Archive of Our Own

“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.”
-- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

There are reporters waiting for him as he’s coming down the steps.

Walking away from the court that has just labelled him a libelist, he’s having microphones and voice recorders shoved in his face; journalists and news readers all screaming for him, saying, “Mister Lehnsherr, will you appeal?”

He’ll appeal to these vultures to leave him alone, to let him be, and the rain is plastering his hair to his forehead as he shoulders his way past them -- BBC and ITV and Channel 4 and God knows who else, and they all have big fat cameras pointed at him.

A couple of them follow him down the road; one woman yelling after him, saying, “Mister Lehnsherr, will you be apologising to Kurt Marko now that he has won the legal battle?”

His lawyer had advised him not to answer any questions from the press. That he would see to them.

He won’t be apologising to Kurt Marko.

He keeps walking, hands tucked into the pockets of his trench coat, and the reporters give up, eventually.

There’s one waiting at his car, Daily Mail badge pinned to their jacket, and Erik shoves them out of the way as they’re halfway through blabbering; asking, “Mister Lehnsherr, is it true that you’re a lying left wing fanatic?”

The man swears at him and bangs at the window of Erik’s Renault, his five year old black Clio, and Erik is biting his tongue as he pulls out and away from the car park. It wouldn’t do to be charged with assaulting a Daily Mail journalist. Or death by dangerous driving.

The roads are empty, the weather scaring away tourists and travellers, and Erik glares at the red traffic lights, blurred by the heavy rain that hammers at his windscreen.

He’s at his apartment block just in time for the BBC’s one o’clock news.

He’s not a headlining story, but he gets his mention twenty minutes in.

He’s lounged out on his sofa, some big grey IKEA thing with the backrest too low, and he’s drinking straight from the bottle of some red label Smirnoff he’d found in his fridge.

Must have been something that Emma had given him, and the newsman is saying, “Political journalist and editor Erik Lehnsherr was today found guilty of several counts of aggravated libel against Kurt Marko, the CEO of Anglo-American pharmaceutical company, LifeTech.”

Erik frowns at the TV as it cuts to video images of him walking away from the cameras, and he’s still sopping wet with the rain as he swallows back a mouthful of vodka.

It’s this awful stuff that scratches at the back of his throat and leaves his nose scrunching up, and the television says, “In an article published earlier this year, Lehnsherr claimed that Marko was involved in the distribution of heroin needles infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, more commonly known as HIV.

“The article went on to further claim that Marko did this in order to make profit from selling his company’s drug that enhances the lives of those with the virus, as well as to benefit from the street sale of heroin.”

The cigarettes in Erik’s coat pocket are soggy and useless.

Marko appears on the screen, then, some poor bastard holding an umbrella over his head as he stands there in his Giorgio Armani suit, all confidence and greying hair and whitened teeth as he’s saying, “I have nothing against Mister Lehnsherr.”

Cameras are flashing in his face, lights reflecting off his smug wrinkles, and he says, “I do not believe that he was working maliciously. He is a good journalist, but what he wrote was inaccurate and potentially damaging to the reputation of me and my company.

“I am in the business of helping the sick, not harming them. Lehnsherr, like all of us, must learn that actions have their consequences.”

The newsman comes back, sat at his desk in the red and white BBC offices, and he finishes the story off, his face blank as he reads the autocue, says, “Lehnsherr -- of the political magazine, Anomie -- was ordered to pay one hundred thousand pounds in damages and all court costs, which could be significantly more.”

At Anomie headquarters the next day, Erik’s head is pounding with a hangover, and the bags under his eyes are a washed out purple.

The staff look up at him as he walks in, the place all familiar greys and blacks and IKEA furniture from head to toe, and the interns and the journalists are looking at him like he’s a dead man walking.

They’re all sympathetic eyes that turn away as he walks past, and he heads straight up the stairs and to the mezzanine.

Some kid asks if he’d like anything, coffee, tea, a sandwich, and he shakes his head.

He doesn’t even knock as he walks into Emma’s office.

Emma Frost, Erik’s co-owner and co-editor, and she’s sat in her IKEA faux leather chair behind her IKEA slate grey desk, and she has her arms folded across her stomach.

She has one leg crossed over the other, black tights and black dress and black shoes, and she raises an eyebrow as Erik shuts the door; leaning back against it.

“And just where have you been?”

Her American accent hasn’t faded, not in the seven years that she’s been here, and her pale skin and blonde hair are a contrast against her dark ensemble.

Erik shrugs.

He says, “I took the day off yesterday. Sue me.”

Emma laughs, a quick and sharp ha, and she says, “I would, if I thought it was worth my time. We all know that you don’t have any money left after this one, sugar.”

Erik sags, drawing a hand down over his face.

He rubs at his eyes with the tips of his fingers, and Emma says, “Channel 4 called. I told them no statement until we’ve read the judgement in its entirety.”

Her voice is back to professional, and her eyes are softer than usual when Erik looks at her.

“Channel 4,” he says. There’s a seat he can take, opposite Emma and her desk, but he doesn’t plan on staying long. “Who else?”

Emma smiles, then, despite herself.

She says, “Oh, a lot of people. Here,” she says, grabbing a sheet of paper. She holds it out to him. “I wrote you a list.”

He purses his lips as he walks over, taking the paper.

Channel 4, the Mirror, Sky News, the Guardian, ITV, New Statesman, the Daily Mail, YOUR MOTHER, BBC, the Independent, the Times, Channel 5, the Sun, YOUR MOTHER AGAIN, the Telegraph, the Express.

The list goes on, looks like Erik is in demand, and Emma says, “Honestly, do you not answer your mobile on purpose? Your mother practically told me she’d disown you the next time she had to leave you ‘one of those God forsaken messages’.”

She puts on his mother’s accent, over exaggerating the German and Yiddish tones until they mix into gibber, and Erik laughs.

A weak huff of a thing, and he shakes his head; offers Emma a cheap grin.

“My mother is a formidable woman,” he says, dropping the list back onto Emma’s desk. “And I wasn’t particularly in the mood for her chiding, yesterday.”

He’d listened to the messages, though.

Erik, mein Junge, couldn’t you have looked a little nicer for the cameras? All of my friends see these shows, mazik.

She’d tutted around twenty times in the first one and a half minute message, and the second had consisted of her babbling about how Erik should learn to answer his phone, especially to his mother.

Honestly, boychick. I know what you’re up to. Don’t you think I don’t. You answer the phone to your old mother. You’ve a lot of chutzpah to be favouring drink over me.

Erik sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“How the hell are we going to afford a hundred k?”

Emma’s lips fold inwards as she bites at them, a nervous habit that often has her smudging her lipstick; and she brushes a hand through her hair, all manicured fingernails.

“We can just about scrape it together,” she says. She deflates into her chair, says, “As for the legal fees, Erik, I don’t-- we might not be able to survive this.”

He should never have gone with the article.

One of the leading pharmaceutical companies across the globe, LifeTech and Kurt Marko have one dirty hand in the heroin jar.

He knows what that’s like.

Emma says, “You’re not the only one to blame for this.”

Erik scoffs, eyes sore from the rubbing of his hands, and he looks at the ceiling as he says, “I wrote it.”

Emma goes to say something, counter him, but he says, “No, Emma.” He tugs his hands through his hair and loops his fingers at the back of his neck. “Even if you hadn’t wanted to publish it, I could have overruled your decision. We’re fucked,” he says, leaning against the back of the chair. “And it’s my fault.”

There are more reporters waiting for him as he’s leaving HQ, scurrying about him like rats, and he’d likely hit one of them if he didn’t want another court case on his doorstep.

It isn’t raining, today, so they’ve all come out to play in the sunshine.

“Mister Lehnsherr, is it true that your mistake could leave Anomie bankrupt?”

It’s some woman from Sky News, the dirty big logo spelled out on the microphone that she’s shoving in his face, and he says, “No.”

It’s a lie, but he can’t file for libel against himself.

The Sky News microphone is still pointed at him, and he’s glaring at the cameraman as the reporter asks, “And is it true that you’re a communist visionary?”

