school. They look at him funny. They don’t quite know what being a ‘foster kid’ means, but they know he lives in the poor part of town, and they know he doesn’t have any parents.

They don’t know that the Shaws could kick him out whenever they get tired of him, booting him back into the system. But Erik knows. Shaw reminds him of it nearly every day. Reminds him how ‘lucky’ he is, to have a roof over his head and food on the table.

Erik doesn’t feel lucky.

He sighs, scuffing his shoes in the dirt and knowing it doesn’t matter. His clothes are dirty, too.

He wishes he had a brother or sister. Someone to talk to, to hide with when things got bad.

But it’s just Erik; there aren’t even any other kids in the neighborhood.

Then he sees him. Sitting on the broken down fence that separates the road from the cow pasture at its side, there’s a little kid.

Some one just Erik’s age.

His steps speed up as he squints at the little boy. It’s not someone he recognizes from kindergarten, and thank goodness for that.

Erik is normally pretty reserved with other children. He’s been moved around a lot—three foster homes, and he’s only five. He had siblings at the second one, and now they’re gone. He’s had other kids in the neighborhood, or in his class. They’re gone too. Erik figures it’s best not to get attached.

But this kid looks just as sad as he feels, shoulders slumped and little feet kicking at the splintered wood he sits on.

“Hi,” Erik says, coming to a stop right in front of him. The kid doesn’t look up, just keeps kicking, his heels drumming on the wood with a steady thump thump.

“Hey!” Erik says, louder. Is the kid deaf, or something?

The boy looks up, eyes widening in surprise. They’re very big, and very blue, Erik notes. “Hi?” he responds tentatively.

Erik nods, satisfied. “I’m Erik,” he pronounces, dropping down on the fence beside the kid, looking him over.

He’s small, a lot smaller than Erik, even though he looks like he must be five or six. His wavy brown hair falls into his eyes, and a burst of freckles partially covers his nose and cheeks. The boy’s clothes are nice—much nicer than Erik’s. His trousers are clean and pressed, his shirt glaringly white and neatly tucked in. The boy still looks surprised to see Erik, but after a moment, he holds out a small hand. “I’m Charles.”

“Do you live around here?” Erik asks eagerly.

The boy just shrugs. “Do you?”

“Just down the road.” Erik makes a face. “With the Shaws.”

“That’s what you call your mom and dad?” Charles wonders.

Erik bites his lip. He hadn’t meant to tell Charles that he was a loser foster kid so soon. Maybe now Charles wouldn’t want to play with him. “My mom and dad are dead,” Erik says after a long moment, looking away. “Now I live with the Shaws.”

“Oh.” One of Charles small, smooth hands lands on Erik’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

When Erik looks up, Charles is looking back at him with those big blue eyes, not a hint of mockery in them. Erik offers him a small smile. “Do you want to play a game?”

“Sure. What game?”

“Hide and seek?”

Alarm crosses Charles face. “No, not when I just found you!”

“Oh.” Erik is puzzled. “We could go exploring?” he suggests instead. He wishes he had a ball or a Frisbee or something, but Charles’ eyes light up anyway.

“Okay!”

“Great.” Erik clambers down off the fence, his eyes widening as Charles hops down beside him and take his hand. His hand is soft and his fingernails are clean, and Erik wants to pull his own hand away and shove it in his pocket, to hide the dirt and calluses.

Charles doesn’t seem to notice, however, just swings their joined hands between their bodies. “Let’s go see what’s in the woods over there,” he suggests, pointing across the road.

Erik knows what’s over there—a tiny stream and a lot of junk—but he’s happy to follow his new friend, marvelling at how pleased Charles looks to be walking beside him.

“Do you go to school around here?”

“No.” Charles shrugs.

“Oh.” Erik sighs. Too bad. He would have liked to have Charles in his class. Charles who doesn’t seem to care at all that Erik doesn’t have parents, or nice clothes, or fancy toys.

Charles who tightens his grip on Erik’s hand as they clamber down the bank to the little stream, who exclaims joyfully over the shallow splash of water.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

An hour or two later the sun starts to set, and Erik reluctantly stands from where he and Charles have been poking tadpoles in the muddy stream. He doesn’t want to leave, but Shaw gets mad if he stays out late, yelling that he’ll get in trouble if Erik gets lost, that he’ll lose his check if Erik winds up dead.

“I have to go home.”

A pout forms on Charles’ small face.

“Won’t your parents be worried about you?” Erik asks.

Charles just shrugs.

“Can you come out to play tomorrow?”

At that, Charles brightens, nodding eagerly. “Sure!”

“Great? In the morning? I don’t have anything to do all day, do you?”

“No, the morning is fine,” Charles stands up as well, but Erik still has to look down on him. It’s okay. Erik likes being the big one. Charles can’t always reach things, and when they crossed the stream, he needed Erik’s hand to help him jump over.

It makes Erik feel important.

Charles brushes awkwardly at the mud on his knees, succeeding only in smearing it around, dirtying his fingers further. He’s not nearly as clean as when Erik found him.

“Will your parents be mad that you got so messy?” Erik worries. Most of the time the Shaws don’t notice what he looks like, but sometimes Emma yells at him when he brings dirt in the house, or when she has to do extra laundry so he has something clean to wear to school.

“No,” Charles shakes his head, his curls flopping into his eyes. Erik laughs.

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

“No. I can find my way. You’ll come find me again tomorrow? Same place?”

“Sure!” Erik agrees enthusiastically. It’s been so long since he had someone to play with.

They part ways at the road, and Erik’s steps back to the Shaws’ house are much lighter than when he left.

Shaw is passed out on the sofa when he comes in, snoring loudly. Emma frowns at him from the kitchen. “Where have you been?”

“Playing with Charles.”

“Who?”

“He lives in the neighborhood.”

“Oh,” Emma frowns, her pretty brow creasing. “I didn’t know there were any other kids around.”

Erik shrugs, plopping down at the kitchen table in the hopes that Emma will remember to feed him. “Maybe he’s new.”

“I suppose he must be,” she sighs, her eyes darting across the room to her husband’s sleeping form. “Ugh,” she groans. “Can you find your own dinner? I want to go out.”

“I guess?”

“Good.” Emma’s already grabbing her purse and heading for the door. Shaw doesn’t let her take the car a lot—they have a lot of fights about it—so Erik guesses she wants to take the chance while she has it. He eyes the kitchen cabinets dubiously.

There are a lot of things in cans, but he can’t open them by himself, so he snags a bag of potato chips and heads to his room, determined to be out of sight when Shaw wakes up and realizes the car—and Emma—are gone.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The next day Erik leaves the house early, grateful once again that his foster parents don’t keep up the sham of weekly church attendance. Erik knows that he is Jewish—Shaw tends to remind him—but he doesn’t precisely know what that means. Only that his foster parents use it as an excuse to sleep late on Sundays, when other children are being wrestled out of bed and into uncomfortable dress clothes.

Despite the early hour, Charles is sitting on the fence, just where Erik found him the day before. His little face brightens when he spots Erik walking up the road.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come!” he exclaims, hopping off the fence.

“Why not?”

Charles gives one of his dismissive shrugs, a gesture with which Erik is already familiar. “I thought you might forget.”

“No way,” Erik denies hotly, in the flush of having his first friend. Charles’ answering grin is just as effusive.

Today they tramp across the large cow pasture, skirting patties as they walk. Erik notices that Charles is in an outfit just like the day before—as unsuited as it is to outdoor play. In fact, Erik would swear he was wearing the same shirt and trousers, except that was impossible, given how muddy the boy had been when Erik sent him home the day before. Erik figures he must just have a lot of the same kind of nice clothes.

Erik doesn’t have a lot of anything, and what he does have certainly wasn’t nice. But he doesn’t mind that Charles has more than him—and besides, his ripped jeans and t-shirts are better for climbing over fences and shimmying under branches than the shirt and trousers Charles has on.

“So, what do you do most days?” Erik asks as they trudge through overgrown grass.

Charles blinks and looks surprised. “I dunno,” he shrugs.

Erik returns the gesture. He doesn’t do a lot of interesting things, either. “Where do you go to school?”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he hops over a fallen log.

“Go to school,” Charles offers as Erik helps the other boy scramble after him.

“Really?” Erik stops to gape. “That’s awesome!”

Charles gives him a little smile. “I guess.”

Erik finds a rabbit’s nest and calls Charles to his side. He picks up a nearby stick and pokes down into the burrow, prodding at the mass of fur curled up inside.

“Don’t hurt them!” Charles says, dropping to his knees. His blue eyes go wide as he pushes Erik’s stick away from the tiny rabbits.

Erik frowns, but drops the stick and joins Charles in the grass.

“Oh, look,” Charles coos, pointing down at the just-visible balls of fluff, gently quivering where they press together. “They’re so cute.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Erik says sceptically. He peers down into the burrow with Charles. HE guesses they are sort of cute, in a small and furry way. He likes how happy Charles looks, though, so he smiles down at the little baby rabbits.

He reaches down, intending to pick one of the little creatures up, so Charles will smile and laugh.

“No, don’t!” Charles exclaims, catching his wrist.

“Why not?” Erik pouts.

“If you touch them, the mommy bunny won’t want them anymore.”

Erik’s frown deepens, but his heart clenches a little at the thought. He thinks of the way Shaw and Emma look at him, and slowly withdraws his hand.

Charles smiles, sliding his hand down from Erik’s wrist to join their hands. Erik smiles back. He likes playing rough, hitting things with sticks and if Charles hadn’t been there he would have stirred up the nest just to see what would happen.

But he was happy to have Charles as a friend, so he held himself back, content to just look at the little rabbits, seeing how they snuffle into each other, curling up close in their little nest.

It is pretty cute, he guesses.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik runs through the Shaws’ door just as the sun dips below the horizon, out of breath from having sprinted the whole way.

He lost track of time, ambling in the woods with Charles. The other boy was smart, smarter than any kid Erik knew, and was quick to tell Erik facts about everything they saw on their walk.

He thought it might have been annoying, if Charles wasn’t so excited about every piece of information he shared.

He knew the names of all the trees, and the birds, and their flight patterns, and what they ate.

When Erik asked, he gave his familiar shrug, and said he liked books.

Erik could read, but only just.

There weren’t a lot of books in the Shaws’ house, and only two with pictures—both ones he had brought with him from his last foster home. He had the Velveteen Rabbit and Goodnight Moon memorized back to front.

But it didn’t give him a lot of room to practice.

Maybe Charles could help? he thinks, skidding to halt in the kitchen.

Emma stands in front of the oven, looking frazzled.

From the smell of it, another dinner had burnt.

“Where have you been?” she huffs.

“Playing with Charles.”

Emma frowns. “I ran into Mrs. Cassidy at the shop today,” she says, eyeing Erik critically. Erik wrinkles his nose. Sean Cassidy was in his class. Erik didn’t like him, though; he was much too loud. “And I asked her about new kids in the neighborhood. She said she hasn’t heard of anyone named Charles.”

Erik frowns. “So? She doesn’t know everyone,” he says, even though he knows that isn’t true. All of Emma’s gossip came from Mrs. Cassidy. The woman seemed to know everyone’s business, and feel like it was her job to relay it to every one else in the world.

Emma sighs. “I know you’ve wanted a kid to play with in the neighborhood. And god knows it’s good to get you out of the house. But you shouldn’t tell lies.”

Erik’s brow creases. “I’m not!” he denies hotly.

Emma gives him a pitying look. “Having an imaginary friend is like telling a lie. You said you were with someone called ‘Charles’ today, but you weren’t. You were by yourself, like always.”

Erik doesn’t understand. He stomps his foot, annoyed. “I wasn’t. I was with Charles. He’s my best friend.”

Emma rubs her temple, the way she does when she’s getting a headache. “You need to make real friends to play with. You should spend tomorrow with Sean Cassidy.”

“I don’t like him!” Erik says angrily. “He’s stupid and loud. Charles is quiet and nice and he knows everything.”

“I’m sure he does,” Emma rolls her eyes. “When you make someone up, they can be perfect, if you want them to be.”

“I didn’t make him up!” Erik yells.

“What did he make up?” Shaw asks, coming in through the front door in his ratty coveralls.

“Erik’s telling lies,” Emma says harshly.

Probably to distract from the burnt dinner, Erik thinks, unforgiving.

Shaw raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not!”

“He has an imaginary friend.”

“Charles is real!” Erik insists, eyes stinging with hot, frustrated tears.

“No, honey, he’s not.”

Shaw gives him a strange look. “He’s what—seeing people?”

“He’s just lonely,” Emma says dismissively, turning back to the oven, removing a smoking casserole dish from its midst.

But Shaw’s still looking at him funny. Erik sniffles, trying to hold back the tears. He wishes Charles were here, so he could point to him and say ‘look, he’s real and he’s better than all the stupid kids in my class combined.’

“If he’s crazy, do we have to send him back?” Shaw asks after a long moment.

Erik freezes.

Emma gives him a sharp look. “You know we can’t afford to send him back. It could be months before we got another one. Who would pay the electricity and gas in the meantime? Not to mention the groceries?”

But Shaw’s still giving Erik a mean, considering look. “I don’t want a crazy kid in the house.”

“Your paycheck barely covers our mortgage,” Emma narrows her eyes at her husband. “He’s fine. Kids have imaginary friends sometimes. I’m pretty sure it’s normal.”

Shaw snorts. “Yeah, because you’re such an expert on kids.”

Erik looks between them, his stomach turning nervously. He doesn’t like living with them, but he doesn’t want to go back into the system. For all he knows, he’ll end up somewhere worse. At least he knows how to deal with Shaw and Emma. At least he’s found Charles.

“Please don’t send me away,” he says a little desperately.

Emma sighs. “We’re not going to, sugar. But you have to stop telling lies. No more talk of ‘Charles’ in this house.”

Erik frantically nods, even as his mind rebels. He knows Charles is real—he just spent the whole day playing with him!

But he doesn’t want to be sent away. He’ll just bring Charles round the next day, and then Emma will see that he’s telling the truth.

For now, he’ll keep his mouth shut.

“Fine,” Shaw snaps, sitting down heavily at the table. “But I don’t want a crazy kid in the house.”

After dinner, Erik skulks off back to his room. He wonders why Mrs. Cassidy didn’t know who Charles is, when he lives right in the neighborhood. He thinks about it, and realizes he doesn’t know exactly where Charles lives, or with who. The boy doesn’t go to his school and hasn’t mentioned any family.

Erik frowns, crawling into bed. All he knows about his friend, it seems, is that he’s called ‘Charles.’

But that doesn’t seem to be enough.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

At school the next day, Erik walks up to Sean Cassidy, frowning at the kid’s bright red hair and flushed face. “There’s a new kid in the neighborhood,” he says.

“Really?”

“His name is Charles. Have you seen him around?”

Sean laughs. “Oh, that. My mamma told me you had an imaginary friend.”

The kids around them look over, interested. “My mamma said we’re too old for that kind of thing.”

Erik glares. “He’s real!”

Alex steps up beside Sean, laughing meanly. “Erik’s a baby! Erik’s a baby!” he taunts.

Erik balls his hands into fists, wanting to lash out, to hit the blond boy right in the face.

But he’s outnumbered, and he knows how mad Shaw would be if he had to be called into Erik’s school.

He turns away from their laughing faces, sulking until class starts. He can’t wait until school is over and he can see Charles, and can prove once and for all that his friend is real.

At the end of the day Erik practically runs to the cow field, eyes eagerly seeking out the small form of his only friend.

For a moment he thinks Charles isn’t there, that maybe he isn’t coming, and his heart sinks. His eyes skim across the open field as Emma and Shaw and Sean and Alex’s harsh words replay in his mind.

Finally, though, he sees him, crouched behind the broken down fence, poking at something on the ground.

“Charles!” he calls, relief washing over him as his friend looks up, giving him a sunny grin.

“Erik, I found a frog,” he smiles.

Erik hurries over as fast as his little legs can carry him. “Charles, you have to come back to my house.”

“Oh.” The other boy rocks back on his heels, his gaze dropping away from Erik’s. “I don’t think I can.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to go back to the stream today,” he says instead. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“No, I need you to come to my house. My foster mother thinks I made you up just because Mrs. Busybody Cassidy doesn’t know who you are, like that matters, and I’m in trouble for telling lies, and all the kids laughed at me in school today and called me a baby,” Erik says in a rush.

Charles bites his lip, looking away.

“You have to come to my house so I can prove to Emma that you’re real.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Charles says quietly.

Erik huffs. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t think she’ll be able to see me.”

Erik freezes, replaying his friend’s words in his head. “—What?”

Charles picks at the grass beneath him. “You’re the only one who can see me. Everyone else acts like I’m not there at all.”

Erik drops heavily down onto the fence, his gaze fixed on his friend. He can see Charles. He’s right in front of him, kneeling in the grass and looking miserable. “So you really are imaginary?”

Charles looks up. “I don’t feel imaginary.”

Erik frowns, thinking of all the kids teasing him, calling him a baby. “Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not if I made you up. I guess you’d feel however I say you feel.”

Charles worries at his lip. “Do you think you made me up?”

Erik crosses his arms, looks away. “I guess I must have.” A thought strikes him. “I guess I must be crazy.” He gulps. “They’re going to send me back, and then no one will want me.”

Suddenly Charles is standing at his side, putting a soft hand on his arm. “I want you.”

“Who cares? You’re not real.”

Charles’ wide blue eyes fill with hurt, a pout quivering on his lips. “Does this mean you’re not going to play with me anymore?”

Erik’s stomach sinks. He had been having such fun with Charles. But he doesn’t want to be crazy, and he doesn’t want the Shaws to send him away. “I can’t play with you if you’re not real.” He stands, determined to go home and never mention Charles again.

Tears well up in Charles’ eyes. “But I was so lonely before I found you.”

Erik pauses. He was lonely too.

So lonely, Emma said, that he had made up a best friend.

And yet, he could see Charles crying, looking at him pleadingly.

“I can’t tell anyone else about you,” he says finally.

Charles sniffles. “You’re—you’re going to stay?”

“Yes,” Erik decides.

Charles gasps, flinging himself forward, wrapping his arms around Erik’s neck. “Thank you! You’re my best friend, Erik.”

Charles is Erik’s best friend, too. He only wishes he were real.

Erik is in the grocery store, following Emma mostly by the clack of her high heels on the dingy tile floor, his eyes fixed firmly on the shelves and shelves of food he knows they can’t afford.

Emma tosses another can into her cart and Erik winces, gaze straying back to the produce aisle and the rows upon rows of fresh fruit. His mouth waters slightly.

“Erik!” she snaps. “Keep up.”

She stops to drop a packet of hot dogs on top of the stack of cans in her cart and Erik sighs, stretching his legs to close the distance between them.

As he nears his foster mother, he catches sight of a familiar head of brown hair out of the corner of his eyes.

Charles stands in the cookie aisle, staring contemplatively at the stacks of brightly coloured boxes.

Erik would almost laugh at how serious his expression is as he looks at the sweets, except that seeing Charles in public always unnerves him.

The way people’s eyes sweep over and through him, seeing nothing but the shelf of food he stands in front of, is unsettling to Erik still.

