"Have you figured out what they want yet, Charles?" Erik snapped, pacing the length of their surprisingly comfortable but (so far) escape-proof crystalline cell. Outside the walls, alien buzzes and clicks testified that their captors were still nearby. Probably observing them. Erik hoped their captivity was not a precursor to agonizing dissection. Although that might be preferable to spending much more time watching Charles Xavier exercise serene calm.

When Erik glanced over his shoulder at Charles, Charles didn't look particularly calm. He shifted position awkwardly on the crystalline chair in which he'd still been slumped unconscious when Erik first awoke in their prison. "Er," he said.

Erik rounded on him. "You have found out something."

"Possibly," Charles said, turning up his hands. "I could be wrong. I've never actually communicated telepathically with another species before."

"You've been surrounded by another species for sixty-five years," Erik said. "What does this one want?"

"They're interested in observing us," Charles said. "That's why they've brought us aboard their ship. They ..." Charles cleared his throat. "They want us to mate."

There was a long pause.

"Perhaps you should correct their misapprehensions about human biology," Erik said, fairly calmly, he thought, under the circumstances.

"They don't think we're going to breed," Charles said. "They're just ... curious."

"Tell them no," Erik said.

"I would, gladly, except that if I do, they'll kill us."

Erik closed his eyes for a moment. He'd been coping quite well with the existence of extraterrestrials, but this was a bit much. "Very well." He squared his shoulders and faced Charles. There was an awkward pause. "How are they defining sex?"

"I hadn't really discussed it with them, Erik."

"It's just that I think the most efficient thing--"

"I'd appreciate your not using the word efficient to describe sex you want to have with me."

Erik let out a sharp breath. "I don't want to have sex with you. I also don't want to be dissected."

"I find having sex with you preferable to death, too. Now can we get on with it?"

"Oh, that's romantic," Erik said.

"I'd write you a sonnet, but I'm not sure they're that patient."

"You never could write poetry." Erik strode closer, standing over Charles and frowning down at him. "Why us? Why not some of your oh-so-virile X-Men in their leather uniforms?"

"They have a form of telepathy," Charles said. "They made contact when I was using Cerebro, and probed my mind for information about all aspects of human life. Including sex. I told them all about it, but I suppose they wanted to see for themselves."

"Surely you didn't suggest mating with me."

"I told you, they probed my mind. Apparently on some subconscious level I still consider you --" Charles broke off, to Erik's relief. "They don't understand human emotions, Erik," Charles went on more quietly. "They can't understand that it's more complicated than that."

"It is," Erik said. On impulse, he brushed his thumb against the corner of Charles's mouth. It felt different, and then, as Charles turned his head into the touch just a little, it felt the same.

Charles pulled away, frowning.

"What?"

"I was taller than you, once."

Erik went down on his knees, trying hard not to show that it wasn't perfectly easy to do so. Charles looked at him for what seemed like a long time, and then leaned forward to kiss him. It was a fairly thorough kiss, almost making it possible to forget about betrayal, aching knees, and aliens. Erik kissed him back, and started unbuttoning Charles's shirt.

"Is that really necessary?"

"You didn't want 'efficient,'" Erik pointed out.

"I don't see you stripping for the audience."

"Which audience should I strip for, them or you?"

"Me," Charles said.

Erik reached for the top button of his own shirt and then stopped. "I don't think I can do this," he said, very faintly.

Charles put a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right."

"What bizarre definition of 'all right'--"

Charles reached to unfasten his tie, and shrugged it and his shirt off. "This doesn't even rank with the most undignified things I've had to do in front of people in the last twenty years."

"Charles--"

"Is it the wheelchair? Or our history? Or the risk of imminent death?"

"It's the risk of imminent death," Erik said. "No offense."

"None taken, in that case." Charles's fingers brushed against his temple. It felt treacherously good. "I do think this might be easier on the bed."