Erik turns his head to blink at her, and he says, “No.”

They follow him, again, and he has to sit in his Clio for fifteen minutes before they back off.

They’re just far enough away that he can get out of the car park without knocking any of them down, and there’ll be countless photographs of him through the streaked windows come tomorrow morning.

There’s only so long that he can go before incurring the wrath of his mother at his door, so he calls her as he pulls a can of Tsingtao from the four pack in his fridge.

All that’s in there is beer and a few sad looking lettuce leaves and a couple of silver takeaway trays, and his mother’s voice rings down the phone, loud and shrill as she says, “Erik Lehnsherr.”

Erik rolls his eyes as he sets himself down on the sofa, Tsingtao on a coaster on the coffee table, and he says, “Hallo, mama.”

“Does it hurt to be crazy?” his mother asks, and he huffs as he turns on the television.

“No,” he says.

It’s five thirty, and on BBC One there’s Pointless, and on ITV, there’s The Chase.

He settles on ITV, and he says, “I’m sorry. I was very busy yesterday.”

His mother makes a disapproving noise, and he winces when he cracks open the beer.

There’s a silence, which means she heard it.

“You’re drinking again,” she says, her voice low and accusing. She says, “You need that like a hole in the head, Erik Lehnsherr.”

“I’m drinking because I’m thirsty,” Erik says. He mumbles the answer to the question on the television, David Fincher, and he says, “Not to mention the fact that I’m thirty six years old.”

“Hm,” his mother says. “Not old enough to answer your phone, though, are you? Dummkopf.”

She never could stick to just one language. Has to throw in all three at once.

Erik rubs at his brow, fingers playing at the cracks in his forehead, too much stress, and he says, “I told you, mama. I was busy.”

She doesn’t buy it, and he sighs.

“I was upset,” he says. “I’ve just lost a serious court battle, this-- this could ruin me, mama.”

The line is quiet for a while, and Erik feels a fool.

He swallows back a mouthful of Tsingtao, cold from the fridge, and his mother says, “Oh, Mäuschen.”

It’s how she’d speak to him when he was younger, just a boy, and he slouches further into his seat as she says, “You’ll get through this. My brilliant boy, Erik, you will.”

He wants to disappear.

His mother says, “You looked very handsome on the television.”

He laughs, then, watery and off guard, and she says, “Handsome, but very angry. A smile never did anyone any harm, mensch.”

Erik relaxes, just a little, and he takes another swig of beer.

He says, “And what did your friends think?”

She goes on about them, her friends, ladies her age from her local synagogue and her local book club who want to set Erik up with their daughters, and Erik is sat smirking to himself around the mouth of his beer can.

“Don’t worry, little bird,” his mother says, and he purses his lips at the phrase. “I tell them every time. You’re already in a very loving relationship with a girl back in West Germany.”

She still calls it that. Despite the fact it’s been almost twenty five years.

“I hope you don’t call me little bird in front of them,” Erik says. “They all know what it means.”

Faygala. Yiddish for homosexual male.

In English, it translates to little bird.

There’s no one waiting outside of Anomie HQ the next day, and Erik is glad for it.

“If I see another reporter around here, they’re getting this coffee thrown over them,” he says, using his shoulder to push open the door to Emma’s office.

She offers him a smile, too wide to be sincere, and he acknowledges her through narrowed eyes as he sets her cup down on her desk.

“Americano,” he says, nodding at it.

She thanks him, and she says, “You have a visitor.”

He raises an eyebrow, and she says, “He’s waiting in your office. Do try your best to be nice. I know you struggle with it.”

Erik frowns at her.

“I’ve just lost over a hundred thousand pounds,” he says. She just looks at him, and he says, “I swear, Emma, the best this guy is getting out of this is a ‘fuck off’.”

In his office, almost the exact replica of Emma’s, just across the hallway, there’s some man sat in the seat on the other side of Erik’s desk.

He turns around as Erik barges in, all tweed jacket and floppy brown hair, late twenties, thirty, at most, and Erik is stood holding the door open.

“I’m not talking to reporters,” he says. He’s not negotiating on this. He doesn’t care if this guy is with the Guardian or if he’s with the Sun. He wants him out. “I don’t care what you said to get yourself in here, but I want you out. Now. So fuck off.”

The man looks almost amused as he stands from the chair.

He’s not carrying a satchel with him. Not a notepad or a pen, nothing, and Erik frowns.

He’s short, about half a head below Erik, and he’s got an easy smile.

“I’m not a reporter,” he says. His accent is classic British, that posh upper class you only hear with period dramas, and Erik stares at him.

He’s keeping the door open with his foot, one hand holding his coffee, and the other lowers from where he’d had a finger pointing down the hall.

The man fishes around for something in the inside of his jacket, and he pulls out a wallet.

He thumbs it open, tan faux leather that’s frayed around the edges, and he says, “I’m a Detective Inspector with the Metropolitan Police’s homicide department.”

He walks over, black slacks and black shoes and a blue shirt under the tweed, cornflower blue, and he stands close enough that Erik can see his badge and his credentials.

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier. Erik blinks.

He looks from the wallet to the man’s face, the same as the tiny faded picture by his name, and Erik chews the inside of his cheek.

“Great,” he says. He shuts the door, and it can’t even slam after the buffers the interns had installed.

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier offers him a grin.

“Great,” Erik repeats. “Even better.”

He’s going to kill Emma.

He’s going to march into her office with a rolled up newspaper and smack her over the nose with it, fucking arschgesicht.

He relaxes his jaw where his teeth are grinding, and he says, “Please.” Waving a hand, he says, “Take a seat. Detective.”

He makes his way to his own chair, and he’s taking a sip of too hot and too sugared coffee as the detective says, “You don’t have to call me Detective.” He says, “Just call me Charles.”

Erik raises an eyebrow, but he nods all the same.

“Okay,” he says. He sets his coffee down and tugs the scarf from around his neck.

It’s warm in his office, and the heating is going to be the first thing to go when they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for loose change.

He’s not sure what to say, so he wraps his hands in the ends of his scarf, says, “Is there something I can help you with, or--?”

Charles nods his head, and he says, “Yes, actually, there is.”

He’s got these big blue eyes, bright as anything, and he says, “I have to admit, it’s a bit of a long story, if you agree to what I have to say.”

Erik doesn’t know if he can disagree to what a Detective Inspector has to say.

Charles says, “But I do hope that you’ll put up with me until the end.”

Erik scratches a hand through his hair and toes off his shoes under his desk.

“Okay,” he says. He’s hesitant, feet itching at each other. “I’m not exactly in demand, at the moment,” he says. He slumps in his chair. “Surprisingly. So take as long as you want.”

That rattles a laugh from Charles, this short chuckle of a thing, and he says, “That’s what brought me to you, actually. Seeing you on the television. I’ve always been a fan of your magazine,” he says, and Erik offers a tight smile. “And you’ve never been wrong before now.”

Erik picks at his nails. Mostly, he’s thinking about court fees.

He’s thinking about having to sell his apartment and having to move back in with his mother, and a bruised ego matched with a loss of thousands of pounds is doing nothing for him.

Charles tilts his head, and he says, “And I suspect that you were not wrong in the case of Kurt Marko.”

Erik looks up, then, and the man is smiling at him.

It’s warm, nothing like Erik’s, and Charles says, “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here on much trickier business, unfortunately.”

Erik’s eyebrows pull together.

There’s a Detective Inspector sat in his office, posters of old Anomie covers and that old Trainspotting quote on the back of his door, Choose Life, and Erik is racking his brain for illegal activity.

More of it, that is.

There’s no drugs since he was twenty two years old and there’s no dodgy backhand deals and no illegal obtaining of information, and he’s coming up clean, so far.

Charles says, “You’re one of the best, Mister Lehnsherr,” he says. There are crinkles around his eyes, crow’s feet, and he says, “You’re one of the best investigative journalists there is.”

Erik is watching him, how carefully he’s choosing his words, and he pauses and looks down at his shoes.