The first time he and Charles had run into another person, a neighbour walking down the street past where they played, Erik had cried afterwards, confused and upset by the way the man looked only at him, asking him why he was out playing all by himself. It stung that everyone thought he spent all his time alone, unable to find another child to play with.

Two years later he had come to accept the way adults and even other children looked at him, the weird kid with no friends.

But he hadn’t quite been able to get used to the way Charles was invisible to everyone but him.

A woman reaches right over Charles’ head to pull a box of Oreos off the shelf, the sleeve of her sweater ruffling his friend’s wavy hair, making it stand on end as she pulls away.

She doesn’t feel the touch, though.

Erik throws a quick glance at Emma, busy comparing the prices on cuts of meat, and sidles closer. “What are you doing here?” he hisses.

Charles turns around with a sunny grin. “I got bored.”

Erik doesn’t know how it’s possible for an imaginary boy to get bored just because he’s alone.

But then again, Charles always insists that he’s not imaginary, that he remembers everything he does when Erik isn’t around.

The evidence isn’t in his favour, though.

“I was going to come play with you later,” Erik offers under his breath.

“I know.” Charles shrugs. “I just thought I’d see what you were doing.”

“Emma’s making hot dogs and baked beans tonight,” Erik tells him with a grimace, making Charles laugh.

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Maybe if I didn’t have to eat it all the time,” Erik laments. That, and pre-made, frozen lasagne.

Charles makes a sympathetic face. “We can look for apples in the orchard when you get done here,” he offers.

Erik grins. Charles always knows how to cheer him up.

“Who are you talking to?” Emma’s voice is sharp behind him.

Erik spins to see his foster mother looming over him, hands planted on her rounded hips.

“No one?”

“Oops,” Charles says.

“Then why did I see your lips moving?” She demands.

Erik shrugs helplessly. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

Emma looks around them quickly and then stoops, bringing her face close to his. “You were pretending Charles was here again, weren’t you?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she frowns. “I saw you talking to thin air.” She huffs out a breath, her platinum blonde hair swaying in the breeze of it. “I can’t believe you’d do this in public! I’ve told you again and again, people are going to think you’re crazy, they’re going to think we’re bad parents. They’re going to talk.”

Erik fights the urge to roll his eyes. Charles doesn’t. Emma can’t see him anyway.

They both know she’s not worried that Erik is crazy—not really. She’s only worried that people will look down on her for having a crazy kid living in her house. Erik may only be seven, but he listens when people talk.

He knows what the neighbors have said about him, every time they see him sneak off to play ‘by himself.’ He knows what they say to Shaw and Emma, the way they laugh, and the way his foster parents grimace.

“I told you, I wasn’t doing anything,” he says stubbornly, folding his arms across his narrow chest.

Charles pouts in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he says from beside Emma. Erik struggles not to let his eyes stray to his friend.

Emma would notice for sure.

Emma narrows her eyes at him and grabs him by the arm. “Come on,” she snaps. “We’re done here.”

Erik shifts uncomfortably as they stand in line at the checkout. He can practically feel how annoyed Emma is, even though she refuses to look his way.

Charles hovers by the cashier, looking apologetic.

“You’re staying in today,” Emma says decisively, piling her purchases onto the conveyor belt.

“What?” Erik’s eyes go wide.

“I don’t want you running around talking to yourself in that cow field. It’s bad enough if anyone saw you today, pretending your imaginary friend was in the store.” She sighs. “Honestly. You were supposed to grow out of this.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts’, sugar,” Emma cuts him off. Out of her mouth, a pet name can sound vicious. Everyone is always ‘sugar’ or ‘honey’ or ‘darling,’ but Erik is pretty sure Emma doesn’t actually like anyone.

Especially not him.

“You can stay in and watch T.V. with your father and act like a normal kid for a change.”

Erik bites his lip. A whole night in with Shaw? Even Emma doesn’t want to spend that much time with him, and she married the guy.

“Emma,” he whines.

“I told you,” she hisses, leaning close. “You’re supposed to call me ‘mom’ when we’re in public.”

Erik closes his eyes, breathing deep the way Charles taught him. Don’t get angry. Don’t cry. Never in front of Shaw and Emma.

Still, he wishes he had a real mom. Someone who wanted to be called that all the time. Not just so the neighbors would think she was a good person.

Charles drifts close as Emma loads the bags back into the grocery cart.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, eyes sad. “You can’t play at all today?”

Erik shakes his head minutely.

Charles’ shoulders slump. “I wish they could see me.”

It’s something they both wish for, all the time.

“Then we’d be able to play all the time.”

Erik just shrugs, a tiny motion of his shoulders.

Charles understands, though, why Erik can’t even glance his way as he follows Emma out to the car. Just before he gets in, Charles grabs his hand and gives his fingers a squeeze. “I’ll see you later, okay Erik?”

Emma’s watching, so he can’t even nod. But he feels better as he slides into the car.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Emma can’t wait to tell Shaw what Erik’s done.

“He was talking to himself again. In the store,” she tells her husband the moment they walk in the door. Erik’s shoulders slump.

Shaw sits up from where he was sprawled on the couch, a game show blaring in the background, and narrows his eyes at Erik. “Is that true, boy?”

“No,” Erik denies.

“Yes,” Emma snaps, cuffing him on the back of the head. It doesn’t hurt, but Erik still glares.

“Were you playing at that friend of yours again?” Shaw asks, eyes alight with something Erik can’t quite identify. But he knows it’s not good. At least his foster father hasn’t been drinking, he thinks, eyes scanning the room for bottles. Not yet. “What’s his name?”

Erik refuses to rise to the bait. He stands mute under his foster parents’ scrutiny.

“Charles,” Emma supplies after a long moment. She curls her lip in anger. “’Charles’ this and ‘Charles’ that. Charles in the cow pasture, Charles at school. Charles in the damn grocery store!”

Erik winces, hunching in on himself.

“So, you’re still crazy then? Haven’t ‘grown out of it’ the way the school said?”

Erik flinches. “I’m not crazy!”

“No? Then what do you call seeing people no one else can see? Talking to yourself in the store? Making up lies about your wonderful, smart, funny friend, just because you can’t make any real ones?”

That’s the worst part, maybe, Erik thinks. The fact that no one thinks he has any friends. Everyone thinks he’s weird, spending all his time by himself.

But why would he spend time with other kids when Charles is so great?

Not to mention lonely, whenever Erik isn’t there.

“I wasn’t talking to anyone. Emma was seeing things.”

“Oh, so I’m the crazy one?” Emma asks, stalking over to him. She turns to her husband. “Maybe we should have sent him back.”

Something inside Erik clenches, even though he hates these people. There’s worse out there, so they tell him over and over again. He’s lucky to have a stable home. He’s lucky he’s not being bumped from murderers to drug dealers to worse, so they say.

But more than that, he doesn’t want to leave here, and move away from Charles.

Who would keep the boy company, when no one but Erik can see him?

“We still can, if you’re so desperate to get rid of him,” Shaw says. “But then you’ll have to get a job to cover expenses.”

Emma blanches, turning away. “I didn’t say we should,” she says, heading to the kitchen to begin unpacking the meagre groceries.

Shaw gives him a hard look. “Kid, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re nuts or not. You can talk to yourself, or your imaginary friend, or Santa Claus for all I care. Just don’t do it where people can see you. And don’t do it where I can see you. It creeps me out.” Shaw turns back to the T.V.

Erik waits, unsure of where that leaves him.

After a moment, Shaw realizes he’s still standing there. “God dammit, go to your room, or something.”

Erik scurries off before he can say anything more.

He hears Emma and Shaw begin to talk the moment he’s out of the room.

Emma’s upset, and Shaw is tired of dealing with it. And it’s all Erik’s fault.

He wonders when they’ll break down and send him back. They don’t want to be his real parents, he knows that much. They just want the check the government sends them for keeping him.

He knows he’s going to have to be more careful, if he wants to stay.

But what can he do, he wonders? Ignore Charles?

What’s the point of staying with the Shaws if not to get to spend time with his friend?

Erik slumps onto his bed, dejected.

He wishes, sometimes, that he could make a real friend. Someone everyone could see. Someone who didn’t make him wonder if he was as crazy as his foster parents say he is.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Erik! Erik!”

Erik blinks awake at the sound of an insistent knocking. “Hmm?” he struggles up, wondering why he’s in bed in all his clothes. “Emma?”

“Erik!” the noise repeats, coming from his bedroom window. Through the darkness he can just make out Charles’ pale little face, practically pressed against the glass. “Erik!” the boy says again, raising his hand to knock.

Erik glances at the door, wondering what time it is. Where his foster parents are.

But Charles gives him a pleading look and he sighs.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, as he struggles to raise the window. It sticks in its casing, the wood rotting all around it. He wrinkles his nose as paint flakes down on the sill.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Charles says, leaning into the room once the window is open. He frowns. “That I didn’t get you into trouble.”

Erik wants to tell him that he most certainly did get him into trouble, that Charles has to be more careful. But he can’t, not when his friend looks so sad already. “I’m fine.”

“Can I come in?” Charles whispers, even though it doesn’t matter. He could scream at the top of his lungs, and still no one would hear him.

It’s Erik who needs to worry.

“I guess,” he says, anyway.

It’s easier said than done, Erik realizes. Charles is still little, scrawnier than Erik by far, and he doesn’t have the strength to pull himself up on the window, though Erik’s sure that he could do it just fine. He laughs as he grabs hold of Charles’ shirt, hauling his friend up when he jumps, leaning back to pull him into the room. They land in a heap at the foot of the window, giggling helplessly.

“I could totally have done that,” Erik boasts, rolling to his back.

“No way! It’s harder than it look,” Charles pouts, panting to catch his breath.

They lie there for a minute before Charles rolls to his side to look at Erik. “I’m sorry I got you into trouble. I just got lonely sitting around by myself all day.”

Erik sighs. It’s stuff like that that makes him wonder if Charles really is imaginary. “Why can you remember all the time I’m not around, but not where you came from?” he asks uselessly.

Charles frowns, giving him one of his usual shrugs. Charles knows his name is ‘Charles’ but nothing else. He thinks he has parents—Doesn’t everyone, Erik?—but doesn’t remember anything about them. He lingers near the cow pasture all day, but doesn’t remember if he has a home. At night, he just wanders the woods, or, increasingly, hovers near Erik’s house, waiting for him to wake up.

He doesn’t think he sleeps.

Real people sleep, Erik tells him.

“You know that I’ve tried to remember,” Charles says, annoyed.

Erik frowns. He knows. “Why is it only me, Charles?” he asks helplessly. “Why can’t other people see you?”

If just one other person saw the boy, it would make all the difference, Erik knows.

“Because you’re special,” Charles tells him now, smiling.

Despite himself, Erik smiles back.

“Sometimes I like being the only one,” he admits in a whisper.

Charles’s smile brightens. “Really?”

Erik nods. “I don’t really want to share you.”

Charles scrambles up on his knees, leaning over to hug Erik awkwardly. “I don’t want to share you, either!” he says. “Can we play a game?”

Erik doesn’t have a lot of games, but, he supposes, he has a pretty good imagination.

“Sure.”

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

“One, two, tie my shoe! Three, four, shut the door!” Charles sings as he skips. “Five, six, pick up sticks!”

Erik hops after him, jumping along the makeshift obstacle course.

“Come on, Erik!” Charles teases, grinning at him over his shoulder. “Jump higher!”

Erik jumps over the fallen log that Charles has just scrambled over, grinning triumphantly.

Charles huffs, but smiles back.

“You think you can do it better than me?” he challenges, eyes sparkling.

“I know I can,” Erik boasts.

“Yeah?” Charles’ lips turn up mischievously. “Then, tag! You’re it!” he darts forward, whacking Erik on the arm before taking off in the other direction.

For a second Erik just gapes before giving a primal yell and tearing after his friend. Charles scampers ahead of him, laughing.

“I’m going to get you!” Erik threatens breathlessly.

Erik has longer legs, but Charles is fast, and is making the most of his head start. He ducks under branches that Erik has to slow for, and runs flat out for the cow pasture.

He jumps the fence effortlessly, turning to throw a smile back over his shoulder as Erik closes in on him.

“Better run faster!” Erik taunts.

“I’m already running too fast for you,” Charles throws back, his voice caught on the wind.

Even as Erik pumps his arms and legs, pushing himself as fast as he can, he has to admire how free and careless his friend looks, pelting across the field, the wind whipping through his curls.

Charles can be quiet and reserved, but when he and Erik play he lets that all go, laughing and shouting and running just like any other boy.

Even if Erik is the only one who can see it.

“You’ll never catch me,” Charles boasts, looking back over his shoulder to check on Erik’s progress.

He’s still got a good lead but Erik is closing in, his long legs giving him an advantage in the open field, with no obstacles to slow him down. He grins toothily, imagining his victory as he tackles Charles to the ground.

And then Charles goes down without Erik touching him, yelping high in his throat as his legs tangle under him.

Erik gasps as his friend hits the ground with a heavy thump. “Charles!” he yells, sprinting harder than he had during their game, racing to his friends’ side.

Charles lays in the grass, looking dazed, his ankle twisted under him. “I think it was the bunnies,” he says absently.

“What?” Has Charles hit his head, Erik wonders? People in Emma’s daytime shows did that all the time, and then they got confused and said funny things and forgot who they were, and always seemed to end up accidentally marrying their brother.

He hopes nothing like that was going to happen to Charles.

“I think I stepped in a bunny nest,” Charles says again, propping himself up on his elbows, eyes wide. “Are they okay?”

Erik glances down and sees that yes, in fact, Charles had tripped over a burrow in the field. Erik bites his lip. He’s been fond of the rabbits ever since his first day playing with Charles two years before. Even so, “Who cares about them?” he huffs, sinking down to kneel beside his friend. “Are you okay?”

Charles and Erik both look down at his ankle. Erik knows it’s not supposed to be at that angle.

Sean Cassidy broke his arm the previous year falling out of a window—the idiot thought he could fly—and it had looked something like this, twisted and wrong the way it hung from his body. Erik winces. Sean had had a cast for what felt like forever, unable to play in all but the tamest games.

Erik frowns as another thought occurs to him. “Charles, who will take care of you if you’re hurt?”

Charles turns from his contemplation of his own leg and gives Erik a small smile. “You will.”

It’s true, of course, but also not what he meant. When Sean broke his arm, they yelled for the teacher, who called his mom, who took him to a doctor.

“Doctors won’t be able to see you, will they?”

Charles shrugs. “No, I guess not. But I think I’m fine.” He turns his eyes back to his leg.

“No you’re not,” Erik says weakly. He can see that he’s not.

“Yeah,” Charles sighs. He gingerly lifts his leg and shakes it out, and the ankle miraculously goes back to looking exactly the way it should. “Yeah, I am.”

“What?” Erik gapes.

Charles’ ankle had twisted under him, but now it looks like he never fell at all.

Erik is relieved and horrified, all at the same time. “Is this because you’re—?”

“Imaginary?” Charles asks, and now tears well up in his eyes. “Erik,” he shifts to sit up, tucking his perfectly-intact legs underneath himself as he leans forward. “I still don’t feel imaginary.”

“I don’t guess you would,” Erik says after a moment.

And then Charles starts to cry for real, big tears rolling down his face. Erik looks at them, the way they glisten on Charles’ cheeks, and wonders if he’s making them up in his head right now.

Is he really sitting alone in this field, talking to himself?

“Erik?” Charles asks, voice thick. “You don’t care if I’m not real, do you?”

Erik thinks about it; really thinks about it for a minute, even though it makes Charles cry harder. He thinks about how angry Emma and Shaw get and how the kids tease him at school. He thinks about how the neighbors look at him, and how he doesn’t have any other friends.

But the memory of Charles running through the field, laughing breathlessly, is still fresh in his mind.

He doesn’t want to have to worry about what Shaw thinks, or even the kids at school. He just wants to go out and play and have fun. And Charles is the most fun person he knows.

He thinks they’re a lot a like, even if Charles isn’t real. Neither one of them has anyone else—no family, no friends, no one who cares but each other. The only difference is that, unlike Charles, other people can see Erik. They just don’t care to look.

“You feel pretty real to me,” he finally says with a shrug.

A wide grin breaks out across Charles’ wet face and Erik smiles back.

What’s real, anyway, he wonders?

“Erik!”

Erik’s hunched over his bed, a notebook spread over his lap, a pencil gripped between his teeth, hard enough to leave little indents in the wood.

“Erik!”

He looks up, startled.

Charles’s pale face is at the window, a wide grin on his face.

“Oh,” Erik drops the pencil from his teeth, wrinkling his nose as it rolls to the bed, leaving a saliva trail in its wake.

“Are you going to let me in?” Charles teases, pressing his nose up against the glass. It’s cold out, but Erik knows that doesn’t’ really make a difference to his friend. He gets up anyway, and eases the window open, shooting a nervous glance at the door as he does so.

The window squeaks, and Shaw and Emma are right outside.

“I don’t know why you can’t just appear in my room,” he grumbles as Charles hauls himself inside, a tangle of flailing limbs.

“Oof,” he complains as he crumples to the floor. “I told you it doesn’t work like that. I don’t appear anywhere. I was outside, just like I’ve been all day, and I needed to get inside. Just like you.”

Erik huffs. It’s an argument they’ve had many times. If Charles is his imaginary friend, Erik doesn’t understand why he can’t make him appear and disappear at will. Shouldn’t he show up just when and where Erik wants him to?

Charles gives him the pout that means he knows Erik is thinking of him as imaginary and he doesn’t like it, and Erik sighs, offering him a hand up.

“What’re you doing, anyway?”

“Homework,” Erik grunts miserably.

“Oh. Is it interesting?” Charles stands on his tiptoes to peer over Erik’s shoulder to the open notebook.

“No. It’s homework.”

“Homework can be interesting. Remember that report you wrote in history last year? On ancient Egypt? That was great!”

Erik rolls his eyes at his friend’s enthusiasms.

“There were mummies!” Charles continues excitedly.

Well, Erik supposes the mummies were pretty cool.

Not to mention all the stuff about organs in jars.

“This isn’t like that,” he complains, dropping down on the bed and making his notebook bounce. “This is math.”

“Hmm.” Charles shoves his way onto the bed, too, pushing Erik over and up against the wall.

Erik can’t bring himself to mind.

“So what is this?”

“Long division,” Erik shudders.

“Oh.” Charles picks up the notebook and frowns at it, studying the columns of numbers carefully. “You know, if I went to school, I bet I’d be able to help you with this.”

Erik frowns. “Charles…” he says warningly.

“What?” Charles looks at him innocently. “I could learn all the same things you do, and then we could do your homework together!”

Erik thinks Charles must be imaginary, just because no real kids would sound so excited about math homework. “You already help with my homework,” he reminds him.

Charles loves to read, and apparently spends a lot of the time he isn’t with Erik at the library in town.

Or, that’s what he says. Erik still isn’t positive Charles should be able to exist when he isn’t around. But he can’t deny that the boy is full of information and facts, about a wide range of subjects.

“I can’t help you with this stuff, though,” Charles sighs. “There aren’t any books at the library on math. But if I came to class…”

“No.” Erik says shortly.

“But—”

“Charles, you know why you can’t!” Erik hisses, always mindful of the Shaws right outside. “You’d want me to talk to you, and then someone would see, and then everyone would know I’m crazy.”