"I'm not sure it is a bed," Erik said. "It's crystal." He considered his options for getting Charles there, and ended up pushing the chair. It slid across the floor with a fingernails-on-a-chalkboard screech of protest. He helped Charles onto the clear, glittering platform, which proved to be more awkward than he'd expected, and then lay down gingerly himself. Whether or not it was a bed, it was soft.

"All right, then," Charles said. Erik sighed and rolled on top of him. They kissed awkwardly, and then with a bit more enthusiasm. Charles's hands slid down to Erik's hips and started working his trousers off. Erik tried to avoid thinking about what this provided the aliens as a view.

He worked on Charles's clothes, which was entertaining, but once he'd finished and they were sprawled mostly naked across the bed he hesitated.

"Am I supposed to --"

"Well, I really can't," Charles said. "So, yes."

"It would be easier if you turned over."

"No, I don't really think it would."

"Well, this isn't going to --"

"Think of something," Charles said. "You've had more experience."

"With sex, possibly," Erik said. "You've had more experience with you."

Charles sighed. "Honestly? I cannot think of anything you're prepared to do that's going to make this work for me." He slid his hand down Erik's stomach pointedly. "I think we're back to 'efficient.'"

Erik wasn't sure if that would be acceptable to their captors. It didn't feel very acceptable to him, either. He shut his eyes. "Read my mind."

"... Just like that?"

"They took the helmet. I can't stop you."

"I don't actually want to hurt you. As strange as that sounds."

"It never hurt," Erik said. "I liked it very much."

"That was before ... a lot of things."

Erik bent his head to Charles's ear. "I still find it preferable to death," he murmured.

If you put it that way. He could hear Charles smile. It was painfully good, Charles's mental presence filling places in his mind that stayed cold and dark these days. Erik. Amusement, anger, love.

Charles. He was only dimly aware of Charles's hand moving on him, slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. As if they were sprawled under warm blankets on a cold night, with the embers of a fire glowing in the fireplace, and Charles's hands lazily exploring long-familiar territory.

He accepted the escape from reality gratefully, and pictured sliding down to press his mouth Charles's erection, the memory of how it felt so very clear. How it tasted. Charles shared his own memory of how Erik's mouth felt wrapped around him, how it had brought him to the edge so quickly, his hands clutching the sheets. Erik pressed against Charles's hand, not quite able to match memory with sensation.

I should hope you'd slowed down a little in twenty years, Charles thought wryly.

"I know what might help," Charles said, and pushed Erik off him. He moved awkwardly down the bed, leaning on Erik's lap.

"Yes," Erik breathed. "Oh, do that."

"It's unfair that you can do that and still ... talk ..."

"I want you ... to feel this ..."

"I -- yes, it's all right, it's just --" Erik found himself fighting for control. Aliens. Imminent death. Wolverine.

That's not helping me.

Erik chuckled breathlessly and pulled a picture from memory instead, himself seen through Charles's eyes, naked and touching himself idly, beautiful in the golden morning light.

"I'm going to come," Erik said, his voice harsh. "Charles --"

Yes, Charles said in his head, wrapping himself so tightly through Erik's mind that it all blurred together, his mouth on Erik's cock and his building orgasm and the taste of Erik's skin and the feel of Charles's shirt clenched tight in his fist as the pleasure flooded through him.

Them.

Coming apart hurt. All those rooms in his mind going cold.

"Tell them we're finished, Charles," Erik said. "Tell them to let us go."

Charles pushed himself up to sitting. "I'm telling them," he said. He looked tired. "I think they're going to drug us again so they can 'put us back in the wild.'"

"Where we go back to hating each other."

Charles looked at him levelly. "Did we ever stop?"

"It's all right," Erik said after a moment's pause.

"What bizarre definition of 'all right' --"

"Ours," Erik said.

"I think I the drug is kicking in," Charles said. He looked like he wanted to lean on Erik's shoulder, but didn't. "Or maybe that's just you," he said, with the ghost of a smile.

"Romantic."

"I'll work on the sonnet."

"What, for next time?"

"You never know," Charles said, and Erik was grateful to lapse into unconsciousness before he had time to think about that much at all.

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