They’re shiny black brogues, all pattered with swirls and dots, and Charles says, “I need your help.”

He’s looking up at Erik, now, and Erik sips more coffee.

Charles crosses and uncrosses his legs, trying to get comfortable, and he says, “I need your help to find a serial killer.”

Erik stares at him.

There are a few things he was expecting, maybe a ‘someone was attacked in your apartment building’, or a ‘someone’s stolen your motorcycle’, but this is a new one.

“A-- what?”

Erik doesn’t know any serial killers.

There’s Kurt Marko, maybe, probably, but he doesn’t think that that’s what this Detective is after.

Charles smiles, and it’s almost a smirk in how it quirks at one side of his mouth.

“You’re brilliant at what you do,” he says, settling in his chair, arms on the rests. He looks more confident, sure of himself, and he says, “After I saw you on the news, I knew I had to ask. It was the least that I could do”

Erik is barely listening. His brain is trying to catch up with his ears.

He’s looking at the poster behind Detective Inspector Charles Xavier’s head, Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career, and he blinks.

He says, “What--,” but he stops.

He’s sat up straight, now, looking at Charles, and he says, “Explain. Please.”

He’s halfway to believing that this is a joke -- something that’s been set up to take his mind off Kurt Marko and LifeTech and over a hundred thousand pounds, but the man doesn’t look like he’s joking.

He looks like he’s itching with anticipation and a longing and a full set of nerves.

Charles’ chest rises with an inhale, veins bright on the backs of his hands as he holds them together, too tight, and his chest lowers with an exhale.

“The case has been ongoing for over twenty four months,” he says. His fingers play with each other, his nails blunt and short where Erik looks at them, and Charles says, “I was recently taken off it. They said I got too involved.”

There’s a twitch at his forehead that Erik catches, and the skin across his cheeks tightens as he clenches his jaw.

He says, “I’ve been ordered to take a month’s paid leave.”

Erik’s wishing that he could take a month’s paid leave, a year’s paid leave, a life’s paid leave, and he nods at Charles to keep going.

He’s wondering what too involved means, and Charles says, “But I can’t just stop.”

He sets one thigh over the other and leans forward, hands on one knee, and he says, “You’ll know what it’s like, I-- I’m invested in this, Mister Lehnsherr.”

He takes a breath that’s too long, and Erik scratches his nails at the corrugated paper of his coffee cup.

He knows what it’s like, being so invested in something that it feels like that’s all there is. A story that’s worth chasing down rabbit holes and worth losing sleep over, and his coffee is heading towards cold.

“Nine people have been killed so far,” Charles says. Eyes like glass, he says, “Nine. And we can’t find anything.”

Erik raises an eyebrow. “And you think I can?”

Charles nods his head.

“Well,” he says. He deflates, just a little. “I hope you can. We can.”

There’s a pause as Erik looks at him.

He’s not a detective. He’s a journalist.

He goes after bent politicians and the hidden trails of businessmen.

He doesn’t go after murderers.

“If you agree,” Charles says, and he’s looking straight at him, “There’s a reward of two hundred grand in it for you. If we find the killer.”

Erik blinks.

Like one of those cartoons, eyes widening; bugging out, and he says, “I don’t-- where the hell does the Metropolitan Police get two hundred grand?”

The Metropolitan Police are not well-known for their funds.

Erik should know, all the work he’s done on them, frauds and racists and embezzlers, and Charles laughs. It’s light.

He says, “It’s not the Metropolitan Police’s money. Frankly, if they knew what was going on here, they’d be less than happy.”

Erik stares at him.

He doesn’t understand, but that’s nothing new.

“It’s my money,” Charles says. “From my family inheritance.”

That’ll explain the accent.

All perfect annunciation, and Erik doesn’t want to know how much money this man has if he’s prepared to throw out two hundred k to a labelled libelist.

Erik sets his elbows on the edge of his desk, and he rubs his hands over his face.

He leaves them steepled in front of his nose, thumbs hooked under the edge of his chin, and he looks at the ebony wood. He says, “I don’t know.”

He needs the money. God knows he needs the money.

His hands are set out like a prayer, and Anomie needs the money.

Marko has bled him dry, taken all his money and spread a crack through his reputation, and the whole magazine is going to collapse under him if he doesn’t find new foundations.

He bites the inside of his lower lip.

He does it too often, and it’s sore where there’s less skin.

He says, “I’m not a detective.”

“I know,” Charles says.

Erik purses his lips, still chewing at the inside of his mouth.

Nervous habits die hard, and he looks up at Charles. He looks away from the grey of his desk, and he says, “Would it even be legal?” He raises an eyebrow, asks, “For me to help on a murder case that’s still open? Ongoing?”

He doesn’t know what the word is, not to mention that the detective himself has been thrown off the case.

Charles shrugs. He says, “It’s certainly not professional practice,” and that doesn’t fill Erik with confidence.

Hardly had any to start with, and Charles says, “But I’d rather break a few rules than find a few more bodies.”

Erik pushes his hair back from where it’s fallen over his forehead. Bodies.

He catches some of the hair in his fingers and tugs, he needs a haircut, and he wonders what he’s done to deserve a court case and a murder case.

“Come on,” Charles says. There’s this pleading edge to his voice, and he must be desperate to find the end. He says, “I know you need the money.” He says, “I know you do. A hundred thousand is a lot for a magazine like this to be shovelling out.”

He’s right. He knows he’s right. Erik knows he’s right.

Hell, the whole world knows he’s right.

“Please,” Charles says. He’s leaning forwards in his seat, the lengths of his forearms along the lengths of his thighs, and he says, “I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important. And necessary. Consider it. Please.”

It’s not like Erik has anything better to do than play detective. Not anymore.

His reputation as a journalist is ruined.

If he’s lucky, Anomie on a whole will still have some credibility left. Maybe. He’s hoping.

“I’ll share all case details with you when you agree,” Charles says. “I could maybe share a few with you now, if you need persuading.”

Erik shakes his head. He doesn’t need persuading. Not really.

He doesn’t need the gruesome details of nine dead bodies, and he sighs.

He says, “Okay.”

Charles’ face tugs into a smile.

“Okay,” Erik says. He has nothing to lose. Not really. “I’ll consider it.”

The smile on the man’s face falls, only a little, and he nods, says, “Thank you.”

He looks relieved, this tension fading from the creases of his forehead, and he says, “Thank you, Mister Lehnsherr.”

“Erik,” Erik says.

“Erik,” Charles says.

There’s another pause as the man just sits there, leaning his back against the rest, now, and Erik uses the silence to swallow down lukewarm coffee.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and he tosses the empty cup into the recycling bin at the left of his desk.

Charles says, “Can you sleep on it?”

Erik looks at him.

Charles says, “I can come back tomorrow. I can bring some case details with me. Only the briefest stuff,” he says. He looks and sounds like his mind’s going a million miles a minute.

Like an excited child, he says, “Just in case you decide to say no. I can’t have you going around with murder details in that big brain of yours.”

Erik doesn’t know what to say to that, so he nods his head.

“Tomorrow is fine,” he says.

There’s nothing on his calendar or in his diary.

There’s nothing on his calendar or in his diary for any day, now, really, apart from the birthdays and the holidays.

He agrees to meet again with Detective Inspector Charles Xavier, but not at HQ.

“There’s a coffee shop down the street,” Erik says. He scribbles the name down on a sheet of paper, and he tears it off and hands it over. He says, “I’ll meet you there at five thirty.”

It’s the same place he’s been going to for five years, and he’s at the top of the mezzanine stairs when Emma pokes her head out and around her office door.

Her hair’s in plaits, today, very European, and she says, “Erik.”

He’s running late.

Erik stops with his hand on the edge of the banister, manila files of the best of his investigative work tucked under his arm, and he says, “What?”

She grins at him, pointed like a fox, and she leans against the doorframe.

There’s the fuzzy sound of an old photocopier, and Emma says, “I forgot to ask. Did you have fun with your guest yesterday?”

Erik throws her a glare before he turns and heads down the stairs.