Charles drops his gaze, worrying at his lip. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“Of course you don’t,” Erik scoffs.

“I wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that,” Charles says in a small voice.

But Erik is annoyed. “Why not?” he growls, yanking his notebook out of Charles’ hands.

Charles gives a little sniff. “It’s mean. You’re just saying it to hurt my feelings.”

Erik looks at him, his small hunched shoulders and downcast eyes and wants to grumble and snarl and deny it.

But of course Charles is right.

“I’m sorry,” he says stiffly. “It’s just, people are only just starting to forget that I ever talked about you. I don’t want them to remember again. I don’t want Shaw and Emma to start talking about sending me away again.”

It’s unfair, but he knows just how to get Charles to stop pushing. “I don’t want that either!” the other boy says quickly, looking up.

“And that’s why you can’t come with me to school,” Erik says, feeling vicious in his words. But he knows he needs to say them. He knows he can’t have Charles hanging around, distracting him and pouting at him when Erik won’t talk to him.

“Okay,” Charles says miserably, dropping his eyes again. Erik hates making Charles sad, but he doesn’t know what else to do. “Maybe…maybe I could borrow your book tonight?” Charles suggests tentatively. “Maybe if I read it, I’ll understand and be able to help you, even without coming to class?

And that’s the worst of it, for Erik. Charles just wants to be near him, to help him when he needs it.

He pictures it, the two of them lying side by side on his bed, working through the problems and grousing over how hard they are, laughing at their own mistakes.

He wants that, too.

But not at the price he would have to pay.

“Sure, you can borrow my book.”

Charles brightens, just slightly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m done with math, anyway. You want to help me with my history homework?”

Erik smiles as the sadness passes from Charles’ eyes. “Yes! What are you working on? Is it interesting?”

Erik laughs. “You’ll probably think so.”

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

“Hey, Lehnsherr!” The voice rings out across the schoolyard.

Erik is staring out over the fence surrounding the school grounds, wondering what Charles is doing all day. Is he reading Erik’s math book, left behind with Charles this morning? Is he at the library, looking for a book he hadn’t yet absorbed? Or has he ceased to exist entirely, the moment Erik walked out the door?

“Lehnsherr!”

Erik turns, startled. Sean stands behind him, a soccer ball tucked under one arm, a wide grin on his freckled face.

“We need another player. You any good?”

Erik narrows his eyes. “Better than you,” he snarls.

Sean just laughs. “Then come on.” He turns on his heels, jogging away, back over to the field where most of the boys in their class are gathered.

It takes Erik a moment to realize that he’s actually being invited to join the game, instead of just teased. Huh, he thinks.

“Come on!” Sean huffs, throwing the words over his shoulder. Erik hesitates for just a moment, then lopes after him.

He likes kicking balls around with Charles, but he’s never gotten to play a game with more than two people. It might be fun.

Erik’s pretty good, it turns out. His legs are longer than almost everyone in his class, and he runs pretty fast.

“Did you see that?” Alex crows, after Erik scores their makeshift team the winning goal, sinking the ball into the net just before the bell rang.

Erik resists the urge to roll his eyes. Of course he saw it, he was the one kicking the ball.

“You’re alright, man,” Sean says, coming up to flank him as they all walk back to the school building.

“Thanks?” Erik doesn’t really know what to say.

“Alex is coming over to my house after school,” Sean announces.

Erik frowns. “Great?”

Sean laughs. He does that a lot, Erik has noticed, as if Erik is constantly saying funny things. Erik thinks the kid might be a bit weird. “Well?” he says. “Do you want to come too?”

“Oh.” Alex is grinning at him in an open, friendly way—with none of the mockery or challenge Erik had come to expect over the years—and Sean looks slightly hopeful.

They actually want to hang out with him, Erik realizes.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Awesome. Sean’s mom makes these cookies,” Alex says with a dreamy smile.

“Yeah, and Alex always eats all of them,” Sean taunts.

“I do not!”

Erik is bemused by their playful bickering, which seems to somehow include him, as well. After a moment, he offers them a tentative smile, shoving lightly at Sean’s shoulder as the boy bumps into him, reaching across to smack at Alex. Sean grins, bumping him harder.

Erik grins back.

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

“Hello, Erik,” Mrs. Cassidy says, clearly surprised to see him, when the three boys pile noisily into the house. Erik shifts uncomfortably, wondering what Emma has told her about him in all their long chats. Probably nothing good. “I’m so glad the boys invited you over,” she continues.

“Really?” It slips out before Erik can stop himself.

But, just like her son, Mrs. Cassidy only laughs. “Of course! It’s great to see you joining in.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.”

She gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder and then directs the three of them to the plate of cookies on the kitchen table—which Alex had spotted the moment they walked in the door.

“These are so good,” Alex mumbles, a cookie jammed into his mouth, spraying crumbs everywhere.

“Gross!” Sean squeals, laughing, and Erik can’t help but join in. He’s seen boys playing around like this with each other from a distance, but he’s never been a part of it. It feels nice.

“I have a basketball hoop outside,” Sean tells him as they each help themselves to their second cookie.

Alex is right; they are good. Erik wishes Emma knew how to bake like this. Or, at all.

“Shouldn’t we do our homework first?”

Sean and Alex laugh uproariously. “Seriously?” Alex splutters. “I didn’t take you for a nerd.”

“I’m not!” Erik denies. And he isn’t, really. He normally hates doing his homework, but Charles likes it, and it actually is fun to do it together, bent over the book as Charles exclaims how interesting everything is.

“Does your mom make you do it right when you get home?” Sean asks sympathetically.

“She’s not my mom,” Erik says reflexively, and winces as the two boys share a look.

Why did he have to remind them how weird he was?

But all Sean says is, “Sorry.”

After a moment, Alex snickers. “She’s really pretty.” He arches his eyebrows. “I bet you’re glad she’s not related to you.”

“Ew, gross!” Sean laughs, shoving at him. But the tension has broken, and Erik finds he can laugh, too, although the idea of appreciating the way Emma looks is foreign to him.

“I wish she’d let me move in!” Alex continues gleefully, squirming away from Sean’s grappling hands.

“You could come over,” Erik offers before he loses his nerve. “I mean, tomorrow or something. She’s home all day.”

Alex and Sean both look up from their tussle. “Yeah, that sounds cool,” Alex agrees.

Erik grins.

Their schoolbags—and homework—lay forgotten as they tumble out of the house, heading for the basketball hoop affixed to the side of Sean’s house.

Erik finds he’s pretty good at this game, too, his height giving him a decided advantage. Alex and Sean keep up only because they play rougher than he does, never hesitating to charge him to try and take the ball, not minding when they go down in a pile of limbs, with everyone calling ‘foul!’

Erik’s used to being gentler when he plays, but it’s fun to throw his elbows and not worry about who he hits, to push and shove playfully and know it’ll only make the other boys laugh harder.

He’s surprised when the sky starts to darken.

“Aw, man,” Alex says. “My mom’ll be here to pick me up any minute.”

Erik can’t believe it’s gotten that late. He knows Shaw and Emma don’t really care what he does, but he’s expected to be home by nightfall. “I better get going, too.”

He darts inside the door to grab his bookbag, but stops as he comes face to face with Mrs. Cassidy. She smiles at him gently. “I really am glad to see you today, Erik,” she says warmly. “You should come over more often.”

“I’m going to go to Erik’s tomorrow,” Sean interjects, sticking his head in past the screen door. “Is that okay?”

“Of course, that’s wonderful,” she agrees eagerly. “Do you want some cookies for the road?”

Erik nods shyly, not used to having this much attention fixed on him, with no one yelling at him, or laughing at him, or telling he he’s not wanted. He accepts the little sandwich bag filled with cookies from Mrs. Cassidy, far more than he could eat on the walk home, with a small smile.

“See you tomorrow, Erik!” Sean calls as Erik sets off down the road, glancing over his shoulder to wave at his two new friends.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik’s in such a good mood that he doesn’t even mind coming home to the Shaws house.

That is, until he sees Charles sitting on his front stoop, legs drawn up and his head buried against his knees.

Erik glances around, making sure no one is nearby. “Charles?” he whispers, since he doesn’t know exactly where the Shaws are. Probably right inside the house.

Charles raises his head, revealing red eyes and wet cheeks. “Erik!” he stands quickly. “Where were you? I was worried.”

“Oh.” Erik frowns, guilt creeping up on him. He knew the Shaws didn’t care where he went after school, but he forgot that Charles did.

“Sean invited me over to his house.”

Charles brow furrows. “Sean Cassidy? The one you hate?”

Erik bites his lip. “I guess I don’t really hate him?” he offers. “I mean, he’s alright.”

Charles’ face falls. “Oh. So you’re, like, friends now?”

“I guess.” Erik toes at the dirt in front of him.

Charles’ eyes are very wide, the way they get when he’s holding back tears. But Erik doesn’t know why he’s so upset, or why guilt is gnawing at his own stomach.

“And you didn’t even think to tell me you weren’t going to come meet me today?” Charles asks in a rush, face suddenly defiant.

Erik frowns. “I didn’t know I had to. I haven’t ever before.”

“Because you’ve always come to meet me before!” Charles snaps. “I sat around waiting for you forever!”

“Did you?” Erik wonders. He can’t picture it. Can’t picture Charles doing anything when he isn’t there.

Charles’ brow contracts. “Why? Because I’m imaginary?”

“Well, yeah,” Erik says helplessly.

Anger clouds over the hurt on Charles’s face. “I guess it’s good you got yourself some real friends, then.”

“Maybe it is,” Erik counters, annoyed by Charles’ tone.

“Then I guess you’re going to spend all your time with Sean Cassidy now.”

“Why are you mad at me? It was one afternoon. Besides, kids are supposed to outgrow their imaginary friends.”

It’s something he heard a thousand times as he was growing up. From Emma, from other parents, from the teachers at school. That he’d eventually ‘outgrow’ Charles and stop talking about someone they all knew didn’t exist.

And Erik had stopped talking about him, but Charles was still here.

At his words, Charles’ face crumples in on itself, his anger seeming to rush out of him in a wave of utter betrayal and sadness.

“You’re outgrowing me?” he asks in a small voice, and Erik feels terrible. Charles’ shoulders shake as he seems to curl into himself, refusing to meet Erik’s eyes. “Well, that’s just great, isn’t it? You’re making new friends. I’m so happy for you. Too bad I can’t do the same. Since no one else can see me.”

“Charles—” Erik begins, but Charles is shaking his head.

“I guess I should just go. Since I don’t exist anymore.” He hurries down the steps, thrusting something towards Erik. “Here’s your math book. I stayed up all night reading it so I could help you, but I guess that doesn’t matter now.”

“Charles,” Erik repeats, but the boy is already breaking into a run, dashing away from the house and into the woods.

Erik frowns, looking down at the textbook in his hands.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik lays awake long after he’s turned out the light, thinking about Charles. He knows the boy better than anyone else in the world, but he doesn’t really know him, either. He doesn’t know his last name, or who his parents are, or where he comes from, or what he does when he’s not with Erik.

And the worst part is, he’s not really sure there’s anything to know. He doesn’t think Charles has a last name or parents. Charles tells him about the time he spends without Erik, but how can Erik be sure it’s real? No one else has ever seen Charles, after all, not at the library, or in the cow pasture, or down by the stream, or any of the other places that Charles seems to spend his time.

For the past year or so, Erik has been resigned to the fact that Charles doesn’t exist, that Erik must be crazy. He’s come to accept it, even if it still makes him uncomfortable, thinking about his own insanity.

He analyzes his own behaviour, and wonders what it is that makes him crazy. Was he born that way? Were his parents crazy too? He worries about how he looks to other people, how he sounds, how he acts, even though he’s been forced to accept it.

But then he thinks about Charles’s scrunched up face, tears wetting his freckled cheeks, as he cries over the fact that Erik doesn’t think he’s real.

It clearly hurt Charles, to know Erik thought that way.

But sometimes Erik wonders which is actually worse: if Charles is imaginary and Erik is crazy, or if he isn’t.

If he’s a real boy, who other people just can’t see.

Charles was right; Erik could go out and make a new friend every day. But Charles can’t. He can’t have friends, he can’t have family, he can’t have anyone except Erik, who can mysteriously see him.

That’s a terrible life, when Erik thinks about it.

Erik rolls over in bed, punching his pillow ruthlessly. He tries to remember what a good time he had with Alex and Sean—two boys who he knows are real. Who other people can see, and know that Erik does have friends.

It’s a nice thought, but as Erik drifts off to sleep, it’s Charles’ face in his head, eyes wounded.

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

When Erik arrives at school the next day, Alex and Sean are there to greet him, smiling and punching his shoulder. He grins back, seeing the approval in Emma’s eyes.

They pass notes during class, snickering behind their hands. Erik feels a little bad for not paying attention, when he knows there are some kids (okay, Charles) who would give anything to be in his place in the classroom.

But as Alex flicks a piece of paper into Sean’s shaggy hair, Erik stops caring. He’s having fun.

At recess, his new friends immediately bound over to him. “Wanna play soccer again?” Alex asks.

“I want to be on Erik’s team,” Sean announces, and Erik grins so hard it hurts.

He is pretty good at it, if he does say so himself.

It’s just as their heading over to the field that Erik thinks he catches sight of a familiar face, standing near the school door.

He stops, heart thudding in his chest as he realizes that it is a familiar face.

Charles is standing right by the school building, watching Erik.

“I, um, forgot something inside,” Erik mumbles distractedly.

“What?” Alex frowns. “Erik, man—”

“I’ll be right back,” Erik calls, already jogging back to the building.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, walking right by his friend and rounding the corner, trusting Charles to follow.

He does, trotting after Erik like he’s done for the last five years.

“What are you doing here?” Erik explodes.

Charles frowns. “Don’t yell at me.”

“I can yell if I want. I told you not to come to school with me.”

“You only get to tell me what to do if I really am imaginary,” Charles counters. “And then I’m not doing anything. You’re the one imagining me here.”

Erik frowns. “No, that’s not—“

“In fact, you must want me here, if you’re imagining it,” Charles taunts.

Erik doesn’t know what to say to that. “Why would you come here when I specifically told you not to?” he asks instead.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Oh.”

Charles dropped his gaze. “I don’t like fighting with you.”

Erik didn’t, either. “You couldn’t have waited until after school?”

Charles frowns. “You don’t have plans after school?”

Oh.

“Um, actually…”

“Really, Erik?” Charles asks, and his eyes are welling up again. “Do you even want to be my friend, anymore?”

“That’s not fair, Charles,” Erik complains, looking away from the sight of his friend’s tears. “Maybe I just want some real friends for a change.”

Charles sniffles. “I’m sorry I’m not real enough for you,” he says, and shuffles, rounding the corner of the building.

Erik thinks about chasing him and apologizing, but he can hear the raucous sounds of the playground just behind him. They’re going to start wondering where he’s gone. The last thing he wants is for anyone to catch him chasing after his crying imaginary friend.

He turns, intending to go back and join the soccer game, and comes face to face with Hank McCoy.

The boy stands awkwardly between him and the playground, his lanky figure held stiff as he eyes Erik speculatively.

Erik wants to cry.

He’s been so careful for the last few years, he’s had so many fights with Charles about coming to school to avoid just this, and now it’s happened anyway.

Someone’s heard him talking to Charles.

“Um,” Hank says, shifting nervously. The kid’s taller than anyone else in their class, but scrawny and clumsy, his hands and feet too big for his body. He wears thick eyeglasses and never joins in any of the playground games.

“Were you? Um, were you talking to someone?”

“Does it look like someone is here?” Erik shoots back, narrowing his eyes to hold back his tears. Maybe if he scares Hank enough, the kid will keep quiet.

“No. That was kind of my point?”

Hank looks over his shoulder, glancing back at the noisy playground, and then steps closer. “Look, I know no one talks to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hear stuff. I know about your imaginary friend.”

“I don’t have an imaginary friend,” Erik says instantly. “That’s baby stuff.”

Hank crosses his arms. “Don’t lie. I just heard you talking to someone called ‘Charles.’ That’s who you got in trouble for talking about when we were little.”

Erik balls his fists up. He wants to hit Hank, to hurt him, to make him stop talking. He wants to do something before the tears start to flow. They burn at his eyes, stinging with the reminder of how careless he’s been.

When Erik doesn’t say anything, Hank takes another hesitant step forward. “Have you been to a doctor?” he asks, concern written all over his face. “I read some stuff about mental illness, and hearing voices could be…serious,” he finishes lamely, taking a stumbling step away from Erik’s fierce face.

“I’m not crazy,” he snarls, lunging forward. “And who I talk to is none of your business.”

“So you admit you were talking to someone,” Hank says in a moment of bravado.

Erik blanches. “I—“ he falters.

“Look. I won’t tell anyone, okay? I know how the guys can be,” he looks over his shoulder again, back to the raucous play on the soccer field, that he is never included in. “But I could give you a book about schizophrenia, and things. In case you’re worried.”

Erik is worried and he has been for some time. “Yeah, okay.”

“Okay,” Hank says, giving him a hesitant smile. “And maybe you could be nicer to me in school? Now that you’re friends with the other guys?”

“Are you—blackmailing me?” Erik asks incredulously.

Hank blushes. “I guess I am.”

Erik almost has to laugh. “I didn’t know you had it in you, McCoy.”

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

The rest of the school day is hard. Erik keeps glancing over his shoulder, worried someone else had heard, that someone less understanding than Hank was going to realize he still is friends with an invisible boy.

He feels wrung-out by the time he gets home, having begged off seeing Alex and Sean, and the sight of Charles sitting forlornly on his front stoop is enough to set him off.

“What are you doing here?”

Charles looks up, eyes sad. “Waiting for you. What else am I going to do with my time?”

Erik deflates, just a little. He sinks down on the step next to his friend.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he says after a moment. “But you can’t come to school with me. Someone heard me this afternoon.”

Charles’ eyes widen. “The teacher?”

“No, Hank McCoy. He promised not to tell,” Erik admits. “But he thinks I’m crazy. He gave me this book so I can see for myself.”

Charles takes the book and studies the cover. Understanding Mental Illness, it says. Erik doesn’t even like looking at the words.

“I’ll read it,” Charles volunteers. “And if it sounds like you, I’ll let you know.”

“That won’t do much good if you are imaginary,” Erik points out. “You’d just tell me what I want to hear.”

“A friend might do that, too,” Charles says quietly.

“Charles…”

“I can’t help how I am, Erik. I wish other people could see me. I wish I was a normal kid like Sean Cassidy, with a house and a mother and other friends.”

Erik winces. Hearing Charles say he wants other friend stings. Erik is used to having the boy all to himself.

Despite that, Erik can’t help wanting other friends, too. Friends he can play with at school. Friends he can talk to in public. Friends his foster parents can see.

“I don’t want to outgrow you,” he says after a long moment. “But I don’t want to have to stop hanging out with Sean and Alex.”

“But you’re all I have,” Charles whispers, head hung low. “It’s not fair that you get to have as many friends as you want.”

Erik bites his lip. He wants to promise Charles’ the world, just to see his friend smile. But he likes having other friends.

“Maybe it’s not fair, but it’s also not my fault,” he points out.