It’s raining, outside, but there are no reporters.

Emma shouts after him, says, “Oh, you had fun alright.”

He has to tuck the files under his coat, the grey trench that comes down to his knees, and the rain is just heavy enough to have his hair flopping down and sticking to his eyelashes.

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier is sat in the booth in the back left hand corner, right where Erik sits to muddle through his latest books.

Stephen King’s The Shining had been his latest. The tattered old German copy he’d had since he was fifteen.

Now, it seems his latest is Metropolitan Police murder files.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, throwing his files down onto the table.

They’re darker, a little wet from the rain, and Erik is shrugging out of his coat as Charles says, “It’s alright.”

He looks like a detective, now. The one’s you see in movies. A plain black suit with a white shirt and a black tie. Like a spook. A CIA agent.

There are two mugs on the table, hand painted with little brown coffee beans, and Charles says, “I got you a cappuccino.” He shrugs, fingers playing with the handle of his own drink, and the knuckles of his right hand are blotched with purple bruises. “I hope it’s okay,” he says. “It’s the same as mine.”

Erik nods, and he slides onto the squeaky faux leather.

It’s some shade of burgundy dark red, and Erik says, “Thanks. I’ll give you the money, hold on.”

He starts digging around in his trouser pocket, pulling out a handful of loose change and realising that he hasn’t washed these in about a week, chocolate smudged into the left leg from a midnight snack that had gone too far, and Charles is shaking his head.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. Erik looks up from his palm full of two pence pieces. Charles is grinning at it, and he says, “It was only two ten.”

Erik has maybe thirty pence worth of 2ps, and he has to swallow back his pride as he says, “Thank you.”

“Quite alright,” Charles says, and there’s that upper class. He looks at the files on the table, and he raises an eyebrow.

“I brought you some summaries of my past investigative work,” Erik says. He shoves the copper back in his pocket and slides the folders closer to Charles with the ends of his fingers. “So you know that I’m not just the guy who kicked Kurt Marko in the balls and got judicially spanked for it.”

Charles laughs, and he holds out a finger as he reaches under the table with his other hand.

“I’ve got some files for you, too,” he says.

What he actually has is a ring binder bigger than his own head, and Erik is wondering what he’s signed up for.

“Basically,” Charles says, after they’ve gone through two more mugs each, too much caffeine for a clock that’s nearing half past six, “There have been nine murders so far. We know it’s the same person because they have a-- an MO, of sorts.”

Erik’s wishing they were at a bar instead, someplace that sold alcohol, and he says, “So what’s their MO?”

Charles shakes his head. He taps his nose, says, “Can’t tell you. Not yet, anyways.”

Erik chews his lip.

He’d shown Charles his work on Peter Sharpe, a Tory MP who’d fiddled both his expenses and young boys, and Melissa Mulgrew, a business entrepreneur with family ties to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party and the British Union of Fascists who had been involved of a number of racist attacks on both the Jewish and Muslim communities.

Charles had been impressed, if the look on his face was anything to go by.

But he’d said, “You didn’t need to bring these, you know. I’ve already read up on everything you’ve ever written.”

That included the pieces Erik had written in his mid-twenties, which were nothing to be proud of.

Erik had finished his first mug and collected his files back together.

Seven of the victims have been male, Charles tells him. Two female.

They were all killed in different ways, save for the group of five males who were all killed together, same night, and Charles can’t divulge the names or the causes of death.

“To be honest, you can probably find the names in the media,” Charles says, licking cream from his top lip. “The Mirror have probably weaselled their way in. They usually do.”

He’s good looking, for a detective, and Erik’s interest is piqued when Charles says, “All of the male victims were either gay or bisexual. That’s the only link we could find.”

“What, you think it’s hate crimes?” Erik asks, smoothing his hair back from his face.

Hate crimes is what he does. Melissa Mulgrew and all.

The BNP and UKIP and the EDL. This is what he does. He exposes intolerance. Arseholes.

Charles hums. “Maybe,” he says. “But then, where do the women come in? They both had male partners. One had a husband and the other had a fiancé.”

And now, Erik wants answers.

Like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, he can’t help it. He wants to know.

Always wanted to know everything about anything and anything about everything, Erik cuts Charles off as he’s blabbering about sexual orientation and marriages, and he says, “Fine.”

Charles looks up, elbows on the table, half slumped against it, and Erik sighs.

He says, “I’m in. I’ll help.”

The man looks like he’s so relieved he could float away with it, and then he’s grinning and patting a heavy hand on Erik’s back.

Erik’s looking at Charles’ mottled knuckles, and he wonders who he decked. He doesn’t look the punching sort.

Charles catches him, and he looks at his hand.

“Oh, that,” he says. He rubs a thumb over the knobs of his knuckles, but he doesn’t wince. He says, “Got into a bit of a fight with a wall.” He laughs at himself, a huff of breath. “The wall won.”

He goes on to explain that Erik will come and live with him at his summer home in Cambridgeshire.

Just while the case is ongoing. It’ll be easier, he says, when Erik starts to frown.

There’s a granny annexe at his place, some separate building on the grounds that has everything Erik will need. A kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room. All the essentials.

Erik scratches at the back of his neck.

It’s nearly eight, been here two and a half hours and the barista keeps looking over, and Erik’s about to say, what, so I just drop everything for this, but he has nothing to drop.

Cambridgeshire isn’t that far away, anyways.

“We can head down there tomorrow,” Charles says. He catches the look that Erik is giving him. “Or the day after,” he says. “Whatever’s best for you.”

The man is half child and half detective, gets excited faster than a six year old, and Erik rubs a palm down over his mouth, says, “I don’t-- I don’t know. I need more time to think this over. It’s-- a lot.”

Losing over a hundred grand and having a murder case thrown at him. Being asked to relocate to Cambridgeshire.

It’s a lot to take in, in the span of a few days.

Charles nods his head. His expression more serious, understanding, he says, “You’re right.” He nods. “You’re right. Here,” he says. He grabs a napkin from under his mug, and he writes down a number. “This is my mobile number. Call me. When you’ve decided.”

Erik takes the napkin between two fingers, nodding.

“I will,” he says. He wants to help. He wants to know.

The next few days, between the hopelessness of Anomie and an apartment that smells of cigarettes and cheap whisky, Erik decides.

He really has got nothing to lose.

He can help find a serial killer.

He can get two hundred grand for Anomie. He can fix the mistake he made. He can dig himself out of the hole that an anonymous tipster and Kurt Marko put him in.

Lying on the sofa, cigarette dying in the green glass ashtray, Erik picks up the phone.

The number has been sat in his mobile for the last four days, the last one in his contacts, Xavier, Charles, and he rolls his eyes back as he presses call.

He’s greeted with that posh accent, saying, “Hello, Charles Xavier.”

“Hello,” Erik says. He rests an arm over his forehead. “It’s Erik. Lehnsherr.”

“Oh,” Charles says. His voice is bright. “Hello.”

Erik shakes his head. He says, “I’ll come.”

There’s a pause. “You will?”

“Yeah,” Erik says. He huffs. “I’ve got nothing to lose.” He’s out of cigarettes. “And you said two hundred grand, right?”

“Yeah-- yes,” Charles says. “Two hundred thousand. If we find the killer.”

If.

Erik closes his eyes and breathes.

“Then yes,” he says. “I’ll do it. I’ll help. I’ll come to Cambridgeshire.”

He can almost hear the smile down the line.

Charles says, “Great. Great,” he says. “Should I stop by the coffee shop about six? Gives you a chance to tie up any loose ends. And have tea, of course.”

Erik packs his suitcase that night.

He also writes up his resignation.

It’s not a real resignation. Not really. He’ll be back. He just needs some time.

To find a murderer.

He doesn’t write that.

He stuffs everything he needs into his suitcase -- clothes and toiletries and books and CDs and DVDs, and his laptop is in the satchel hanging on the back of his bedroom door.

Emma is furious when she finds it. His resignation.

“Erik. Erik-- what the fuck is this?” she says, stalking after him.

He’d dumped it on her desk and walked away, but her high heels are following him down the hallway.

A clack-clack-clack of two inch stilettos on wooden floorboards, and she catches up to him, cursing him under her breath.

She grabs his arm and pulls him to a stop, and when he turns around, she’s waving his resignation in his face. She says, “Explain this to me. Right now.”

Erik raises an eyebrow. “I think it explains itself.”

She’s scowling at him, bitter and ice cold, and she says, “You can’t do this. You can’t just leave us. Not when we’re practically penniless, you asshole.”

She doesn’t say because of you, mostly because she probably believes it to be her fault, too, but it’s still there. It’s definitely still there.

Erik sighs. “Look,” he says, shaking her hand away from his arm. “It’s to throw Marko off our scent, okay? If he sees that I’ve gone, he’ll think he’s won.”

Emma glares at him. She says, “He will have won.”

“Just give me a month or so,” Erik says. A few of the staff members are looking up at them, interns holding papers and researchers sat at computers, and Erik says, “I’ll come back. I promise. I’ve just got-- some personal stuff to deal with first. That’s all.”

“Personal stuff?” Emma says. She scoffs.

She holds the resignation in front of Erik’s face as she crumples it into a ball.

She ignores his scowl, and she tosses it over her shoulder.

Hands on her hips, she says, “Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be once this money is gone?”

Her voice is low, almost a hiss, and Erik runs a hand through his hair, says, “I’m sorry.” He says, “At least with me gone, you won’t have to pay my wages.”

He’d thought it would make her smile, at least. Lighten the air, maybe, but it doesn’t.

She glares at him, and she says, “You’re tying a rock to our wheelchair and throwing us in the lake.”

He has to laugh. He has to, and his snigger has Emma slapping him across the face.

“You have no clue,” she says.

She’d hit him hard enough to send his face to the side; an open palm with filed nails that had scratched and stung, and Erik is rubbing at his cheek.

It’s left a tingling that’s echoing across the whole left side from his ear to his nose, and she’s never hit him before.

Even at his worst, she’s never hit him before.

“You have no clue how hard this is going to be,” she says-- hisses. “If you leave, we’ll be a laughing stock. We already are.”

When he looks down to the ground floor, everyone is staring. They look away when they meet his eye.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He brings his hand down from his face, and he turns to Emma. “I have to go.”

“I can’t believe you,” Emma says. She has her arms folded over her stomach, now. “One sign of a storm, and you’re abandoning ship,” she says. There’s a look on her face that’s almost sad, and she says, “I expected more from you, Erik. Of all people.”

She walks away from him, and he watches the sway of her hips before she slams the door to her office shut behind her. She doesn’t have buffers.

The noise raises heads again, and Darwin the intern turns up at Erik’s side.

“You’re leaving?”

Erik turns to him, just a kid, barely twenty one years old, and he nods.

“Only for a little while,” he says. “I’m coming back.”

He posts a notice on Anomie’s website.

As of today, he no longer works there. He has resigned as both journalist at and co-editor of Anomie magazine. He has personal family business which he is going to attend to, and after that, who knows.

When he clicks onto the BBC News website, there’s a little thumbnail of his face.

You have to scroll down to find it, but it’s there. The headline reads, DISGRACED JOURNALIST ERIK LEHNSHERR RESIGNS FROM HIS MAGAZINE, ANOMIE, and really. He isn’t that disgraced.

He shoves his laptop back into his satchel, and his suitcase is in the corner by his office door.

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier is waiting outside of the coffee shop where they’d met yesterday, leaning up against the glass window pane, and Erik isn’t late, this time.

The sky is clouding over into grey, and the wheels of Erik’s suitcase clatter against the pavement.

Charles looks up and over to him, wrapped up in a khaki green parka that makes him look fatter than he is, and he says, “You were on the news again.”

Erik huffs. “I know,” he says.

He plays with the strap of the satchel that rests over his chest, and Charles says, “You didn’t have to resign, you know.” He says, “You could have still worked from my place.”

Erik shrugs. “Is it alright if I put my bags in your car? I’ve brought my motorcycle.”

The rain starts ten minutes in.

It’s an hour’s ride to Charles’ place in Cambridgeshire, and by the time they get there, Erik is soaked through.

His jeans are sticking to his legs, and the parts of his shirt that aren’t covered by leather jacket are soppy and see-through.

Charles throws keys at him as he steps out of his car, some fancy black and brand new Alfa Romeo Giulietta, and Erik fumbles to catch them, helmet in one hand.

Charles says, “Go into the house, I’ll bring your things.”

Erik looks at him a while, and all he gets for it is, “Get into the bloody house, you fucking idiot.”

He’s thinking that he’s going to like working with Charles Xavier, Detective Inspector or not, and he shoves the keys into the lock of the navy painted door.

There are two little keyrings dangling, little Radiohead and the Smiths logos, and the house is much warmer than the outside.

It’s a nice place, a whitewashed country cottage with wooden beams and all, and there’s a dog barking somewhere.

“Ignore that,” Charles says. Erik’s suitcase is almost the same size as him.

He shakes his hair out, and Erik gets hit in the face with more water. He supposes it doesn’t matter, and he hands the keys back to Charles after he’s shut the door.

“Don’t bother taking your shoes off,” Charles says. He looks down. “Or your boots. We have to go back outside to get to the annexe.”

He starts walking down the hallway, leaving a trail of rainwater behind him, and he says, “You’re not allergic to dogs, are you?”

Erik shakes his head.

Charles has got a hold of his satchel, so Erik grabs the handle of the suitcase and drags it along the floorboards, helmet tucked under his other arm.

“Good,” Charles says.

The barking turns out to be coming from some sort of shepherd dog, this sandy beige thing with a dark brown muzzle and ears and feet, and when Charles pushes open the door to what looks like the kitchen, it bounds out and up to Erik.

It’s barking at him; baring its teeth and snarling and drooling, and Erik steps back.

He’s never done well with dogs -- not since that police shepherd that chased him through half of Lichtenberg for some cheap heroin that never did anybody any good.

“Baron,” Charles says. His tone is harsh, and the dog stops barking, but it stares at Erik and growls.

Its teeth look big enough to tear a hole in his arm, and Erik says, “Your dog doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off it. He’s not getting bit in the dick by this thing.

“Sorry,” Charles says. He walks over, grabbing the dog by its metal collar and pulling it back, chiding it. “He’s an ex-sniffer dog,” Charles says.

He bundles the dog into another room, the blue bone of its I.D. tag clanking against its chain, and Charles shuts the door. He says, “He’ll get used to you.”

He stops for a second, and his eyebrows pull together.

The dog is scratching its nails at the door and huffing. Erik looks towards it.

Looking back to Charles, he frowns. “What?”

Charles walks through into the kitchen. It’s nice -- rustic, and he says, “He barks at people when they have drugs.”

Erik follows him, suitcase bumping over the seam between hallway and kitchen, and it smells like tea.

Some citrus smell, like Earl Grey, and Charles says, “So either he just hates you, or you’ve got coke on you.”

Erik blinks.

He can’t see Charles’ face to see if he’s being serious.

He is a detective. Probably not the biggest fan of drugs.

Erik says, “I don’t-- I don’t have anything.”

The countertops are a black granite with little flecks of sparkles, and when Charles turns around, he’s grinning.

He claps a hand at the top of Erik’s arm, twice, and he says “I was joking, Erik.”

He smiles, all white teeth, and he says, “Do whatever drugs you like. God knows the heads of the Met are drowning in the stuff.”

Erik watches him walk away. He heads towards the big French doors on the opposite end of the kitchen; painted white wood with views out onto fields, and they lead out onto a gravel yard.

Erik stares after him; the fluffy faux fur lined hood of his parka, and he’s not sure what to say. It’s happened a few times, now, with Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

He follows all the same, and he scowls over his shoulder as the dog starts barking again.

The granny annexe looks like a bungalow.

Charles is fiddling with his keys and swearing, bastard keys, bastard things, and he finally gets the door open.