Charles sighs.

“Do you want to go inside? You can help me with my homework.”

“Can’t Sean and Alex do that?” Charles asks a little meanly.

Erik gives him a hand up, anyway. “They’re not as good as you,” he promises.

“Look at her,” Sean groans.

“Hmm?” Erik doesn’t look up from where he’s doodling in his history book. He’s drawing a little owl—or what’s supposed to be an owl—and thinking about Charles. The boy had been babbling about bird watching and owl’s mating habits the night before, and Erik’s pondering whether he should read up on the subject too. Charles always smiles so brilliantly when Erik takes an interest.

“Angel. Look at her.”

“What about her?” Erik grumbles, but obliges by lifting his head, his eyes seeking out the girl across the lunchroom. She’s eating at her usual table, and looks just like she did that morning, and the day before, and the day before that.

“Why won’t she talk to me?” Sean moans.

“Probably because you’re whiny.” Erik goes back to his drawing. “Why do you care if she talks to you, anyway?”

“Because she’s hot.” Sean sounds affronted.

Erik looks up again. Is she? His gaze falls on the girl again, examining her in a new light. He squints, trying to see what Sean sees. But she’s still the same short, dark-haired girl she’s been since she moved to town when they were all eleven.

“What are you losers talking about?” Alex asks, slapping his tray down on the table. Erik looks longingly at the greasy slice of pizza and can of soda. The Shaws don’t give him lunch money.

At least now he can pack his own bag lunch. Emma used to forget all the time, and Erik would just have to go hungry.

He eyes the sandwich in his hand, wondering if it would be better to eat nothing.

He’s not exactly a gourmet cook, especially not with what he can scrounge from the Shaws’ kitchen.

“Angel,” Sean sighs, looking at the girl the way Erik’s looking at the pizza.

Erik wonders how you can be hungry for another person.

Alex laughs. “Talked to her yet?”

Sean frowns. “Sort of.”

“She blew you off?”

“Well…”

Alex laughs through a mouthful of pizza. Sean blushes as red as his hair. Erik rolls his eyes.

“You guys are both losers,” he points out.

“Yeah? I never see you talking to girls.”

“I could.” He just never feels like it. He never notices the girls at school unless they know all the answers in class, or score goals during gym. Otherwise, they’re just sort of…there.

“Yeah right,” Sean scoffs.

Erik eyes his friend. He can see that talking to girls is important to Sean and Alex. And Erik wants to keep up, even if he doesn’t quite understand what the point is.

“Fine,” he says, closing his book and standing.

“Whoa, where are you going?” Sean’s eyes widen.

“To talk to Angel. Where else?”

“What? No!”

But Erik has already scooped up his books and is striding across the lunchroom, the sound of Alex’s uproarious laughter trailing after him.

“Hi Angel,” he says when he reaches her table. She looks up at him, surprise registering in her dark eyes.

“Hi.”

“Can I sit with you?”

“Oh. Um, sure.”

He slides into the seat next to her, nodding to the other girls at the table. “Miss MacTaggert’s history assignment was pretty brutal, wasn’t it?”

All the girls groan. “I was up so late working on it!” Angel agrees.

Erik smiles. This is easy.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________

 

“So,” Angel says, as they leave the lunchroom. “Do you want to come over after school? We could do our homework together.”

“Sure?” Erik says, surprised by the offer. But Angel grins happily, so he just smiles back. She seems smart enough. Maybe she’ll be able to help him with his math.

They part ways outside the cafeteria, and Erik hasn’t gone more than ten feet when Alex and Sean barrel into him.

“Dude!” Sean exclaims. “You sat with her for like all of lunch.”

“Yeah,” Erik is feeling pretty smug. He doesn’t know why Sean was making such a big deal about it; talking to girls was just the same as talking to boys. But he likes it when his friends are impressed.

“Well? What did you talk about?”

“I don’t know. School and stuff.”

Sean groans. “Why didn’t I think of that? I go to school too!”

“You wouldn’t know it, though,” Alex rolls his eyes.

Sean ignores him. “Did she say anything else?”

Erik shrugs. “She invited me over to do homework this afternoon.”

“What?” Sean stops dead in his tracks, leaving Erik looking over his shoulder to find him.

“What?” he echoes.

“You have a date with Angel Salvadore? You knew I liked her!”

“It’s not a date.”

“Going over to her house to ‘do homework’ is definitely a date,” Alex says.

“Oh.” Erik frowns. He goes over to Sean and Alex’s houses to do homework all the time. Why is this any different?

“Ugh,” Sean says, stomping off down the hall.

“Don’t mind him. He’ll be in love with someone else by tomorrow,” Alex assures him. “You should just be excited you scored a date with Angel. She’s hot.”

Hot. There was that word again. Erik tries to see what his friends see. Angel is pretty enough, he supposes. She’s not too skinny, and she has nice skin—darker than anyone else’s at school.

But being around her doesn’t make him stammer or blush or get all weird and sweaty the way it does Sean.

He wonders if that means there’s something wrong with him.

Maybe he’ll ask Charles. Alex or Sean might laugh at him, but Charles never will.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

“So, what do you want to work on?” Erik asks as he follows Angel into her house. “Math?”

“Oh, um…sure,” she says. She seems nervous. Erik wonders why.

“Do your parents mind me coming over?”

“No. They’re not even here right now,” she says. For some reason, she’s blushing. Erik frowns.

“Okay. Where do you like to work?”

Her blush deepens. “How about in my room?”

Erik shrugs, and follows her up the stairs. Her house is nicer than his, but most people’s are. Her room is very, very purple. The walls are purple, the bedspread is purple, the curtains are purple. He blinks.

“Uh, nice room,” he offers.

Angel smiles. “Thanks!” She plops down on the bed and gestures him over. Erik thinks they would have been more comfortable down at the kitchen table, given that Angel’s parents aren’t even home to interrupt them, but maybe she’s used to doing her homework in her room. He settles as best he can, rooting around in his bag for his math book.

Charles has been doing his best to explain algebra to him, but Erik is still at a bit of a loss. He can figure out math when it means something, like when they’re building stuff in shop class and the measurements matter, but algebra seems to be all concepts, with letters peppered in among the numbers and strange equations that he doesn’t see the point of.

Charles is pretty good at explaining it, but maybe Angel will be, as well.

Angel gets out her book, too, and for a moment they both bend over their assignment, puzzling out the list of problems.

After a minute, she scoots over on the bed, until their thighs are touching. “Do you understand number two?”

Erik sighs. Maybe she won’t be much help, after all.

“Yeah. You have to multiply and then divide.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks.” She ducks her head again, her hair tumbling over her face. A long strand brushes Erik’s shoulder. He shrugs lightly, trying to shift it off of him.

“What about number four?” She asks, shifting again to glance over his shoulder.

“Um…I’m not sure,” Erik admits.

“Well, what does the book say?” She leans in, turning pages in his book, even though her own is right next to her.

“Oh. We have to use the quadratic formula.” Erik really hates algebra.

“You’re really good at this!” Angel praises.

Erik looks up, startled. Is he?

Angel’s face is very close to his own when he raises his head, and she smiles at him shyly. He looks at the mole on her chin. It’s a really dark brown, and he thinks he can see a hair in the very center of it. He smiles. He’ll have to tell Sean.

Angel’s smile widens, and then she’s leaning closer.

Erik blinks, only realizing what’s happening a moment before her lips touch his. They’re sticky and smell like strawberries. He holds very still, unsure of what to do.

He hadn’t given it much thought, but this was not how he might have imagined his first kiss happening.

For one thing, he barely knows Angel.

Sean will be pretty jealous, though.

Angel’s lips move against his, and after a moment he presses back, trying to copy her movements. It’s really kind of awkward. Her face is so close to his, and when he cracks his eyes open, he can see the fine dusting of cosmetics on her skin. Her breath puffs humidly over his lips and her hair slides between them, tickling at his face.

Finally, she pulls back.

“That was nice,” she tells him, cheeks pink.

“Yeah,” he agrees, although he’s not entirely sure.

It wasn’t terrible. She didn’t have bad breath, or bite him or anything. He guesses it was an okay first kiss.

“Should we, um, go back to problem five?” he asks, watching her carefully in case she decides to do it again.

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, okay.” She blinks at him, appearing dazed, before looking back down at her book. Erik tries to subtlety shift away to give himself more space on the bed.

 

________________________________________________________________________________

 

Angel walks him to the door, a big smile on her face. “I had a great time,” she tells him.

“Yeah, me too,” Erik says, trying to sound like he means it.

“We could do it again some time…” Angel suggests.

“Yeah, definitely,” Erik shifts his gaze out to the road, wondering how long it’ll take him to walk home from here.

Angel frowns slightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, anyway,” she finally says.

“Yeah, of course,” Erik says. Where else would he be?

She gives him a tiny smile. “Well, bye.”

This time, he sees it coming. Her cheeks are pink and she’s already closing her eyes as she leans in.

Erik figures there’s not much he can do about it, so he lets himself be kissed, applying slight pressure to Angel’s lips. At least most of the strawberry flavour has worn off.

“Okay!” Angel squeaks as she draws back. “Bye!” She darts off into her house, leaving Erik standing on her front stoop, bemused.

He wonders what’s going to happen when he sees her at school the next day. Is he going to be expected to kiss her all the time? Because he’s pretty sure he should get some say in that, but Angel just keeps doing things without asking him.

It’s a long walk home, but that gives him time to puzzle over his date. And he guesses it must have been a date, since there was kissing. That seemed to be one of the prerequisites, anyway, although on TV dates were more exciting than sitting in someone’s room, doing math homework.

Still, they got almost all the problems done. So, there’s that.

He shrugs, scuffing his sneakers in the dirt as he walks.

Kissing Angel wasn’t quite what he had expected. On TV and in movies, people always seemed pretty in to kissing. But it had been awkward more than anything else.

Maybe it was because he didn’t think Angel was ‘hot,’ the way Sean and Alex did.

Would it be better with a different girl?

He thinks about the girls in his class. They’re okay, he guesses, but he doesn’t know if any of them are ‘hot’.

His head is still in the clouds when he passes the cow pasture, and he almost doesn’t see Charles sitting there, a book in hand. He catches sight of him out of the corner of his eye and stops himself before he walks right by his friend. Charles doesn’t notice, too absorbed in what he’s reading.

“Hi,” Erik drops down beside him.

“Oh.” Charles carefully marks his place. “Hi.”

Erik suspects he wants to ask where Erik has been all afternoon, but Charles has sworn to be more understanding about Erik’s need for other friends. He almost never complains about it these days, although he does sometimes offer Erik big, sad eyes, that make him want to stay home with Charles anyway.

“How can you tell if a girl is hot?” Erik asks without preamble.

“Hot?” Charles echoes, frowning.

“Yeah, you know. Hot,” he gestures abstractly. He can’t really explain the term any better, since he obviously doesn’t know what qualifies.

“Well, I guess if they’re pretty?” Charles suggests.

Erik nods. It makes sense, but although he can objectively see that Angel is pretty—as are some of the other girls in his class—he doesn’t know if that makes her hot. Or, her prettiness doesn’t make him hot, which he thinks might be more to the point.

“Why?” Charles prompts.

“Sean and Alex both think Angel is hot.”

“Angel…from your class?” Charles frowns again, the look he gets when he’s puzzling something out. “The one with the dark hair?”

Charles knows everyone in town—he spends so much of his time just watching other people, that he remembers all their names and faces.

“She kissed me today,” Erik says, and feels a little proud even though he hadn’t really enjoyed it.

Charles’ eyes widen. “Really?”

Erik nods, wondering if Charles is impressed. But the other boy frowns and looks away. “Was it nice?” he asks quietly.

“I guess.”

“Oh. Um, I have to go.” Charles stands abruptly.

Erik laughs, but then realizes Charles is serious. “Go where?” The other boy has nowhere else to go, no one else to see.

“I forgot something,” he says vaguely and hurries off down the lane. Erik thinks he sees Charles wiping at his eyes and frowns.

It has been a very strange day.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik lays awake, wondering about Charles’ behavior. He waited in the field for awhile, thinking his friend was going to come back, and when he didn’t, Erik got in trouble for coming home late.

Charles seemed upset, first at Erik’s question about Angel’s relative hotness, and then at the revelation that she had kissed him.

Erik rolls over, punching uselessly at his pillow. Is Charles upset because he wants to kiss Angel? It seems unlikely, even though both Sean and Alex probably do.

He’s sure Charles could kiss her, if only she could see him. He’s really good-looking; even Erik knows that. He’s got such blue eyes, bluer than the sky, and they’re so much bigger than Erik’s. And he has really long, dark eyelashes, too.

Even freckles look nice on Charles. Erik teases Sean about his all the time, but the light smattering across Charles’ nose really suits him. And he’s always so nicely dressed. Surely any girl would want to kiss him.

The thought makes Erik sad, although he isn’t sure why. Is it because Charles will never get to kiss a girl?

He drifts off to sleep, feeling unsettled.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

He wakes at a knock on his window and sits up, squinting into the glare of the rising sun. Charles’ pale little face is pressed against the glass.

“Hey,” he whispers, pushing the window up.

“Good morning,” Charles smiles, and hauls himself in the window with the ease of years of practice.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I missed you,” he shrugs, dropping down in the mess of Erik’s sheets. “We didn’t get to hang out yesterday.”

Erik refrains from pointing out that Charles was the one who left.

“I missed you too,” he says instead. It’s something he would never say to Alex or Sean, although he does sometimes miss his friends when they’re away. But somehow, with Charles it’s always been okay.

Charles gives him a little smile, ducking his head slightly. He’s sure it’s something Charles has done a thousand times before, but this morning it gives Erik a start. He blinks, wondering why the gesture seems so familiar.

And then he remembers…Angel, perched on her bed, blushing and ducking her head, giving him shy smiles.

He shakes his head as he sits down next to Charles. Charles peers up at him from under his long, dark lashes and reaches up to push his messy hair out of his face. The image of Angel twirling a dark lock of hair, tucking it behind her ear, flashes unbidden into his mind.

Has Charles always looked at him like that?

The other boy nests in his bed, curling up against the pillows like he belongs there. Erik smiles.

“Are you excited to see Angel today?” Charles asks after a minute, biting at his rosy lower lip.

Erik shrugs. “Not really.”

“But aren’t you dating her now?”

“I don’t know. I guess yesterday was a date, even though I didn’t know until we were already on it.”

That draws a small smile from Charles. “But you kissed her.”

“She kissed me,” Erik corrects, feeling the importance of the distinction. He pauses, wondering if he should say more, and then realizes that he never keeps anything from Charles. “I didn’t really like it,” he admits.

Charles’ face inexplicably brightens. “Really? But kissing is supposed to be nice.”

“It was just weird. She had this gross strawberry stuff on her lips and I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and her hair was in the way,” he says in a rush.

“Maybe it’ll get better with practice?”

Erik looks down at his hands, picking at his nails for something to do. “I don’t know. All the other guys think she’s hot, but I don’t really see it. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

There, he’s said it.

“Erik, of course not,” Charles’ arms come to wrap around his shoulders, drawing him close. “Everyone has different taste. You don’t have to think she’s pretty just because Sean and Alex do.”

Erik frowns even as he leans into his friend’s arms. “I don’t really think any of the girls are hot,” he whispers.

“Well, we’re only thirteen,” Charles says reasonably. “I think that might be too young to date, anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Besides, I don’t really think about girls, either.”

Erik straightens, sitting up to peer into Charles’ eyes. “Really?” It’s such a relief. He doesn’t care if Charles is made up, if it’s just Erik’s subconscious projecting everything he wants to hear. It’s just nice to have someone who feels the same way.

Charles’ cheeks pinken as their eyes meet, faces close. Erik thinks again that its too bad no one else can see Charles. He’d have a girlfriend for sure, with eyes like that.

“Can I walk with you to school?”

Erik grins. “Of course.”

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Angel tries to catch his eye in homeroom, but Erik bends over his books, pretending to do last-minute homework. He doesn’t know what to say to the girl. Now that Charles has told him it’s okay, he can admit that he doesn’t want to date her, or even kiss her. She’s nice enough, but she’s be happier with someone like Sean, who gets excited every time he sees her.

Erik only feels that way about one person. He smiles as he thinks about Charles waiting for him on his front stoop, or knocking on his window, grinning whenever he catches Erik’s eyes.

He still wishes other people could see his friend, that he could prove once and for all—to himself as much as to everyone else—that he isn’t crazy. But lately, he’s begun to appreciate the fact that he has Charles all to himself. He knows it’s sad and lonely for the other boy, but he can’t help but gloat over the fact that he’s the sole focus of Charles’ attention. He never has to worry that Charles likes someone else better; he never has to see that sunny grin directed at another person.

Guilt stirs in his stomach as he remembers the look on Charles’ face when he told him about Angel. Was that why Charles got upset? Because he was afraid Erik would spend all his time with Angel, and forget about him?

He resolves to reassure his friend, somehow. They’ve known each other for eight years now, and despite how hard it’s been, Erik wouldn’t give Charles up for anything. He knows what would happen if anyone found out he still sees Charles—at thirteen it can’t be dismissed as childish fancy—but he doesn’t care.

Charles is bright and smart and funny and interesting and so good-looking…

Erik’s thoughts break off with a start. He can’t seem to get the image of Charles’ pink cheeks and wide blue eyes out of his mind, or the way his friend bites at his lips, leaving them shiny and red. He feels himself flushing, the back of his neck heating, as he remembers the way Charles curled up in his bed, peeking up at him through his unruly bangs.

Charles is his best friend, so it should be okay to want to spend all his time with him, but somehow, Erik thinks the way he feels for Charles is not the way Sean feels for Alex. The way he’s thinking about Charles now is actually a lot more like the way Sean talks about Angel—about her hair and her eyes and her smile.

But if the way he feels about Charles is the way he should feel about Angel—then what does that mean?

Erik’s not stupid. He’s heard the word “gay” before. He’s heard the things Shaw says about ‘fairies’ and ‘fags.’

He never thought those things applied to him. He doesn’t act like a girl—he likes to play sports and get dirty and run around outside.

And yet, when he thinks about Charles, he can’t help but feel warm inside.

Erik bites his lip, ducking his head further over his book. He wishes he had someone to ask about all of this, but normally the person he’d talk to would be Charles.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Erik, hey Erik!”

Erik winces as he hears Angel’s voice ring out across the lunchroom. He turns, offering an insincere smile as she bounds up to him.

“Hi!” she says breathlessly, smiling widely.

Sean and Alex murmur behind him, obviously listening.

“Hi,” he offers weakly.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you all day,” she laughs. “I wanted to tell you again what a great time I had yesterday. Do you want to come over again today?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Oh.” Her face falls slightly. “Tomorrow maybe?”

Erik sighs, wishing they weren’t in a crowded lunchroom, with his friends standing right beside him. He lowers his voice. “I think you’re really nice, Angel. And I’d love to be friends with you. But, you know, just friends.”

Her face falls further. “Oh.”

He really hopes she isn’t going to cry.

But all she says is, “Yeah. Okay. Friends.” She offers him a tiny, tight smile and then hurries away, clutching her books tightly to her chest.

“Dude,” Sean hisses. “Did you just dump Angel Salvadore?”