It’s less than a two minute walk across the yard, the same whitewash stone as the main house, but it’s another two minutes in the cold and the rain that has Erik shivering; teeth biting together to stop from chattering.

“My sister usually stays here,” Charles says. Erik runs a hand through his hair and squeezes his fingers together, drawing out as much water as he can.

Charles sets Erik’s satchel on a sofa, the front door coming into the open plan kitchen-dining-sitting room, and he says, “Or my cousin. So you have my apologies for the feminine decorating. And the incredible array of soaps in the bathroom.”

It’s nice. Erik leaves his suitcase by the coffee table, and he tries to toe off one of his boots. It doesn’t work.

“It’s nice,” he says.

There are two sofas, big black things with long fat cushions, and the kitchen countertops match those in Charles’ house.

“I’ll leave you to get settled in a while,” Charles says. He pulls his hood over his head, and he looks like a ten year old about to make his way out to school in the cold. He smiles, no teeth, still sincere, and he says, “There’s food in the fridge. And the cupboards. Bread in the breadbin, etcetera. I’ll let you figure everything out.”

Erik says thanks, and Charles says he’ll be waiting in his house to go over the case details. Whenever Erik is ready.

The bedroom has a queen sized bed, a flowery patterned bedspread that Erik recognises from IKEA, and he can’t complain.

He hurries his way through unpacking. He wants to know the details of this case. From the victims’ names to the tiniest bruises left on their bodies, he wants to know. From his headmaster’s affair to the toppling of Members of Parliament, he’s always wanted to know.

He shoves his clothes into the drawers under the bedroom window. His socks and his underwear and his shirts and his t-shirts and his jeans and his trousers, and he hangs his coat and jackets on the hooks at the back of the door.

The radiators aren’t turned on, he’ll have to ask about that, and he drapes his leather jacket over one of them, little droplets of water seeping into the carpet.

He’d left his boots at the front door, and he peels himself out of his wet clothes.

He’ll be going out in the rain again, soon, but his jeans are chafing and his shirt is sticky.

He towels his hair dry the best he can, and when he’s dressed in new clothes, black jogger bottoms and a black long sleeved t-shirt, he pulls on a jacket and heads back to the main house.

The shitty little Primark plimsolls he’d brought do nothing to keep his feet from the rain.

He stops at the French doors, unsure whether or not to let himself in, and then the dog arrives.

He’s got the hood up on his jacket, zipped up to his neck, and the shepherd starts barking, breath fogging up the window glass.

Erik looks up and away from it as Charles walks into his kitchen, probably to see what the hell the dog was barking at, and Erik offers a small wave.

The dog jumps up at the movement, front paws against the door, and Erik takes a step back.

The rain is heavy and loud at his ears, but he can still hear that posh British accent shouting the dog’s name, Baron, and then he’s holding it back by its collar and opening the door.

“Come in,” Charles says. He’s all casual, underneath his parka. Faded denim jeans that are tattered at the hems and a worn old navy blue Oxford University sweatshirt.

One of his socks is black, the other red, and he flicks the dog on the nose when it starts to growl. It whines.

Erik stares at it, wary.

“He won’t hurt you,” Charles says. He tells the dog to sit. It does. He says, “His bark is much worse than his bite. He’s just excited.”

It doesn’t look excited. It looks prime and ready to rip off Erik’s balls.

“Just get in the house,” Charles says. “You’re letting in the cold.”

Erik does as he’s told, and he leaves his shoes on the mat. The dog sniffs at them.

He tugs his hood down and smoothes his hair. The dog growls. Charles flicks it again.

“Behave,” he says. He looks to Erik, and he says, “He needs to get used to you. Here,” he says. “Stroke him.”

Erik raises an eyebrow as he’s unzipping his jacket. “No thanks,” he says. “I need my hands for work.”

Charles snorts, a snigger of a thing, and he says, “Among other things.” Erik frowns, and Charles says, “He won’t bite you. Hold out your hand and let him sniff it.”

Erik hesitates. He takes a step towards the dog, Baron, and its ears flatten.

He holds out his right hand, and the dog nudges its cold wet nose against his palm as it sniffs at his skin.

“There,” Charles says. He lets go of the collar and straightens up. “See,” he says. He pats the dog’s head, and it licks Erik’s hand. “He’s fine.”

Erik moves to stroke at the dog’s ear, and it lets him. Its mouth pants into what looks like a smile, and Erik relaxes.

Charles says, “Now that you’ve made friends, are you ready to look at the case?”

He leads Erik back out to the hallway, little puddles of water still there, and he takes him to the second door on the left.

He says, “I had to make the dining room my office.”

It’s huge, a room the size of Erik’s apartment, and there are papers and pictures strewn everywhere.

There are corkboards up on the walls, post-it notes with messy black text stuck to A4 sheets and maps and photographs, and Erik’s looking around, eyebrows raised.

Charles says, “I ran out of space in my actual office.”

The dog settles itself down in the corner, still eyeing Erik, and Erik blinks.

He’s never seen anything like it.

He’s had his own cases, those ones where he’s had papers blue-tacked to his walls, but nothing like this.

The dining table is scattered with folders and an Apple MacBook, and the corkboards are littered with push pins, different coloured threads linking things together.

Maybe this was what they meant by too involved.

“Take a seat,” Charles says. He waves his hand towards the place at the laptop. “I’ll bring through some drinks.”

God knows how much alcohol he’s going to need to get through this.

His last job, AKA The Kurt Marko Affair, Erik had gotten through two six packs in one night, the stress leaving a tremor in his hands that had faded with cheap beer.

Charles had meant tea.

He brings out two cups, that citrus smell back at Erik’s nose, and he says, “We can bring out the harder stuff later.” He pulls a chair up next to Erik, and he says, “You’ll have to be sober to take this stuff in.”

They start chronologically. First murder first.

“Jonathan King,” Charles says. The bruises on his knuckles have faded overnight, and he leans over the table to grab at a file.

He flicks it open, and the first thing Erik sees is the crime scene photography.

“I should probably have warned you,” Charles says, when he looks over and catches sight of Erik’s face. Erik’s stomach churns. “They’re all like this.” He huffs, says, “If you think this is bad, you should’ve been on the scene.”

Erik can’t imagine. He doesn’t want to.

Jonathan King was twenty years old, in his second year of university at King’s College London, and he was bisexual.

Charles says, “The other students said that he was well-known around the campus for his promiscuity.” He shrugs, says, “And why not, I suppose. Might as well make the most of university life while it lasts.”

Erik is still looking at the photographs.

Normally, when photos are so graphic and so gruesome, they’re turned black and white. It takes away some of the gore. The blood turns grey, and isn’t as offensive to the eye. Or the gut.

But these photos are full colour.

The boy lies, tied spread eagle to a Premier Inn bed, and the whole thing is awash with blood.

Frowning, Erik picks up one of the photographs. He says, “This was obviously done for shock value.”

Jonathan King had been cut up. Badly.

Three fingers of his left hand had been removed, sliced through with a blade, and they’d been forced up and into his anus. In the photo, all you can see are three pale digits, and a lot of red blood.

Erik’s teeth bite together.

King’s dick had been cut off, leaving a haggard stump and a pair of sad looking balls, and as for his dick, stuffed into his own mouth.

Carved into his stomach in deep lines, blood dark enough to be almost black, is the word, impure.

On his forehead, XOXO.

“That’s their MO,” Charles says. “Their calling card, whatever you want to call it. It’s what they leave to let us know it was them. Every victim has that-- that XOXO, hugs and kisses thing, cut into them somewhere.”

Erik sets the photo down, and he rubs a hand over his face.

He says, “What the hell did I sign up for.”

Charles pats his thigh under the table. “If you want to take a break, just say. At any time.”

Erik shakes his head, says, “No, it’s--it’s alright. I just-- haven’t seen anything this grisly in a while.” He rests his elbows on the table and rubs at his eyes. “I’ll get over it.”

Charles eyes him, but he nods.

“All the hotel staff say he went in there alone. Booked a single room for one night.”

The photos are all of King’s body, just at different angles, and Erik pushes them away.