“I guess?”

“Dude!” Alex crows, clearly impressed, and Erik shakes his head with disbelief.

“Do you think she’d go out with me now?” Sean asks anxiously. “Should I ask her while she’s still sad?”

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik takes the long route home from school, needing to clear his head. Now that he’s let himself notice how Charles looks, it seems to be all he can think about.

He wonders if Charles feels the same way?

He doesn’t think about his own appearance a lot, but Angel seemed to think it was okay. And he’s tall—still the second tallest boy in the class. And he’s pretty athletic. Those are all good things, aren’t they?

He knows that what he needs to do is talk to Charles. They talk about everything; there’s never been anything Erik was afraid to tell him. But he doesn’t know how to start this conversation. ‘I think you’re prettier than Angel’ doesn’t sound right, even though it’s true.

Erik frowns and slows his steps, watching the dust swirl on the road in front of him. The real problem is that he doesn’t want to be like that.

He wants to be normal, more than anything else in the world. He wants to have two parents who love him, and a house he can really call his home. He wants friends that he knows are real, that everyone can see. And he liked the way Alex and Sean looked at him after he talked to Angel; he liked how impressed they were.

But wanting to be normal didn’t make kissing Angel any nicer.

His shoulders slump. Is he just destined to be a freak in every aspect of his life?

He reminds himself that Charles—who knows more than anybody, even McCoy—doesn’t think he’s a freak. But Charles isn’t really a great judge of normalcy.

He thinks it’s okay that Erik’s the only one who can see him.

Erik doesn’t know whether to be happy or terrified when he sees Charles standing in the road in front of him, squinting into the sun and watching his approach. He lifts a hand in greeting.

“Hi,” Erik says, stopping in front of him.

Charles looks at him speculatively. “No date this afternoon?”

Erik feels himself flush. “I told you I don’t like Angel that way.”

Charles shrugs. “That didn’t stop you from going on a date yesterday.”

Erik frowns. “Charles—”

“It’s just not fair,” Charles says in a rush, turning his gaze away.

“What’s not fair?” Erik can think of a lot of things, but not any Charles would want to talk about right now.

“You can just go and talk to anyone you want. Be friends with anyone you want. Kiss anyone you want.”

Erik knows Charles feels this way—he has for years. But it still hurts to think his friend resents him, especially for something he can’t help. He’s sure he wishes Charles were real just as much as the other boy does.

“I’ll never kiss anyone,” Charles mutters. “No one can see me and so no one will ever talk to me, no one will ever look at me, no one will ever kiss me.”

“I can see you.” Erik says instantly. Then he stops and blushes, realizing what he’s saying. But the thing is, he means it. He wants it. “I’ll kiss you.”

Charles’ head jerks up. “What?”

For one terrible second Erik thinks he’s wrong, that he’s completely misread his friend’s body language. But then he realizes that Charles doesn’t look disgusted. He looks…hopeful.

“If you’ll let me,” Erik says, stepping closer. “I’ll kiss you.”

Charles draws in a shaky breath, and then squares his shoulders resolutely. “Okay.”

Erik grins. “Okay.”

He leans in, praying he doesn’t get this wrong. It’s not like he has a lot of experience—although it’s more than Charles has.

Charles’ lips are soft under his, and gentle as they slide against him. Erik presses in as much as he dares, and it’s so different from kissing Angel. His pulse is racing and he feels hot all over—he’s not focused on the awkwardness or the angle or where to put his hands. He’s just caught up in the sensation of Charles’ mouth against his own.

After a moment, they draw back, and Erik knows he must have the most ridiculous grin on his face.

He doesn’t care, though, because Charles does too.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________

“Erik?”

Erik’s head snaps up, eyes widening. Sean stands by the side of the road, waving enthusiastically.

Erik’s fingers tighten.

“Hey! I was just walking over to your house,” Sean calls, setting out across the field towards him. “I wanted to hang out.”

“Oh.” Erik feels numb, watching his friend wade through the tall grass, a smile on his face, as he stands, fingers entangled with Charles’.

Charles squeezes his hand back, looking over at him with wide eyes. Erik very carefully doesn’t turn his head away from Sean’s approaching figure.

Of course, it doesn’t matter what Charles does or where he looks. Sean can’t see him.

All he sees is Erik, standing alone in a field. Or, Erik hopes that’s all he’s seen.

If he had been looking closer or paying more attention, he might have seen Erik talking to thin air, swinging his hand beside his body, fingers clutched around nothing. If he had arrived a few minutes earlier, he might have seen Erik lean in to press a kiss to a mouth that wasn’t there.

His face flushes just thinking about it, agony twisting inside of him even though it’s quite obvious Sean has seen none of that.

There are many complications that come with dating an invisible boy, as Erik has come to realize over the last two years.

The one on the forefront of his mind is that his afternoon with Charles has just been interrupted, and apparently spoiled. It’s not like he can tell Sean he’s busy. As far as the other boy is concerned, he’s doing nothing but standing by himself in a field. Sean probably thinks Erik’s relieved to have the company.

“What’re you doing out here?” Sean asks as he comes to his side. Erik very carefully releases Charles’ fingers, flexing his hand like he was just working out a cramp.

“Just taking a walk.”

Charles stands uncertainly beside him, looking between the two boys, indecision on his face. They had been planning on going down to the stream, and Erik had held fond hopes of splashing Charles enough that he’d have to remove his shirt, at least.

He clears his throat, meeting only Sean’s eyes.

“So you’re up for hanging out? Alex is being a loser and going over to his girlfriend’s house.”

Charles snorts and Erik shoots him a quick, warning look.

“Thank god you’re a total failure with the ladies, huh?” Sean laughs, clapping him on the shoulder.

Erik grimaces, his fifteen-year-old pride demanding he snarl a rebuke. Another hazard to dating Charles, although he supposes it would be the same whether his boyfriend was visible or not. He has to pretend he hasn’t so much as kissed a person since Angel two years ago, despite the fact that his neck is still wet with Charles’ saliva.

Erik reins back his indignation and gives Sean a vicious grin. “Yeah, you too, man.”

His friend frowns, but stays put, waiting for Erik to take him up on his offer.

“You want to come to my house, then?”

“Will your hot mom be there?”

“She’s not my mother,” Erik says, like always. “But yes, she’ll be there. You can perv over her all you want.”

“Excellent!” Sean cheers, starting off in the direction of the Shaws’ place.

Erik waits for him to take the lead and then looks back over his shoulder at Charles, standing forlornly in the deep grass of the field. I’m sorry, he mouths.

Charles just watches him go.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik sees Sean to the door, waving him away, and then peers cautiously around the Shaw’s front yard.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hi,” Charles gives him a small smile from where he’s perched in the low-hanging branches of a tree.

Erik glances back into the house—Emma’s on the phone, chattering about one of the women in the neighborhood. He nods, satisfied, and closes the door carefully behind him. “Were you waiting the whole time?” he asks.

Charles shrugs. “I walked around for a bit.”

Erik stands at the foot of the tree, looking up at the other boy. Charles dangles just a foot above him, curled up in the branches, practically hidden from sight—if anyone else could see him. “Are you mad?”

“No.”

He doesn’t look mad. He looks sad, though. Not like when he’s about to start crying, but a blank, resigned kind of sadness. Like he’s never going to smile again.

Erik hauls himself up into the tree, sneakers scrabbling against the bark. He winces at the burn in his palms.

“Hey,” he says, straddling the branch beside Charles.

“Did you have fun with Sean?”

Erik shrugs. “It was okay. I would have had more fun with you.”

Charles gives him a small smile. “That’s just because you can’t make out with Sean.”

Erik grimaces. “I could, but I wouldn’t want to,” he corrects.

Charles laughs softly, shifting closer.

“I am sorry.”

“I know.”

Erik reaches for him, gripping the branch tight with his legs so he can wind both arms around the boy, pulling him closer. It’s awkward, but it feels good to have Charles in his arms. It always does.

Charles curls into him, tucking his head against Erik’s shoulder. He’s the perfect fit. Erik’s long past wondering if that’s because Erik wants him that way, or if it’s just how Charles is made. It wouldn’t change how nice Charles feels curled against him.
“I wish things were different.”

“I know,” Erik says gently. He leans back, tipping Charles’ face up to meet his eyes. “I don’t, though. Not really.”

It’s only half a lie and it’s worth it when Charles leans in, pressing their lips together.

“Erik,” he says after moment, laying his head on Erik’s shoulder. “I know I’m real.”

“I know,” Erik agrees, knowing it’s not the answer Charles wants. He’s never doubted that Charles believes he’s real.

But Charles can hear the omission in his words. “I want you to believe it, too.”

He rears back, eyes bright. “I want everyone to believe it. I want people to see me and talk to me, and know that I’m real.” The words are fierce, determination practically slapping Erik in the face.

“Charles,” he says gently, but the boy turns away. “I don’t want to live like this anymore,” he says firmly.

“Are you so unhappy?”

“Yes,” Charles practically snarls, the words ripping at Erik’s heart, even though he understands.

“I don’t know what we can do.” Erik feels helpless, trapped by Charles’ sadness.

“What about that boy? The one who gives you the books about hallucinations and mental illness?”

Erik grimaces. Hank has continued to press books upon him over the years, apparently hoping each new volume would finally convince Erik he was nuts.

As if he wasn’t pretty sure, already.

“He’s really smart, isn’t he?” Charles presses. “And he seems really interested in this stuff.”

“You want me to ask Hank about you?” Erik gapes. “Tell him I still see you? That I’m dating you?”

“You’re not, though, are you?” Charles frowns. “We don’t go on dates. We don’t go anywhere.” He swings out of the tree, dropping carelessly to the ground.

What does it matter? He won’t get hurt, no matter how he falls.

Erik knows he’s supposed to go to Charles, to comfort him. But he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know what to say that could possibly make things better.

He can’t take Charles on dates. He can’t tell his friends about him. He can’t be seen in public with him. Because Charles isn’t real.

Cautious where Charles was rash, Erik eases his way out of the branches, dropping softly to the ground.

He looks longingly at the house, and for a moment thinks about just going back inside, ignoring the way Charles is standing at the end of the drive, staring out into the distance, shoulders slumped.

But, of course, he can’t. He’s never been able to ignore Charles.

He lays a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. Charles turns into him, curling close even though his body is tense, radiating frustration and anger.

“I’ll talk to Hank,” Erik promises, although it’s a lie. He remembers how everyone looked at him when they heard about Charles, about Erik’s ‘little imaginary friend.’ He never wants to see that look again.

And it would be so much worse, now that he’s practically grown up.

What would they think of him, if they found out he was so pathetic he had to imagine himself a boyfriend? What would they think if they knew he spent long afternoons kissing and touching and petting Charles, rutting against him breathlessly? Except, to everyone else, it would seem that Erik was alone, panting and rutting to fantasies of some non-existent blue-eyed boy.

Charles smiles at him, happy to get his way. After a moment, his smile turns sly, and he runs his hands down Erik’s sides, squeezing gently at his waist. “Want to go back to your room?”

Despite everything, Erik does.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shaw slams into the house, the door rattling on its hinges. He grunts, yanking the boots from his feet and tossing them with a loud thunk against the wall.

Emma shoots him a withering glance over the glossy pages of her magazine. “Had a good day?”

Shaw sneers at her, heading for the fridge and his first beer of the evening. From the corner of the living room, Erik watches, hunched over his school books. With Shaw in a mood, he wishes he could retreat to his room, hide behind the closed door, but it would just draw more attention to him. Better to stay quiet and still.

“The Xaviers are back in town,” Shaw announces, cracking the beer open on the edge of the table.

Emma drops her magazine, leaning forward eagerly. Erik rolls his eyes. Gossip is one of the few things that can get her attention. “Really?”

“The driver brought their car by the garage. The carburetor is fucked but he wouldn’t let me touch it. Said they’d wait for a professional opinion.” Shaw growls. “What the fuck does he think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Emma mutters. “Sounds like he pegged you right.”

Shaw pretends not to hear her.

“So, they’re back at the house?”

Emma’s eyes gleam the way they only do when she knows something other people might not. He can practically feel her desperation to pick up the phone.

“For the summer,” Shaw agrees. “They’ll have the whole town jumping at their every whim.”

Erik glances between the two of them, wondering if he’s going to be filled in. “Who are the Xaviers?” He finally asks, curiosity getting the best of him.

Shaw glances at him, eyes narrowed and Erik winces under the weight of his attention.

“Rich assholes,” his foster father finally says.

“Here?” Erik snorts. Their town isn’t exactly a prosperous one. He doesn’t know why rich people would bother.

“They have a summer place, out in the country,” Emma supplies. “Or, had. They haven’t been here in years.”

“And the town was better for it,” Shaw insists.

“Please.” Emma rolls her eyes. “The town used to run on Xavier money flowing in during the summers. For the last ten years we’ve been high and dry.”

“Why’d they stop coming?”

“No one really knows,” Emma shrugs.

“It was that accident,” Shaw counters with a sneer. “Like they blamed the town for totalling their car.”

“Well, I did hear they all nearly died,” Emma says.

Erik frowns. “What happened?”

“Nothing. They totalled their car, got driven to the hospital, and then went back to their fancy city house and never looked back.”

“It was just down the road,” Emma said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I actually saw the wreck. And Sebastian towed the car away. Said there was blood everywhere.”

Emma’s face is alight and Erik can tell she’s been riding high on this exclusive information for the last decade. She probably asked to see the bloodstains herself.

“Where down the road?” For some reason, the whole thing is nagging at him.

“In that fucking field you spend all your time in,” Shaw says, drinking deeply from his bottle. “Crashed right through the fence, nearly hit one of the cows. Could have taken out Johnson’s whole livelihood.”

“They paid for all the damages,” Emma says reasonably.

“Does that mean they just get to do whatever they want?” Shaw snaps. “Walk all over us and expect us to say thank you?”

Erik frowns. The idea of an accident, right in his and Charles’ special place, eats at him. He tries to imagine the wreckage, the damage, and shudders. It brings back memories from when he was little—of Charles running, falling, the sickness Erik felt at seeing his twisted ankle, which got so much worse when Charles merely stood up, shaking off the grotesque injury.

He can practically see the grass stained with blood, the tire marks seared into the dirt.

“But no one was hurt?” he demands.

Emma shrugs. “Well, no one died,” she says, which isn’t really the same thing. “We would have heard about that. But the family was airlifted out of the hospital. Didn’t trust our doctors, apparently.”

“So you don’t know what happened?”

Emma purses her lips. She hates not knowing.

“They must be fine,” she insists after a moment. “Or else they wouldn’t have come back.”

“And now we have to put up with them all summer,” Shaw grouses.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

That night, Erik can’t shake the mental image of the car accident.

He can see it so clearly: the mangled fence, the crumpled steel. The blades of grass swaying in the breeze, stained a deep red.

He rolls over, pushing his face into the pillow as if that will stop the images running through his brain.

He doesn’t know why it’s bothering him so much. He’s seen his share of violence in his life, more than a child should, and yet a single accident, before he even came to the town, is lodged in his brain.

For once in his life, he wishes Emma knew more than she did, that she had all the details of the accident. He can’t believe she doesn’t even know if everyone in the car was okay.

He shakes his head, rolling to his back and staring up at the dark ceiling.

Long hours pass before he’s finally able to settle into sleep.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

Erik thought Emma was bad, but his whole school is abuzz with the return of the Xaviers. It seems everyone’s parents have a stake in their presence, from cleaners to bakers to extra help at the house. Kids who work at the local restaurants speculate about whether they’ll come in. Kids who need a summer job wonder if they’ll be hired.

It was as if a celebrity had come to town.

Erik shakes his head, denying that he’s as intrigued as the rest of them. He’s never met anyone rich before. Hell, if half of what the other kids are saying is true, he’s never even laid eyes on someone as rich as the Xaviers.

In the lunchroom, kids congregate in little packs, sharing information, sights and speculations.

Erik eyes them for a moment and then spots Hank, hovering on the periphery, alone.

“Hey.”

Hank brightens. “Hi!”

Erik has tried to be nice to the kid, these past few years. But he can’t force anyone to be friends with him, and so Hank is still an outcast. Guilt gnaws at him every time the boy catches his eyes, looking at him eagerly as if this will finally be the day something changes.

“Everyone’s pretty excited about these Xavier people,” Erik says blandly, sitting down beside the boy.

“Of course! The fact that the Xaviers used to come out here is the only reason anyone has ever even heard of this town.”

“So,” Erik says, casually as he can. “Why’d they stop coming?”

If anyone would know, it was Hank.

“They were in a terrible car accident. Some idiot ran them off the road. Right out by your place, actually.”

Erik nods, although it’s nothing he doesn’t already know. He doesn’t know why he’s so interested, anyway, but that doesn’t stop him from asking. “Was everyone okay?”

Hank frowns. “No.”

Erik’s eyebrows rise in surprise. After a moment, Hank leans closer. “I’m not really supposed to talk about it. But my dad works in the city—at Xaviers’ lab.”

Hank’s smart—smarter than is good for him—so Erik isn’t surprised his dad is the same. It’s no wonder the kid’s an outcast, though. He can’t imagine people in the town taking too well to someone who works in the city—going in every day and then coming back to this grubby place. Even if it doesn’t, they’d believe it gave the man pretensions.

“The whole family was shook up,” Hank nearly whispers. “Brian Xavier walks with a cane now, although he makes it look distinguished, like you couldn’t even imagine him without it. The wife and the daughter were fine. But the son…”

“Yes?” Erik prompts eagerly, leaning in just as close to Hank.

“They tell everyone he went away to boarding school. Because they don’t want the press staking out their house, harassing the medical staff, covering every blip in his records.”

“Medical staff?”

Hank nods solemnly. “Charles Xavier has been in a coma since the accident ten years ago.”

Erik tries to process that, but his brain catches on just one thing Hank said. “Charles?” His brow furrows.

“Yep. Heir to the whole thing, except it doesn’t look like he’s ever waking up. He was just a little kid when it happened, too.” Hank shakes his head sadly.

Erik’s head spins, bits and pieces of the story fitting together in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle.

Charles Xavier. A little boy in expensive clothing, injured in the cow pasture down the road from Erik’s house.

A little boy who Erik is willing to bet had wavy brown hair and big blue eyes.

His stomach seems to drop out from under him, leaving him breathless and dizzy.

“Erik?” Hank asks, concern creasing his brow.

“How old was he when it happened?” Erik asks, just to be sure.

“Um. Five, I guess. He’s just our age.”

Erik stifles a humourless laugh. Just their age.

It can’t be a coincidence, that he found a five-year-old boy named Charles wandering in that field, with no idea how he got there or where he came from.

“But he’s alive?” Erik says, because the only word he can come up with for what he’s thinking—for what must be true—is “ghost.”

Hank gives him a strange look. “Yes. He’s in a coma. I don’t think he’s even been declared brain-dead, although there’s still been some talk about pulling the plug.”

Erik’s eyes widen. “What?”

“It doesn’t look like he’s waking up,” Hank says with a shrug. “If it were anyone else, they would have pulled the plug years ago. But the Xaviers can afford the doctors and staff. So they just…wait.”

They wait, and a lonely boy called Charles wanders a small town they’ve been avoiding for a decade.

It’s heartbreakingly sad, except that all of Erik’s attention is hooked on one thing: Charles is real.

He’s a real person, with a last name and a family and a past.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Waiting out the rest of the school day is torture. Every time he hears the name ‘Xavier’ his heart leaps, and he wants to race out of the building and find Charles and tell him everything he knows.

Will the name mean anything to Charles—who’s never had any idea of his past? What about their faces? What if Charles is seeing them right now, in town for supplies? Would he recognize them? Call out to them?

Would they be able to hear him?

For ten years Erik has been the only one who can see and hear Charles. For ten years he’s been half-convinced he’s crazy.

The idea that Charles is really and truly real overwhelms him. It’s all he can think about. There are people in the town right at that moment who saw Charles be born. Who watched him take his first steps. Who have watched him grow up alongside of Erik—albeit watching a still and silent figure in a pristine bed, while Erik ran and played and laughed and cried with his double.

He wants to run to Charles now, to tell him everything, but forces himself to wait until the final bell.

The moment school is over he’s off, waving away the attention of his friends and barrelling down the road.

Charles is in the field, the field Erik first saw him in, the field he keeps coming back to, again and again.

The field in which he nearly died.

Something tightens in Erik’s chest at the thought, the idea that he almost lost Charles, before he even got a chance to meet him. The idea of the little body he inhabited when Erik first met him, lying broken and bloody in the grass. He splutters to a stop, choking at the image.

Charles looks up, his sunny smile fading into concern. “Erik?”

“Charles,” he gasps, stumbling closer, gripping tight around his arms just to feel that he’s still here. “Charles, you’re real.”

Charles looks sad. “I know that.”

Erik shakes his head wildly. “Really real. I know your last name. I know who your family is. I know where you really are.”

“I’m right here.”

“Yes,” Erik agrees, pulling him from where he perches on the split-rail fence, down into his arms. “But you’re also in a hospital in Manhattan, asleep. In a coma.”

“What?” Charles struggles against him. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re Charles Xavier,” Erik says frantically, holding tight despite Charles’ protests. “Your parents are Brian and Sharon Xavier. You have a sister. And ten years ago you were in an accident that left you in a coma.”

Charles stares at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

“Right here, in this field.”

“No,” Charles denies. “I’m fine. I’m awake. I’m right in front of you.”

His insistence is familiar. It’s the same way he’s insisted all along that he was real.

“Charles, I know it sounds crazy, but no crazier than the fact that only I can see you.”

But Charles steps back, shaking his head.

“The Xaviers are rich and live in New York, but they have a summer house on the outskirts of town. They used to come every year. Ten years ago, they got into a terrible car accident. Their son, Charles Xavier, was injured the worst. He’s been in a coma ever since. He’s fifteen years old,” Erik says in a rush, holding Charles steady against the force of his words. “They’re back this summer.”

“If all that’s true, then why can’t I remember?”

“I don’t know, Charles, but it can’t be a coincidence.”

Charles goes quiet, and Erik knows his quick mind is puzzling it all over, slotting the pieces together the way Erik did.

He turns away, glazed eyes gazing out over the field. Erik’s stomach clenches, knowing what he’s trying to remember, what he’s trying to picture. The bloody images that Erik hasn’t been able to get out of his mind.

“Was I hurt very badly?”

“I don’t know,” Erik says, reaching over to stroke gently at Charles hair, smoothing it back out of his eyes. “I guess you were.”

“I haven’t woken up for ten years?”

“That’s what I heard.”

He turns back, sadness etched into his face. “Will I ever wake up again?”

“I don’t know.” Erik cups his lovely face. “I hope you do. But you know it doesn’t matter to me either way, as long as I have you here with me.”

“Even if no one else can ever see me?”

Erik bites his lip. Of course, he’s always wanted Charles to be a normal boy who went to school and had friends and was visible to the whole world. Since things changed between them, it’s been that much more important to Erik. That other people would know that he wasn’t a loner, a loser; that there was someone amazing in his life.

But now he knows that he isn’t crazy. That Charles isn’t just a figment of his imagination, but a real boy, who really loves him.

And, Erik finds, that’s enough.

“Even then,” he promises.

Charles turns his face into Erik’s touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. When they open again, they’re sharp and clear.

“The Xaviers. They’re here, right now?” At Erik’s nod, determination colors his face. “I want to see them.”

Erik doesn’t know how they’ll manage that, but he’ll make it happen, for Charles.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________

They crouch behind a bush, peering up at the house on the hill.

“Holy crap.”

Charles can only laugh, stupefied. “This is supposed to be my house? Or, not even that—my summer house?”

It’s almost monstrous in its size, dwarfing everything around it. A palace more than a house. It even has turrets.

“How filthy rich are you?” Erik asks in wonder.

Charles shoots him a disapproving look. “The only things I have are the clothes I’m wearing, and you. You know that.”

It’s true, but also not true, Erik thinks, as he looks up at the house. This could all be Charles’ one day. When Brian Xavier dies. If Charles Xavier ever wakes up.

After a long moment, Charles lets out a frustrated huff. “I don’t see anyone.”

The house is still and silent. There are no vehicles out front to show that someone is home, although Erik can see a long garage on the other side of the drive, big enough for a whole fleet of cars.

“We might have to wait awhile.” He has no idea how rich people pass their time. Do they ever even leave their house, with a whole staff of servants to cater to their every whim?

Charles groans but drops down out of his crouch, drawing his legs up against his chest and making himself comfortable. “I still can’t quite believe it.”

Erik smiles as he sits down beside him. “It’s no more unbelievable than dating your imaginary friend,” Erik points out.

Charles laughs. “Well, I can’t let you seem more credulous than me, I suppose.”

Erik wraps an arm around his shoulders and they sit in companionable silence, watching the house.

It’s miles outside of town, a walk of several hours for the two boys, and impressively imposing. Erik can’t quite picture Charles within its walls, although he knows that that Charles spent several summers there, when he was a tiny child.

Erik shakes his head. The tiny boy he met in the field ten years before would be swallowed up within those cavernous walls, lost amid a maze of rooms and halls. He can’t help but think it was no place for a little kid.

Although, alone in the woods doesn’t seem much of a better option.

But at least he had Erik.

“Look!” Charles says suddenly, scrambling forward on his knees.

The front door of the house swings open like a gaping mouth.

After a moment, a small figure slips out of the darkness.

Squinting, Erik can make out a girl, young and pretty and blonde. She wears a brilliant blue dress.

She saunters across the grass, a magazine in one hand, a glass in the other. Her feet are bare, and she digs her toes into the soft turf beneath her.

“Raven.”

It was little more than a sigh, but Erik turns to Charles, surprised. Charles’ eyes are firmly affixed on the girl, though, full of wonder.

“She looks so grown up.”

“What?”

“I think—” He turns to Erik, eyes wide. “I think that’s my sister.”

“You recognize her?”

“She was just a little girl…” Charles says, voice distant. “Only two. A baby, really.” His eyes go back to the blonde, a tall girl of about twelve, smiling to herself as she looks around the grounds. “I couldn’t possibly recognize her. But something inside of me knows that’s Raven.”

Erik doesn’t know the name of the Xavier girl, but Charles sounds so sure.

He watches the girl in silence for a few moments, staring at her with the kind of quiet intensity he normally devotes to his books.

“She was just starting to run,” he says suddenly. “Like, fast.” He chuckles. “Faster than either of my parents. I was the only one who could catch her. She was so excited when we got to the house, that summer. She could finally run wherever she wanted, without having to worry about cars or breaking anything. We’d come out here and we’d just…run. Her little legs would go so fast.”

Erik watches her, too. She’s walking slowly, but she’s tall and lean. He could imagine her being fast still.

“You remember,” he says, an unfamiliar emotion welling up inside of him. It feels, strangely, like loss.

Charles frowns. “Not…not really. Just a little blonde girl, running across that field over there.”

It’s enough, though. Enough to prove what Erik was already sure was true.

“You’re Charles Xavier.”

Charles looks over and gives him a hesitant, pleased smile. “I guess I am.”

Erik sits back on his haunches. “What now?”

He wonders if Raven could see Charles, if they called out to her right now. Would she run up to him with open arms, recognizing the boy she thought she’d never talk to again?

“I want to see myself.”

“What?”

Charles’ eyes are serious. “You said I’m in a coma. In a bed somewhere, never waking up. I want to see myself. The body that everyone else can see.”

The idea of it—Charles’ body, so still and silent—is disconcerting, but Erik understands what his friend wants. The confirmation of looking down at himself, his own lifeless body.

“Then we have to get to New York.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Erik has no idea how to begin. Since he arrived in this town ten years before, he’s barely gone anywhere that he can’t get to on foot.

New York is a hundred miles away.

Even if he could somehow filch Shaw’s car keys—and that would bring a world of trouble down on his head—he doesn’t know how to drive. Neither does Charles, of course. He thinks maybe he could figure it out, but knowing what he does, he’s not going to risk getting Charles into another horrible wreck, even if his friend’s body would be safe, miles away from the car.

Between the two of them, he and Charles know less about the world than the average ten year old, Erik figures. He’s always been so afraid of what awaited him outside of town—if the Shaws decided to send him away—that he’s never bothered to wonder how to get there.

So, Erik does the only thing he can think of. He asks Hank.

Charles hovers nervously behind him, refusing to be left out of the conversation.

“Hey,” Hank says, looking up from his books in surprise. Erik’s cornered him in the local library—the only kid besides Charles who would willingly hang out there outside of school. Erik thinks they might have been good friends, if only Hank could see Charles.

Erik sinks into the chair beside him. “The Xaviers are from New York, right?” he asks, just to be sure.

“Yes?”

Erik pretends to look out the window, and really meets Charles’ eyes. He gives Erik an encouraging smile. “That must be an exciting place,” he says, trying for casual.

“Yeah, it is.”

“So, did they take a train or something? Is that how people get between here and there?”

Hank frowns at him, eyes narrowed as he tries to figure out Erik’s point. Erik gives him an entirely insincere smile. Beside him, Charles snorts.

“I don’t think people like the Xaviers take trains,” Hank said after a long moment.

No, Erik supposes not. Especially because he knows, from Shaw, that they have a private car and driver.

“Besides,” Hank continues, “They had to bring so much equipment and staff for Charles. Not to mention the van that had to carry Charles himself.”

“Wait, what?” Erik looks up sharply. “Charles is here?”

“Of course,” Hank says slowly. “They wouldn’t leave him behind in New York. What if something happened?”

What could happen to a boy in a coma, Erik wonders.

But that’s not the important thing right now. Unseen, Charles is tugging desperately on his sleeve.

“Well, thanks!” he chirps at Hank, standing abruptly.

“For what?”

But Erik is already striding away, following the darting steps of his invisible boyfriend.

“I’m here, Erik,” Charles pants as they burst out of the library. “I’m right here, just outside of town.”

His eyes are wide and his face is flushed. Erik’s never seen him so worked up. “We have to get into that house!”

“That’ll be easier for you than me,” Erik points out under his breath, darting around back of the building where they can talk in peace. “You could go without me.”

“No, I want you to come,” Charles says immediately, reaching out to grasp Erik’s hand. “What if it’s horrible?”

Erik has been wondering the same thing. The idea of seeing Charles lying there, lifeless, has been haunting him. But he’ll go if Charles wants him to.

“Then we’ll have to figure out how to get me inside.”

___________________________________________________________________________

They stake out the house. It’s not that interesting as far as spying goes; mostly long hours uninterrupted by any activity from within. Occasionally Raven wanders outside, sitting on the lawn with a book, or walking around the gardens.

The staff comes and goes with more frequency. People Erik knows from town arrive in the morning and leave at night, presumably cooking or cleaning in the meantime.

If only Erik could get hired for a job in the house, it would solve all their problems. But he has no idea how to go about doing that. Besides, of all the people in the town, he figures a poor, scruffy foster kid is the last person the Xaviers would hire, even as an errand boy.

So they keep watching, trying to find some kind of an opening.

It comes unexpectedly.

Raven leaves the house for one of her morning walks, and leave the front door wide open behind her.

As she turns the corner of the house, Charles stands abruptly.

“What are you doing?” Erik hisses.

Charles looks at him with wide eyes. “Now’s our chance!”

“What?” Erik knows he’s gaping. “There could be someone right inside the door.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Charles says, body tense. “Erik, we’ve been watching the house for days. I can’t stand it anymore. You can stay or go.”

Erik sighs, hauling himself to his feet. “You know I’m not going to let you go alone,” he grumbles. “But we have to be quick.”

Charles grins triumphantly and starts off across the lawn. Erik darts after him, moving more cautiously, eyes peeled for any sign of life. He’s the one who would be caught, after all.

When they get to the door, Erik pauses just outside, pressing himself against the wall of the house. “Look in and make sure no one’s there.”

Charles nods, creeping forward into what was once his home. Erik keeps his eyes on the far corner of the house, watching for Raven’s slim figure.

“It’s all clear,” Charles calls.

He takes a deep breath and forces himself to follow Charles’ voice, through the dark doorway.

Inside, the house is even more imposing than from the outside. Its high ceilings, spanning far above Erik’s head, do nothing to dispel the gloom of the place, dark and crowded with antiquities. He pauses next to a monstrous vase, nearly as tall as he is, painted with strange figures.

“Erik!” Charles calls, and he sees him, peering over the banister of the wide, sweeping staircase. “Come on, I think the bedrooms must be upstairs.”

It’s a fair guess, and Erik hurries to follow him, ignoring the voice of reason in the back of his mind telling him the further inside he goes, the more likely he is to get caught.

They creep up the stairs, their steps silenced by the plush rug beneath their feet. Its intricate burgundy and gold pattern seems to swim beneath his feet as Erik fights his own nerves.

He’s breaking and entering. He could get arrested.

Shaw and Emma would definitely get rid of him if that happened.

He sighs, and sticks close to Charles.

The hallway of the second floor seems to go on forever, lined with door after door after door.

“How are we ever going to find the right room?” Erik whispers.

“Look in all of them?”

“We can’t do that. There could be someone inside,” Erik hisses.

Charles frowns and then steps up to the first door, pressing his ear against the heavy wood. After a moment he steps away and moves further down the hall.

Erik has to hurry after him. “What are you doing?”

“Shh,” Charles says, ear pressed to the next door.

They go on like that, door after door, until Charles pauses, his brow creasing as he leans even closer to the dark wood of the door.

“I think…” he says, frowning.

Erik leans in, pressing his own ear close. At first he can’t hear anything, and he wonders if the thick wood of the doors is muffling any sound from within. But then, after a moment, he hears a small beep. “What is that?”

Charles looks up at him with wide, serious eyes. “Medical equipment.”

The reality of it presses down on Erik, heavy and oppressive. Charles’ hand rests on the brass knob, unmoving.

“We don’t have to,” Erik whispers.

Charles takes a deep breath, steeling himself. “Yes we do,” he says, and pushes the door open.

The room is, mercifully, empty…except for the still figure in the bed.

It’s a large and ostentatious room, but the drapes and rug and fireplace are drowned out by the equipment crowding every surface and corner. In the middle of the four-poster bed lies an impossibly small figure, with tubes and sensors attached to seemingly every bit of exposed skin. A machine next to him emits a steady beep beep.

“Heart monitor,” Charles says faintly, stepping forward.

It’s the only thing that indicates the figure is actually alive. The boy in the bed is so still, so silent, that Erik feels like he’s looking at death itself.

He comes to stand beside Charles, looking down at his twin on the bed.

Except that the boy at his side is full of vitality, flushed with color and beautifully alive.

The Charles is the bed is pale and thin, the shape of his body strangely small and frail under the sheet that drapes him. Erik thinks of the way the muscles in Charles’ legs coil when he runs, the way he glistens with sweat as he flies past Erik, laughing breathlessly at the exertion.

It doesn’t look like this boy has ever run.

Charles sits down heavily on the side of the bed, staring into his double’s face, searching.

For what, Erik isn’t sure.

“Look at him. Me,” he says softly. After a moment, he frowns. “Where are all my freckles?”

Erik stares down at the sleeping boy’s face. A lifetime behind drawn curtains has left his skin white and unblemished.

Not that he’s ever thought of Charles’ freckles as a blemish. The light dusting of them of them on his nose and his shoulders always makes Erik want to kiss them, to press his mouth against those tiny spots that humanize the boy’s beauty.

“Charles, I think we should go.”

Erik wants to be out of this room, out of this house, and far away from this reminder of the fact that Charles is fully human and completely vulnerable. This reminder of the hurt that has been inflicted upon him.

“We can’t go.” Charles looks up at him plaintively. “Look how lonely I am.”

“You’re not, though.” Erik reaches out for him, taking his hand. “You have me, no matter what.”

“Even though I really look like that?” Charles’ gaze falls back on his own pale face.

“Even then,” Erik assures him, although he is privately happy to have the sunny, bright, and most importantly awake Charles who has been with him his whole life.

“I feel so sorry for him,” Charles says. He reaches out, laying his free hand against his own cheek tenderly.

Something tugs roughly in Erik’s chest, thumping violently against his rib cage, and the hand entwined with his disappears.

“Charles!” Erik yelps.

But he’s gone.

Erik leaps up from the bed, looking around wildly.

Charles—his Charles—is nowhere to be seen.

The one in the bed sleeps on, the silence of the room interrupted only by the steady beeps of the machinery.

Erik draws back sharply, looking around wildly. “Charles!” he yells, desperately.

How could he just disappear?

And then the equipment goes wild, whirring and beeping all around him.

Erik knows he should run, but he can’t leave without Charles.

“Charles,” he whispers brokenly.

“E—Erik?” the word comes out brittle and harsh. The croaky, craggy voice is not one Erik knows. And yet, he turns with disbelieving eyes towards the bed, where Charles Xavier is blinking open his eyes.

They are the same person and yet not the same person, and Erik’s steps are hesitant as he makes his way over to the bed.

“You’re awake?”

“Erik,” this Charles sighs and he can see recognition in his eyes. “I’m home.”

It’s his Charles—he can see that, shining in his big blue eyes. He doesn’t know how or why, but Charles is back in his own body, awake for the first time in ten years.

Erik reaches down for his hand, desperate to touch, to make sure he is real.

The bedroom door bursts open.

“What on earth—who are you?” A woman barks.

Erik jumps back, spinning to see an angry older woman in a nurse’s uniform.

“You leave that boy alone,” she snarls, advancing into the room. “Did you touch this equipment?”

“No!” Erik insists.

“Then why is it—oh my god.”

Her eyes fall on Charles for the first time and she stops dead, staring. Charles stares back.

“You—you’re awake.”

After a moment she pulls herself together, straightening up purposefully. She presses a button on the nearest machine that quiets its insistent beeps. “Neural monitoring,” she says to Erik, as if the words mean anything to him. “And here I thought it was malfunctioning,” she chuckles with a shake of her head.

She seems to have forgotten that he’s not meant to be there, as she launches herself into her medical duties. She reaches over and presses a button on the wall above Charles’ head, before beginning to handle him carefully.

“Mr. Charles,” she says. “I don’t want you to be alarmed, but you’ve been asleep for a long time.”

“I know,” Charles croaks.

Her eyebrows rise. “You do?”