Charles says, “When he didn’t book out the next day before two pm, a concierge went up to get him.” He huffs, says, “Got a lot more than he bargained for, poor man.”

Erik scratches the side of his face. “Why was he there alone?”

“Ah,” Charles says. “His roommate back at the university had asked for a night of privacy with his girlfriend. He gave King the money for the hotel.”

There are field reports by officers on the scene. Autopsy reports with the little pictures of a little man, and the injuries are all drawn on in different coloured pens for cuts, bruises, bite marks.

He hadn’t noticed the bite marks in the crime scene photographs. They were on King’s back, and Erik notices them now, in the autopsy photographs.

Leading down from the curve of his left shoulder until the curve of his right buttock, there are purple and crusted red indents from a full set of teeth. Some of the marks are diagonal where others are horizontal. Where the perpetrator had uneven teeth in their bottom jaw.

“What the fuck,” Erik says.

Cause of death: blood loss.

Charles hums as Erik hands him back the autopsy report. “He was cut up and left to die. Bleed out. They say it probably took hours.”

Erik runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends.

“It doesn’t get any better from here on out,” Charles says. “Just, as a warning. It gets worse, if anything.”

The second murder is the first female victim. Jessica Somerset.

Erik is being given all the facts and files after this to go over at his own pace, anyways, so they take it quick. Brief.

Thirty two years old, Jessica Somerset was a mother of two. Twins. Identical.

“They live with their auntie, now,” Charles says. “Her husband couldn’t take it. Just after we cleared him, he took his own life. Threw himself in front of the twelve-forty-five to Kingston-upon-Thames.”

Flipping open the new file, Erik prepares himself for the pictures, this time.

He almost swears, but he wipes his hand over his mouth instead.

“Found in her own bed,” Charles says. “By her husband.”

Middle of the day, she was alone. Husband at work, kids at school.

“It’s on her back, as well,” Charles says. “The cross.”

Like she’d been crucified, she’d had her ankles tied together and her arms spread out and away from her torso.

Like Jesus on the cross, she’d been cut from her forehead down to the beginning of her vulva.

Deep enough to split the skin over an inch apart, in some places, it was one big, single cut. Her nose was practically in two.

Then, from one wrist to the other and across her chest, above her breasts and just under her collarbone, another line. Same thickness.

A cross.

Repeated on her back. Nape of the neck to the line of her buttocks.

“The back was done first,” Charles says. “Here.”

He passes Erik another photograph.

“Her tongue was cut out and replaced with a tarot card,” he says. “Justice.”

Erik frowns. “Why a tarot card?”

“She did readings in her spare time,” Charles says. “You know, palm readings, card readings. Crystal balls. That crap.”

He hands Erik two more photographs. The palms of the woman’s hands.

XOXO.

Erik rubs his forehead, and he grabs for his tea.

He’d forgotten about it, and it’s barely lukewarm as he swallows it back.

Third victim. Second female.

Rachel Taylor, and at sight of the photographs, Erik says, “I need a fucking drink.”

Charles looks up and to his side, at Erik, and he nods.

He pushes back from his chair, the legs of it squeaking against the floorboards, and he says, “Do you want anything in particular? Or just-- alcohol?”

Erik shakes his head. “Just alcohol.”

He’d brought a couple of packs of cigarettes with him, but they’re all in the annexe. They’ll have to wait.

The dog stands to follow Charles, but then it looks to Erik.

“What?” Erik says. He holds his arms out, “What do you want from me? What am I going to do, steal a couple of police folders and ride away on my motorbike? Leave behind all my things?”

The dog blinks at him, and Erik groans and puts his hands over his face.

He feels a scratching at his leg, and he peeks out between his fingers.

The dog is there, looking up at him with big brown eyes, and he says, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Hey,” Charles says. Erik looks up. He’s carrying a full bottle of copper coloured liquid, and two shot glasses. Erik is praying that it’s Scotch. Charles says, “Leave my dog alone.”

He sets the glasses and the bottle down on the table, after Erik clears some space, and the dog stays sat between their chairs.

Charles sits down, and he pours the two of them a drink.

Erik knocks it back straight away, the strong and musky taste of Scotch whisky, and Charles is offering him a grin.

“Okay,” Erik says. He wipes the crease of his mouth with a thumb. “I’m ready to go again.”

Rachel Taylor. Twenty two years old.

“Just graduated from London Met,” Charles says. “Studied International Relations. Had a bright future.”

She was found in her apartment after failing to turn up and meet a friend for dinner.

She’d had her mouth sewn shut with the B string of an electric guitar, and her throat had been cut deep enough to almost sever.

Her breasts had been removed, leaving two angry and bleeding circles on her chest, and this time, XOXO was left on her stomach.

Erik grabs the whisky bottle, and pours himself another.

“We don’t really know why they’d go after her,” Charles says. He sips at his own drink. “I mean, why go after anyone, right?” He rubs his forehead. “At least with King, his sexuality could be a reason. And with Somerset, maybe her being a palm reader could be a reason. Maybe they thought she was a Roma-gypsy.”

Erik huffs, says, “Yes, because every Roma is a palm reader.”

Charles puts up a hand, says, “I’m not saying that. I’m saying maybe the killer was blind enough to think that.”

Erik hums. The dog pushes its nose against his thigh, and he strokes its head, slowly.

Fourth victim. Second male.

Patrick Gaines. Thirty six year old father of three. Erik’s age.

“He’d divorced the mother of his children two years ago,” Charles says. “He was in a relationship with another man when he was killed. The kids went to her.”

Gaines had been choked with the head of a stuffed teddy bear that had belonged to his three year old daughter. A picture of his ex-wife’s new boyfriend had been stuck to his forehead with his own blood.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Erik asks. He taps a finger on the photograph. “Did he fuck his ex’s boyfriend?”

Charles shakes his head. “No,” he says. He finishes off his first drink. “I’m not sure. His boyfriend said that he envied his ex’s boyfriend, because he got to look after the kids.” He shrugs, says, “So most of us agreed on that. It got his ex’s boyfriend in a lot of shit, I can tell you that.”

Erik manages a laugh. It’s more of a huff of breath, if anything, and he says, “Did you ruthlessly question him about his girl’s queer dead ex-husband?”

Grinning, Charles fills his glass. He does the same with Erik’s, and he says, “Yes, we did.” He says, “Let’s just say that that couple are no longer together.”

What had finished Gaines off was the stab wound to his chest. Right to his heart.

XOXO was along the inside of his right forearm.

Then, victims five, six, seven, eight, and nine.

When Charles says that, Erik says, “Am I going to need another bottle of whisky for this?”

Charles laughs, says, “I’m not sure. This one isn’t as gruesome. It’s just…strange.”

Erik knocks back his third shot, and Charles goes to refill it as he says, “What, and the rest of these aren’t strange?”

Crosses carved into bodies and teddy bears shoved down throats.

Charles hums and nods his head, screwing the lid back on the bottle. “Well, yes, but they were gruesome as all hell, too. These five boys didn’t have so rough a time of it.”

He hands over the first photograph. A view of all five bodies.

All naked young men, early twenties, and Charles says, “They were having some sort of orgy.” He says, “They were found in some seedy apartment in the arsehole of Clapham Town.”

There are no beds, just five mattresses on a splinter covered floor, and each single mattress has a body.

“What was the cause of death?” Erik asks. There are no obvious injuries that could cause death on any of the deceased. On the photograph he’s holding, he can just about make sight of bruises around the closest man’s throat. He taps it with his finger. “Asphyxiation?”

Charles nods. “With that victim, yes.”

Erik frowns, says, “And what about the others? Surely the five of them could take one killer? Who is this guy, the hulk?”

Charles breathes a laugh, and he places a pile of photos by Erik’s hand. He says, “They all had benzodiazepines in their system.” At Erik’s confused glance, he says, “Tranquilisers. They’re found in things like Xanax, Valium. They’re prescribed to people who suffer with anxiety, but take too many, and you’re out cold.”

Erik nods. Charles grabs back the photos and shuffles through them.