Erik hovers behind her anxiously. He wants her gone; he wants a moment with Charles, to talk to him, to assure him that the boy is fine, back in this body. The fact that this woman can see him, can touch him is unsettling, no matter how much Erik has wished for it in the past.

Now he just wants things to go back to the way they were, so he can have Charles all to himself.

Charles looks weak and pale and small under this strange woman’s firm hands, and Erik doesn’t know what to do. Charles rolls his head on the pillow, slowly as if it takes all the strength in his body, and meets Erik’s eyes. After a moment, he gives him a small smile, just a quirk of his red lips.

Erik smiles back.

“Agnes, what is the meaning of—“ The woman stops dead in the doorway, her hand coming up to her throat.

“Mama?” Charles says after a moment, the word strangely babyish. A word he hadn’t uttered for over ten years.

“Charles? Oh, my baby!” She flings herself forward, past Erik without so much as looking his way.

She curls over Charles, blocking the nurse’s touch, weeping so hard her thin shoulders shake.

“Sharon?” A deep voice asks, and Erik turns dazed eyes on the doorway, to see the family picture completed. A man with a neat, dark beard stands uncertainly just inside the room, Raven at his side. She’s very pretty, Erik notes, although not as beautiful as her brother.

“Has something happened to Charles?” the girl asks, her voice catching.

“Yes, Miss,” Agnes answers in her employer’s stead. Sharon is still bent over Charles, holding him as tightly as Erik wishes he could. “Mr. Charles has woken up.”

“What?” the man blinks, stepping forward. “Surely…”

But then Sharon draws back, and Charles sees his family for the first time in a decade.

And they see him.

There is more weeping—from everyone, really—and hugging, and crowding around the bed, and through it all Erik stands still as a statue, knowing that he doesn’t belong.

Finally, he makes himself move, while their backs are still turned, before anyone can ask who the strange boy is, in their home, in their sick son’s bedroom.

Erik creeps to the door, sparing one last glance over his shoulder at the happy family group.

They are all so elated to have Charles back—it’s everything the boy has ever wanted, and Erik forces himself to be happy for Charles.

They will need time, he knows. He suspects that Charles will need to see a doctor—the sheer amount of medical equipment in the room tells Erik that Charles won’t be leaping out of bed and running after him for quite awhile. And then Charles will explain everything to his family.

He’s better with words than Erik, anyway, always has been, so Erik doesn’t feel bad leaving the task to Charles.

He lets himself out the front door, and tries to calculate how long it will be before he hears from the boy. Days, maybe.

It’s a long time, but Erik doesn’t mind. He’s waited ten years to walk down Main Street hand in hand with Charles, and know everyone is looking. He’s waited a decade to introduce Charles to Shaw and Emma, and prove once and for all that he isn’t crazy.

He pictures being with Charles now, knowing that he’s real; everyone will know that he exists, and that he’s Erik’s. A grin blossoms over his face.

He’s waited his whole life for Charles. He doesn’t mind waiting a few more days for the boy to call.

Except…Charles’ call never comes.

Erik throws the last of his shirts into his suitcase, staring blankly down at his meagre belongings.

It’s his eighteenth birthday.

‘Happy Birthday to me’, he thinks with a snort as he zips the small case closed.

He woke up that morning to his gift from the Shaws: a one-way ticket out of their house.

There will be no more checks from the government now that he’s of age, and with no one paying them to keep a roof over Erik’s head, they’re not interested.

He flushes slightly, shame burning at his ears as he remembers how he pleaded. He promised to work at the garage with Shaw, to earn his keep. He promised to be more helpful around the house.

It’s not like he wants to stay with people who would kick him out on his birthday, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

He doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep tonight.

Sinking down on the bed next to his suitcase, he shakes his head.

He knows it’s not really fear of the future that made him beg Shaw to let him stay.

Once he walks out that door and into his new life, Charles won’t know where to find him.

Erik laughs—a wretched, bitter sound. It’s been three long years, and yet he’s still waiting for Charles, still wondering if this might be the day the other boy calls, the day he decides he wants Erik back in his life.

The day he remembers the ten years Erik gave to him, the ten years Erik was his only friend in the world.

For the millionth time, he wonders if Charles ever even thinks about him these days, in his fancy mansion, surrounded by what Erik presumes are countless rich friends, better dressed, better spoken, better educated…just all around better than Erik.

Charles—beautiful, intelligent, kind Charles, who has probably had a dozen boyfriends since Erik. Who probably has men falling all over themselves to get a chance to have those earnest blue eyes trained on them, to kiss those red lips.

Why would Charles even spare him a thought?

And yet, he can’t stomach the idea of leaving this house—the one place Charles would look for him—if ever he remembers Erik exists.

He buries his head in his hands, the scene playing out in his mind yet again. Charles, disappearing before his very eyes.

Charles Xavier waking up in his stead.

The opulent room, the well-dressed family. The derision in the nurse’s eyes as she looked at Erik, his shabby clothes and his callused hands.

He had thought it was a matter of Charles waking up in his own body at long last, but as the years passed, Erik realized that wasn’t the case. Obviously, the Charles he knew, and Charles Xavier, heir to the Xavier fortune, were not the same person.

Not really.

The face was the same, the body was the same, and yet Charles—his Charles—feels more imaginary than ever.

How could it ever have been anything more than fantasy to imagine that a boy with everything would ever want Erik?

He sighs, scrubbing at his eyes in frustration. He has to face the Shaws; he refuses to show any emotion to the people who raised him. To the people who are throwing him out.

He stands, hauling the suitcase off the bed and down onto the floor. The sum total of his worldly possession is surprisingly light.

He scans the small room one last time, remembering the first time Charles crawled in through his window, the tangled heap they ended up in on the floor.

He remembers Charles laughing, Charles crying, Charles drawing and reading and doing his math homework for him.

His grades in the class have gone down noticeably in the last three years.

He remembers Charles curled in his bed, too young for it to mean anything but friendship.

And Charles, older, looking at him with a new kind of interest in his wide, blue eyes. Charles, lying back among his sheets, flushed.

Erik shakes his head, as if he can shake off the memories.

Charles is gone, he reminds himself. There’s a residue of him in this room, though, ten years worth of memories; perhaps it is best for him to leave, to leave all that behind.

He’s tried, over the last three years, to move on, to stop looking over his shoulder to see if Charles is there. To stop jumping every time the phone rings.

He’s even tried going out on dates.

They’ve all been girls—he lives in a small town, after all—but at least he tried.

And once, at a party, he ended up in an empty hallway with Hank McCoy, his vision blurring and his steps clumsy. He had blinked up at his friend, and for the first time, noticed how very blue his eyes were behind his thick glasses.

It had been easy, in that moment, to lean in close, to catch the boy’s mouth with his own. To press him against the wall and remember the feel of a hard male body against his own, the scratch of stubble on his chin and the bite of teeth as they kissed.

It had been harder in the coming days and weeks to let Hank down, to tell his friend it had all been a mistake. Harder still to accept that Hank would never be Charles.

Their friendship had never really recovered.

Nevertheless, he thinks about going to Hank tonight. Hank, who will let him into his house without asking questions, even if there will be pity in his blue eyes. Sean and Alex will rail against Shaw and Emma, telling him what dicks they are, how unfair it all is. But Hank will let him be quiet, if that’s what he wants, will leave him alone, which is all Erik desires right now.

He lugs his suitcase to the door, steeling himself.

Shaw and Emma wait in the living room, ready to see him off. Or, more precisely, waiting to make sure he leaves.

“Well, goodbye then,” he says brusquely.

Shaw narrows his eyes. Emma drops hers to the floor.

“You have everything, sugar?” she asks, not meeting his gaze.

There’s nothing to do but to nod. And then, without so much as a handshake goodbye, they let him walk out the door. He closes his eyes for a moment on the front stoop, reminding himself that they’ve never been anything but bad for him, that he doesn’t need them in his life.

And then he sets off.

“Erik, wait!”

He turns, startled, to see Emma come flying out the front door.

For a moment his heart warms, but then she is merely pushing a piece of paper into his hand. “Don’t forget your mail. And remember to go to the post office and set up a forwarding address. We don’t want to be getting your letters forever.”

It’s not like he gets mail, he thinks, as he watches Emma’s retreating form, hurrying back into the house without so much as a glance in his direction. Only newsletters and the like from the school, meant for his ‘parents’ more than him.

He looks down at the paper in his hand, a non-descript white envelope, with his address printed neatly on the front in blue pen.

His heart stops at the all-too-familiar handwriting.

He moves away from the house on unsteady legs, because no matter what this letter says, he doesn’t want the Shaws watching him read it. It’s far too personal for that.

Without a thought he ends up at the cow pasture. He’s avoided it for years; the very scent of the grass calls up painful memories, the sound of Charles laughing, or calling his name. But now, he can’t think of any other place to go. He sinks down heavily on the broken fence and stares at the envelope in his hands, tracing the lines of his name with a shaky finger.

He tries to picture Charles sitting down to address the envelope, forming the letters of a name he hasn’t spoken in three years.

A name that Erik wonders if he’s even thought about.

Something in his chest tightens, and he tears the envelope open, letting it rip across the neat handwriting emblazoned on the front.

A delicate, unlined sheet of paper falls out.

For a moment he just clutches it in his hand, unable to look at it, the letters swimming before his eyes.

But he forces himself to focus, to read what it says.

Dear Erik,

It’s your birthday soon—I don’t know if this will get to you in time, but I hope it does. It feels strange, every year, not celebrating with you.

I know I never got to come to the real parties, but I enjoyed celebrating with you all the same.

Oh, Erik, I hope you’re reading this. That you haven’t forgotten about me.

Erik blinks at the page, frowning. He wasn’t the one who had forgotten. He wasn’t the one who had left. He had stayed right where Charles left him, trying to put the pieces of his life back together.

I hope you’re still at this address. I hope this letter reaches you.

I want to see you again.

Can you come meet me?

My parents don’t let me out that much, but I’ll be sitting in the café at the corner of Lexington and 82nd at 1pm everyday for the next week. There are buses that run to New York, every day. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve included money enough for bus fare.

Erik breaks off reading to peer back into the ragged envelope. A bill, crumpled by his careless handling, stares back at him. He draws it out and gasps. It’s a fifty. He’s never seen one in person before.

His stomach sinks as he thinks about how different Charles’ life is now. He has everything he wants at his fingertips.

And he thinks he can just throw money at Erik and make him forget the last three years—the waiting, the worry, the loneliness.

But then Erik looks down at the small bag by his feet—he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Suddenly, he’s angry. Angry that Charles can still affect him this way. Angry that everything in him is screaming to run to the bus station, to get to New York as quickly as possible.

He looks back down at the letter in his hand, scanning the rest of the message.

I know you’ve probably moved on, that you have all your other friends—Sean and Alex and Hank. I know that you’ve probably met someone (how could you not have?), that you’re probably happy. But I’d just like to see you again.

Sincerely,

Charles

Erik hasn’t met anyone, of course. But the words eat at him, anyway. Is Charles saying he just wants to be friends? Or that he just wants to sate his curiosity?

Has Charles met someone?

How could he not have? Erik’s mind echoes the words in Charles’ letter. Charles is bright, funny and beautiful.

And now, the whole world can see him.

How could they not see what Erik always has?

He slumps on the fence, torn.

He has waited three long years to hear from Charles, but this isn’t what he was expecting.

It’s not the letter he would have written.

It doesn’t say ‘I miss you.’

It doesn’t say ‘I love you.’

And Erik does. He loves Charles and he misses him, and he’s so, so angry with him for leaving him all alone.

But all Charles has said is ‘I want to see you.’

Is that enough?

Erik slides off the fence and down into the long grass, inhaling the familiar scent and the waves of memories that come with it. He pillows his head on his bag and stares up at the darkening sky. He doesn’t know where to go, or what to do.

Is it fate that Charles has been given back to him the day his home was taken from him? Is the money clutched in his fist the answer to his problems?

He could use it for something else, he knows. A different bus ticket. Groceries. It’s not enough to get him started in the world, but it’s more than he had in his pocket when he left the Shaws’ house.

And yet, Charles wants to see him.

He drifts off, shivering despite the summer air. His sleep is restless, interrupted by the sound of childish laughter, the sniffling tears of a ten-year-old boy. The first moans drawn from an adolescent, held close by the person who cherished him most in the world.

Their history gnaws at him, even as he tells himself that Charles can’t tell him what to do, just because he’s rich now, and used to people giving in to his every whim.

The letter feels too much like a command, and yet, as he sits up in the pre-dawn hours, it’s one he can’t refuse.

The walk to the bus station is long, the morning dew dampening his thin t-shirt and his ragged sneakers. He huddles in on himself, eyes to the ground, knowing there will be no cars on the road at this hour.

The letter in his pocket feels like a lead weight, heavy with all it left unsaid. Erik wonders who will miss him, today. Not the Shaws. But Sean? Alex? Hank? Will they wonder where he’s gone? Will they come looking for him, the way Charles never did?

He thinks about saying goodbye, about leaving a note, but he can’t think of the right words. Charles has always been a secret, even after he found out his true identity, even after Charles woke up in his own body.

To tell anyone now—it’s unthinkable.

And so he silently boards a dingy bus, slipping into a ripped and stained seat, with his bag cradled on his lap, and leaves the town where he grew up.

____________________________________________________________________

New York is so much more than he was expecting. More people, more cars, more noise. Just navigating through Port Authority leaves him flustered, pushed this way and that by the tides of people.

But Erik has always refused to be intimidated, and so he schools his face into a scowl, and pushes right back, shoving his way through the crowds and out the door. Horns blare, traffic swerves, people shout to each other, and Erik can only stare for a minute, realizing now that he is in New York, he has no idea where to go.

A few nervous revolutions on the sidewalk finally have his eyes landing on a street sign, and he sees that he’s at 42nd and 8th. That doesn’t help much with the “Lexington” portion of Charles’ directions, but he figures he can at least head towards 82nd, and hope for the best from there. He shoulders his bag awkwardly and sets out, pushing his way through the dense crowds the clog the sidewalks. He wonders why anyone would want to live in a city like this, with people stacked on top of each other, a hundred deep, the advertisements lining the street as loud as the cars that inched their way along beside him. He thinks of his own town—grimey and small and poor, but at least there’s grass and fresh air.

He wants nothing more than to be back in the cow pasture, lying in the grass and staring up at the blue sky.

But he keeps walking, reminding himself that somewhere in this press of people is Charles, waiting for him.

The buildings rise around him, their glass exteriors blinding in the morning sun. He squints at every street sign he passes.

He feels stifled, and when the buildings to his right give way to an open green space, he’s never been happier to see trees. When he finally hits 82nd street, he pauses, wiping sweat from his brow. He has no idea where to go from here, and curses himself for not picking up a map back in the bus terminal. He’s not a child anymore, he reminds himself. He has to take care of himself now.

He stares into the lush greenery of the park that has been his companion for the last twenty blocks, wanting nothing more than to lose himself in it’s depth. But instead, he turns back to the noise and pulse of the city street, eyes searching for any sign of where he’s meant to go.

“Excuse me, dear. Are you lost?”

Erik jumps at the voice, clutching tighter at his bag, but the speaker is an older lady, a small white dog yapping at her feet. She gives him a kindly smile.

“I’m looking for 82nd and Lexington,” he manages, trying to steady his nerves.

Sympathy blossoms over her lined face. “You’re on the wrong side of the park, I’m afraid. You’ll want to go right across, and then four more blocks after that. Fifth, Madison, Park, and then Lexington. Can you remember that?”

Erik nods mutely, trying to memorize her words. Fifth, Park, Madison, Lexington. Or was that wrong?

“It’s easier if you go up to 86th,” she points north. “Otherwise, you’ll just get lost. It’s a different world in there.”

He glances dubiously at the green space behind him, but offers her a smile. “Thank you. Really.”

“It’s no trouble,” she smiles, reaching down to untangle the dog’s leash from around her legs. “It’s not as scary as everyone says. I’ve lived here my whole life.” And with that, she’s gone, leading her barking ball of fluff into the park and away from Erik. He remembers her instructions—up to 86th so he won’t get lost—but then starts into the park after her. His sense of direction is well-honed from walking everywhere his whole life. Walking directly across a bit of park should be no trouble.

Thirty minutes later and Erik is forced to rethink that statement. He stands in the middle of a path, looking up at the treeline around him, wondering just where all the buildings had gone. He assumed it would be easy to navigate by the skyscrapers surrounding him, but it was like he had disappeared into a different universe—one with nothing but trees, grass, streams, and grottos. The endlessly crossing, meandering paths, the tiny nooks and picturesque crannies, had him completely turned around. He had walked past the same gazebo three times before he realized he was going in circles.

Erik doesn’t own a watch, but the sun is cresting overhead, and Charles’ words are burned into his mind. One o’clock.

And yet, here Erik is, lost in a park.

The absurdity of it is almost too much for him. He sinks down in the picturesque gazebo, staring out over a small body of water, clumps of algae floating at his feet. He has come all this way, and he’s going to miss Charles. He’s going to be stuck in New York City overnight, with no money and no place to go, because he couldn’t follow simple directions. Because the man-made woods all around him have swallowed him up and refused to let him go.

He lets out a humourless chuckle, kicking uselessly at the bag at his feet.

A joyous barking echoes to his left, and a large dog barrels out of the undergrowth, its tongue lolling happily out of its mouth. A moment later he hears the steady pounding of feet, and a jogger appears around the curving bend of the path. Erik waits until dog and owner have passed him by before scrambling up, grabbing desperately at his bag as he tries to keep them in his sight.

They must be going somewhere, after all.

His long legs carry him easily behind the jogger, giving the man plenty of space so he doesn’t think Erik is trying to mug him. Although, Erik thinks sullenly, at this rate he probably looks too pathetic to be really scary.

After a few twists and turns in the narrow path, the trees open up, and Erik takes in a breath at a large body of water in front of him. Countless walkers and joggers pass on the large path following the line of the water, and Erik gives a sigh of relief. If he follows the water, there’s no way he’ll get turned around.

He joins the crowds on the path, walking quickly as he spares the sky a brief glance, trying determine just how late he is for his meeting with Charles. It’s hard to tell, but he speeds up his steps, nonetheless.

After only a few moments he hears the noise and bustle of the city once again, bursting forth from the serene quiet of the massive park and onto a busy street. He looks up at the street sign and winces.

86th and 5th.

He’ll never ignore a nice old lady’s directions again.

He practically sprints across the road, weaving in and out of traffic and drawing the blare of horns behind him. He shoulders his bag more firmly and forces himself into a run, taking a left at 82nd street and pounding down the pavement, barely noticing his surroundings.

He’s on a quiet street lined with mansions the likes of which he could only dream about. He would feel terribly out of place if he wasn’t in such a hurry.

At the corner of 82nd and Lexington he comes to a stop, bracing his hands on his thighs as he gasps for breath. His eyes roam the intersection, looking for any sign of the café Charles mentioned.

Finally his gaze lands on an unassuming little sign: Boulangerie. Erik doesn’t know French, but the rows of freshly baked breads in the window draw his attention. He hauls open the door and steps inside.

The smell of fresh bread and pastries assaults his nose, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten since he left the Shaws’ house the day before. But the growling of his stomach is drowned out by the hammering of his pulse in his ears as his eyes land on a very familiar figure, paying at the cash register.

“Charles,” he gasps, taking a stuttering step forward.

The boy turns, and those blue eyes fix on him for the first time in three years—just as wide and clear and intense as the first time he saw them, when they were just children.

“Erik,” he breathes, the change in his hand forgotten as they stare at each other from across the café.

“I thought I was going to be too late,” Erik pants, still trying to catch his breath from his mad sprint through the city streets.

“I was just about to leave. It’s already three.”

“I got lost.”

The older woman behind the counter is watching them with interest, her eyes moving back at forth between Charles’ neat, well-dressed figure, and Erik’s sweaty form, his dirty and worn t-shirt clinging to his chest. He feels himself flush in embarrassment.

Charles looks good—even better than he had imagined. He’s grown, although he’s still nowhere near as tall as Erik. But he’s filled out over the years, a sturdy figure replacing the waifishness of his youth. His clothes are clearly expensive, clean and perfectly pressed, tailored to his body. His slacks and neat white shirt are startlingly familiar—so much like what he wore everyday that Erik knew him. But now he wears a blazer, as well, the neat tweed fabric lending age and authority to his young face. Erik is searingly aware of the rips and tears in his faded old jeans.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Charles asks after a moment, tone polite, but distant.

Erik’s heart sinks.

“Water is fine.”

He is not expecting to be presented with a fancy glass bottle, curling calligraphy adorning the label and bubbles fizzing pleasantly at the surface, but maybe he should have been.

It looks expensive.

“Let’s sit down,” Charles suggests, nodding him back to a corner table. The café is empty except for the woman behind the counter, and for that Erik is grateful. He doesn’t want anyone witnessing this reunion.

Over the last three years, he had imagined seeing Charles over and over again. He had pictured how it would go, conjuring a thousand different scenarios.

None of them were like this, the two of them sitting down across from each other at a small table, their eyes not quite meeting, the silence painfully palpable between them.

How could it be so awkward, when they had known each other for so long?

Erik feels incredibly foolish, having come all this way, having literally run to Charles.

“It’s good to see you,” Charles says quietly after a moment.

And suddenly Erik can’t take it. The awkwardness, the embarrassment, the shame. “You could have seen me anytime,” he says lowly, anger bubbling up inside him. “I was right where you left me.”

Charles winces. “I know. It was…complicated.”

“Complicated?” Erik asks incredulously. “You left me!” He says, finally voicing the thoughts that have been plaguing him for years. “You just disappeared out of my life like you were never there to begin with.”

“It’s not that simple,” Charles denies.

His voice sounds different. More cultured, perhaps. Steady and refined. It makes something twist deep in Erik’s chest. It makes him want to lash out.

“I was worried about you,” he snarls. “Did you ever even think about that?”

“Of course,” Charles says instantly. “Of course I did. I thought about you every day.”

“They why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you come back?” The rage has gone out of Erik’s voice, and he’s horrified to hear a note of pleading in his tone. He glances at the woman behind the counter, but she has busied herself with the pastry case, her back turned to the single occupied table.

Charles’ shoulders slump. “I wanted to. Please believe that.”

Erik frowns down at the table. That’s not enough.

“I’m eighteen now,” Charles says, out of the blue. “We spent so many years trying to guess my birthday—and it turns out it was only a few days before yours.” He offers him a weak smile. “So we were right to celebrate together all those years.”

“Charles…” Erik says. It’s like someone in a Charles costume is talking to him; he walks and talks like Charles, but Erik doesn’t know him anymore, doesn’t understand him.

All he’s wanted for years is to have Charles back in front of him, and yet now he doesn’t know what to do, what to say.

After a moment Charles leans closer, fixing him with an earnest gaze. “I wanted to call you,” he says. “But they thought I was crazy.”

“Who?”

He offers Erik a wry smile, a twist of the lips that looks far too cynical on Charles’ young face. “Everyone. It turns out no one believes you when you say you were up and walking around, fully conscious, the entirety of your ten year coma. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Now I know what it was like for you, all those years. Having people refuse to believe you.”

He fixes Erik with an inscrutable look. “Do you know how many psychiatrists I’ve been to over the last three years? And all of them said the same thing: that sometimes people dream in comas. That I dreamed of a boy named Erik. But that he wasn’t real.”

Erik snorts, because, yeah, that’s ironic. The voices of his youth echo in his head, telling him the same thing over and over again.

But it doesn’t let Charles off the hook, as far as he’s concerned. Erik would have done anything to prove that Charles was real; Charles only had to pick up the phone.

“Why didn’t you just call me? Prove that I was real?”

“The first thing I asked to do when I realized you were gone, that you had left the house, was to call you. But my parents thought I was just confused. They said that it was impossible for me to know a boy called Erik. That I didn’t have any friends by that name when I was little—and those were the only friends I ever had.”

Charles shrugs, his shoulders hunched miserably. “It was a long time before I could do anything for myself. It turns out if you lay in a bed for ten years—no matter how much exercise your spirit is getting—you’re a bit out of shape when you wake up.” He looks up, his blue gaze piercing. “I couldn’t walk, Erik. My legs were like limp noodles. No muscle mass at all. The only way I could get out of bed was in a wheelchair.”

Erik shifts uncomfortably under the weight of Charles’ gaze; he hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t thought that the body Charles woke up in wouldn’t be just like the one Erik knew, the strong little body that could outrun him, that could climb a tree in seconds, that could curl around him so tightly Erik thought they’d melt right into each other.

“There were so many doctors,” Charles says with a sigh, rubbing wearily at his temple. “And I just kept asking for you, so then they started sending me to the psychiatrists as well. They were worried that there had been brain damage in the accident.”

The urge to reach out and touch Charles, to make sure he’s okay, even though Erik can see that he is, is almost overwhelming. But this isn’t his Charles, not anymore, so he keeps his hands to himself, clenched in his lap under the smooth tabletop.

“My parents didn’t want me to be crazy.” Charles gives a little shake of the head. “I mean, no one wants their kid to be crazy, but my parents had made this big announcement that I was back; I was expected to go to all the parties, to take an internship at the family company, to represent the Xavier name. And I couldn’t do that if I was talking about my best friend Erik, the boy they were sure didn’t exist.”

Erik tries to picture it; tries to picture Charles in the midst of New York society life, but he can’t. All he can see is his childhood best friend, excited about owls’ nesting habits, or pre-algebra, or Mendel’s pea plants. He can picture Charles bent over a book almost as big as he is, but he can’t picture him in a suit at a party.

Erik sighs. He knows what it’s like to have everyone think you’re crazy. He knows what it’s like to hurt his best friend just to seem normal, to fit in.

But that doesn’t make it hurt any less. “So why write the letter?” he demands.

“I’m eighteen now,” Charles says again. “They can’t institutionalize me now unless I seem like I’m going to harm myself or others. I looked it up.”

That draws a small smile from Erik. Of course he did.

“They still keep a pretty close eye on me, but I’ve convinced them to let me move out. I’m getting my own apartment.”

Erik thinks about the bag at his feet, containing all his worldly possession. He thinks about how he doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep that night.

“Good for you,” he tells the other boy, and he can’t quite keep the spite out of his tone. Despite all the doctors, despite the parties he didn’t want to go to, Charles has everything he could want in the world.

And Erik has nothing. Not even Charles.

“I know you’re angry with me,” Charles says, voice small. “And I know you must have a million things to get back to at home. But maybe you could stay over tonight? We could catch up. It would be like old times.”

Erik is very certain that it won’t be like old times.

It might never be again.

He opens his mouth, unsure of what to say.

The woman from behind the counter appears at his elbow, a plate in hand. “Here,” she says gently, laying a plate of cookies down between them. “Eat. You’re too skinny. Both of you.”

Erik looks at the plate dumbly while Charles thanks the woman, polite as ever. The cookies aren’t anything he recognizes, although they smell amazing. He shifts as his stomach rumbles.

“Try one,” Charles urges. “I’m not sure what they are, but everything here is good. It’s…” he pauses, chewing at his lip. “It’s a Jewish bakery,” he finally says. “I thought that might be nice for you.”

Erik looks up, and suddenly all he can see is his best friend. Erik hadn’t known what it meant to be Jewish, but Charles brought him books, Charles researched it for him, Charles explained the holidays and rituals of his lost family in careful detail.

Charles has picked this café just for him, because he was thinking of Erik, trying to pick something that Erik might like.

It doesn’t make up for three years of silence, but for the first time since receiving Charles’ letter, he feels the warm glow in his chest that he’s always associated with his best friend.

“I can stay tonight,” he says, picking up one of the cookies.

It’s delicious.

_____________________________________________________________________

Charles smiles at the doorman as he leads the way inside, and Erik tries to ignore the distaste on the man’s face as his eyes drift from Charles to Erik. He draws himself up to his full height, refusing to be cowed.

Still, he wishes it wasn’t so obvious that he doesn’t belong with Charles, with his expensive clothes and his fancy apartment building.

The elevator creeps slowly up to the top floor, marked with a single “P” on the button, and requiring Charles to enter a special code for access.

When the doors slide open, Erik’s breath catches harshly in his throat.

Of course, he knows the Xaviers are rich; but his one time inside the mansion back home was clouded by fear and worry and confusion. He hadn’t taken the time to look at the details of the Xavier’s wealth; details that crowd in around him now.

“My parents are out for the evening,” Charles says, leading the way blithely through the opulence as if it’s not even there.

Erik thinks back to the countless hours they spend in his tiny, dingy room in the Shaws’ house, and feels something heavy coil in the pit of his stomach.

This is what Charles is used to now.

“They’ll be back late, so they won’t even know you’re here,” Charles grins.

Erik wishes it didn’t hurt so much to be hidden away like a dirty secret.

“This is the living room,” Charles says with a wave of his hand. “Kitchen is through there. And this,” he throws open a door with a flourish, “is my room.”

Erik steps inside, eyes sweeping over every surface.

Ever so slightly, the tension within him eases.

He has never seen so many books in his life. Not even in a library. Every wall is lined with shelves, filled to the brim with row after row of books. A large stack teeters precariously by the bed, another fills the slender windowsill.

It’s exactly the kind of room he’s always imagined Charles having.

There’s a star chart hung slightly off-kilter on the closet door, and a scientific model spread over the hulking wood desk. Loose sheets of paper, covered with Charles’ neat handwriting, are strewn around the room.

Erik can’t help but grin over at Charles, who blushingly tries to tidy the papers into some semblance of order. The horrible fear that has been sitting like lead in his stomach, the worry that Charles is different, that he doesn’t know him at all anymore, dissipates, easing away with every small detail of the room Erik takes in.

This room screams ‘Charles’—the Charles he grew up with, the Charles he loved.

“It must be hard,” he grins. “Making do with so few books.”

A rosy blush spreads over Charles’ face, even as he rolls his eyes. Erik trails a finger over the nearest shelf, the eclecticism of Charles’ interests reflected in the titles there. He feels calmer, on surer ground now, tucked away in this room.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Charles says after a moment, shaking his head.

Erik can’t, either. He moves over to the window, looking down at the city below. Cars creep like ants along the congested streets, and crowds sweep along the sidewalk, moving inexorably forward. “It must be strange, living here.”

He feels Charles move to stand next to him, his shoulder mere inches from Erik’s own. “I like it,” Charles says fondly. “There’s so much going on. Museums, plays, galleries.”

“It must be very exciting,” Erik says a little dully, thinking of the life they shared back in his hometown. Sitting in a field, walking by a stream. Nothing like this.

“It is,” Charles agrees.

Erik leans forward, resting his forehead against the glass. “There are so many people,” he marvels. Millions, he’s pretty sure. Packed onto this tiny island, stacked on top of each other.

Charles touches his wrist, just a brush of his fingertips against Erik’s skin. “Six million,” he confirms, then hesitates. “And none of them the one I wanted.”

Erik turns. “Charles…”

Charles ducks his head. “You probably have a boyfriend now,” he says in a rush. “Or a girlfriend. Probably someone pretty and popular.”

Something leaps in Erik’s chest, something that feels akin to hope. “I don’t,” he says firmly.

Charles looks up, the blue of his eyes startlingly intense. “Really?”

Erik makes a low sound in the back of his throat. “Charles. Of course not.” He falters. “Do you?”

Charles gives him a small smile. “Of course not,” he echoes. He bites his lip, teasing at the red surface. “There’s never been anyone else.”

Erik thinks of the others, the people he turned to, to try and forget Charles. The girls, with their soft curves that did nothing for him, although he tried again and again. The dark hallway, with Hank pressed against him, hard and angular, panting in his mouth.

Guilt twists inside him, and yet, he knows Charles’ words are true for him, too. There’s never been anyone else.

“I missed you, Erik,” Charles breathes, stepping forward. “So much.” Erik ducks his head, meeting his forward momentum, their noses bumping, lips barely brushing as they fumble towards each other, trying to make themselves fit.

In his fantasies, Charles had run into his arms, he had swept him up, their mouths coming together with the ease of years of practice, the sweet, remembered taste of Charles bursting over his tongue.

Here, now, it’s awkward, as they shuffle towards each other, as Erik corrects for his added height. Charles’ hands hover in the air for a moment before settling on his shoulders, the touch tentative and fumbling.

At fifteen they hadn’t done much more than rut together, sweaty and flushed in their clothes. And yet, Erik had known Charles completely, had known how to touch him, how to kiss him; had known the shape of his lean body, and how best to fit it against his own.

It’s different now. Charles is taller, broader, more demanding in his kisses.

But after a moment, they settle together, their lips slanting, tongues brushing teasingly between them. Erik’s hands settle on Charles’ narrow waist, and he draws him close. Charles isn’t exactly the way he remembered, but Erik realizes that doesn’t matter. Not when he has the opportunity to learn him all over again, to memorize the way he is now, the way they fit together in this moment.

“Erik,” Charles says, drawing back enough to breath the word over his sensitive lips. “I missed you everyday for the last three years. I’m getting my own apartment. New York is a nice place. Stay with me.”

The words tumble out in a rush, fast and furious, as Charles stares up at him with wide, pleading eyes.

Erik casts his mind back over his life; he’ll miss his friends, but they aren’t his home, and neither is the town he came from.

His home has always been Charles.

He realizes it doesn’t matter where Charles lives, or what his last name is, or how much he spends on bottled water. What matters is the boy he found sitting alone in a field when he was five. What matters is the best friend who stuck by his side when Erik had no one else, and even when he did. What matters is the first boy he ever kissed, the first boy he ever touched, the first boy he ever loved.

What matters is the boy in his arms right now. His life has always been tied up with Charles. Seeing Charles is what made him special, different. And it doesn’t matter that the whole world can see Charles now, because he is still Erik’s. He is still what makes Erik special.

“What will I do in New York?” he teases.

Charles laughs breathlessly against him. “I’m sure you can think of something.”

The city teems below them, full of possibility, a fresh start for both of them. Erik is more than the foster boy that no one wanted. Charles is more than a figment of his imagination.

And together they can be even more.

Erik guides Charles backwards with the hand on his waist, gentle pressure moving the boy across the room towards the large four-poster bed. They stumble blindly back, tripping helplessly over stacks of books littering the floor, laughing into each other’s mouths.

They kisses feel different from when they were younger, although they burned with desire then, too. But Erik is acutely aware that he is an adult now, as he guides Charles back onto the bed, pushing the smaller boy down and back until he is spread beneath him, blinking up at Erik with burning eyes.

“Charles…” his tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth, his words slurred with desire, with three years of pent up want and need bubbling to the surface. He crawls over the other boy, bearing down upon him and revelling at the way Charles shifts to accommodate him, spreading his legs to pull Erik in close.

As they fumble with each other’s clothing, Erik is fiercely glad that he hadn’t gotten this far with Hank, that he hadn’t done more than tentatively reach under a girl’s skirt in the last three years. It feels absolutely right that he’s doing this with Charles, stripping away his defenses along with his clothes; with the one person he has always trusted most in the world.

His fingers trace Charles’ bare chest, relearning the lines of his body, ghosting over new muscles and the fine down of hair that wasn’t there the last time they touched. He presses close, aligning their bodies and feeling the sweet slide of flesh on flesh as he claims Charles’ mouth, lapping up his heady flavor.

The feel of Charles’ slender hands fumbling at the button of his jeans is almost too much for him. Erik squeezes his eyes shut, resting his head in the crook of Charles’ neck as the other boy tugs open his pants, frantically dragging the fabric down over Erik’s lean hips.

When Charles guides his own perfectly pressed trousers down Erik can do nothing but surge forward, thrusting into the lovely cradle of Charles’ hips, his legs wound around Erik, holding him tight.

They come apart all too soon, a tangle of naked limbs, and yet Erik can’t help but think it’s perfect.

“So,” Charles laughs, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. “Do I feel real to you now?”

Erik props himself up on one elbow, gazing down at Charles’ beautiful flushed face. “You’ve always been real to me,” he tells him.

__________________________________________________________________________

Epilogue:

“Erik dear, I think this customer’s for you,” Tova calls from the front of the shop. Erik looks up from where he is carefully piping thick, sweet jelly into pastries, just in time for Hanukkah. Charles grins at him over the glass divide, the backpack over his shoulders stuffed to bursting. Erik grins back.

“He only comes here for you, Tova,” he says, setting down his piping bag carefully and wiping his hands on his apron. “You and your cookies.”

“Well, he could stand to eat more,” Tova says, casting a critical eye over Charles’ lean frame. “Don’t I send you home with enough leftovers?”

Erik gives a groaning laugh. “You send us home with enough to feed an army. We’ll be lucky if we can fit through our apartment door in a few months.”

She’ll never believe him, of course, as evidenced by the plate of pastries she presses upon him as he ducks under the swinging counter to reach Charles’ side. She’s basically been on a campaign to adopt Erik since the day he came in and asked for a job application. Although he knows his family was German, there is something familiar and comforting about the tones of Tova’s Israeli accent. When he sits down to shabbat dinner with her and her husband Abraham, he finally knows what it feels like to be wanted, to be accepted. He finally knows what family feels like.

Charles’ family has not been quite as welcoming, although Charles assures him that it’s merely the fact that he’s male, rather than any of Erik’s other attributes, to which they object.

Their shock at being introduced to Charles’ boyfriend Erik probably had something to do with it, Erik figures, even as Charles told them they met at the café at which Erik now works.

It’s easier that way.

Hank is the only one who they’ve told the truth. His acceptance into Columbia alongside Charles had been an unexpected blessing, and as Erik had predicted, Hank and Charles had become fast friends, spending long evenings with their noses buried in research that Erik didn’t even try to understand.

It’s when Charles has spent too long hunched over books that Erik takes over, dragging him out of the apartment and into the park, getting them lost in big fields and long grasses, the trees and the sky and the open air always reminding him of their shared childhood, of the years that led them to where they are now.

Erik slides into a chair across from Charles, reaching across the table to take his hand, tangling their fingers together with a smile.

“Raven better hurry or we’ll miss the show,” he says, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“She’ll be here,” Charles assures him, with the fond smile he always wears when he speaks of his sister.

Erik grins. They bear little resemblance to the two lonely boys who met in the cow pasture, so many years ago. And yet, then and now, what’s important is that they have each other.

______________________________________________________________________