“Here,” he says, offering Erik a photograph. Erik takes it. It’s a picture of a pizza box, one slice left. “The benzodiazepines-- temazepam, to be exact-- were found on this. Hawaiian pizza.”

“How’d it get there?” Erik asks. “Are we looking for a delivery boy?”

Delivery Boy Kills Five Homosexual Orgy Participants after Lacing Pizza with Tranquiliser.

Charles shakes his head, and he knocks back his whisky.

He wipes over his mouth and chin with his palm, and he says, “The delivery boy said that he was told by Bale, one of the victims, to just leave the pizza at the door. They paid by card over the phone.”

Erik wonders who pays for a ten pound pizza by card, and he says, “So the killer laced it before they came to the door.” He rubs his left eyebrow, and he drops the pizza picture on the pile. “How the fuck did he know they were going to order a pizza? Or that it was going to be left?”

“He didn’t,” Charles says. He shrugs. “He was going to go in there and kill them, no matter what. This just offered a cleaner way.”

Each victim has one letter carved onto their torsos. XOXO, and then the last, the one at the end, David Williams, has a heart. One of those cartoon ones on t-shirts. I heart London. I heart 1D.

“So one victim died by asphyxiation,” Erik says. “And the others that-- that tranquiliser. Tenaziepan--”

“Temazepam,” Charles says. He’s grinning.

“Whatever,” Erik says. He empties his glass slowly, this time. “Is that what it was that killed them?”

Charles shakes his head. “No,” he says. “He injected them all with a lethal dose of heroin.”

Erik looks up at him.

Too fast, a jerk of his head, but Charles doesn’t say anything about it.

“The one who died by asphyxiation, Bale, he-- he woke up before the killer could inject him,” he says. “So he was throttled. And then injected. Then the killer went about his knife play.”

Erik yawns before he can catch himself, and Charles tilts his head towards him.

He’s holding up his head with his right palm against his cheek, one elbow propped on the table, and he says, “I think we should call it a night.”

Erik says, “I’m fine. Keep going.”

He checks his watch, quickly, and it’s almost one am. He frowns at it.

Charles shakes his head, and he grabs the photos and shoves them back in the file. “It’s late,” he says. “We’ve gone over most things, anyway.”

He stands up, and so does the dog. It starts wagging its tail.

Erik yawns into his fist, again, and he sweeps his hair back from where it’s fallen over his forehead.

Charles is gathering the files together, and he says, “I’ll give you these for now. More tomorrow.”

He holds out the five files, bulky and tattered around the edges, and Erik stands up to take them.

“Thanks,” he says. “And, er, thank you for the whisky.”

Charles smiles. “You’re welcome,” he says. He holds his arm out, signalling for Erik to walk in front of him.

Erik does so, and he leads them back towards the kitchen and the French doors. Charles says, “If you want, you can come back in here around nine. I’ll be making breakfast around then. Or,” he says. “If you just want to take a day for yourself and go over all the details, that’s fine, too. You’ve got food and stuff in there.”

Erik hums. It’s pitch black outside, but there’s no sound of rain.

“I think I’ll take a day to look through these,” he says, lifting the arm that the files are tucked under. “Maybe not a full day, just-- a while. I’ll come and get you if I find anything or have any questions.”

Charles nods. The dog hovers at his feet.

“Oh,” Charles says. “If you want the heating on, there’s a switch in the airing cupboard. Two, actually. One for the central heating and one for the hot water. They’re labelled.”

He’s too tired to smoke when he gets back to the annexe.

The place is freezing, and Erik flicks the heating switch and leaves the files on the kitchen counter.

He sleeps with his jacket and joggers on, it’s so cold.

His alarm goes off at eight-thirty, startles him enough to knock the phone from the bedside table, and he swears.

Too hot, now, he throws off the duvet and looks up at the ceiling.

He’s all sweat, joggers sticking to his legs, and he peels his way out of his jacket and t-shirt.

The shower is nice, this massive walk-in thing with a seat and all, and he bundles his toiletries into it. His shampoo and his conditioner and his shower gel and his soap.

Charles wasn’t lying when he said there was an incredible array of soaps in this place. Every colour of the rainbow, all lined up on the tiled windowsill.

There’s a roll-top, clawfoot bath, and this place is better than anywhere else he’s ever stayed. Better than the Travel Lodges and the Premier Inns and the council flats, and he pushes the shower’s on button.

He’d forgotten the hot water switch, so he’s stood back in the cold for the ten minutes it takes to feel clean again.

Heating off and sat in his boxers and dressing gown, powder blue, BBC Breakfast is playing on the flat screen TV. Today’s top stories are Iraq, Syria, more Iraq, Islamic State, some more Syria, all the good stuff. Woman and her child die in RTC in Bedfordshire. More historic child abuse cases in Rotherham.

The case files are set out in front of him on the coffee table, and he’d found a packet of cornflakes in one of the kitchen cupboards.

There’s coffee, too, Taylors rich Italian roast coffee, apparently, and he starts with Murder Number One. Again.

It gets to one pm, and he has nothing to show for it apart from clutter and shit all over the place.

He’d retired to the floor, after a while. The table was too small.

He calls his mother after the one o’clock news, when there’s nothing on but daytime TV, and she answers after the first ring, saying, “Mäuschen, how nice of you to call,” and her voice is so enthusiastic that he has to smile.

“Hallo, mama,” he says. He mutes the television. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he says. He bites his lip. “I resigned from Anomie.”

“Oh, Erik,” his mother says. He tilts his head back to rest against the top of the sofa seat. “Why would you do such a silly thing like that?”

He’s not sure whether to tell her about the murders. He’s not sure if he’s allowed.

Probably best not to, he supposes. He doesn’t think his mother would like it. Murder.

He says, “I’m taking a bit of a break. I’m going back,” he says. “I’m just-- spending some time with a friend in Cambridgeshire.”

He’s still sifting through crime scene photographs when it hits ten pm.

He decides to leave it when it gets to midnight.

There are no links between any of the victims and their families and their friends. Even the orgy gang had never met before that day.

No murders in the same part of London. All different.

The strangest things are the forensics reports. There’s nothing.

No hair, no blood, no saliva. Nothing.

No fingerprints, but no evidence of gloves used, either.

Teeth marks. That’s it.

He throws one file across the room, at one point. Frustrated with dead ends and sloppy handwritten police reports, he tosses it hard enough to have it banging against one of the kitchen cabinets.

Charles comes round, the next morning.

He’s wrapped up in a dark blue dressing gown with tartan red pyjamas and black slippers, and he smiles.

“I’m just checking to see how you’re doing,” he says.

His hair is all mussed up, and Erik nods.

“I’m fine,” he says. He steps back from the door. “Do you-- do you want to come in?”

Charles shakes his head. “No, no, you’re alright. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

Erik huffs. “No, just annoyed.”

Charles grins. “I know the feeling well. How are you getting along?”

Slumping against the wall, Erik runs a hand through his hair. “Alright. There’s just-- a lot of stuff to get through.”

Charles nods. “I understand. You need a few more days to sort through it all?”

A few more years, is more likely.

“Yeah, I think. I’ll come get you, when I’m done. If I find anything.”

Erik eats cereal and he drinks coffee after coffee after coffee, and he blocks out money worries and his career in favour of sifting through big fat files of murder victims’ lives.

Innocent people killed for no reason by some sadistic fucker with a knife and a big bundle of drugs.

Erik spends two more days looking through the case files.

There was half a bottle of port in one of the cupboards, and Erik doesn’t usually drink it, fancy stuff, but he sets his arse down on the carpet and takes heavy swigs straight from the bottle, Mock the Week repeats playing on Dave.

The next day, Charles comes back. Comes knocking again.

It’s ten in the morning, and Erik is still in bed.

His alarm hadn’t gone off, and he sits up fast enough to feel lightheaded. “Oh, fuck me.”

He’s shuffling through the hall and to the front door in his boxers and his dressing gown, same as yesterday, and he opens the door to Charles in a black button up and black slacks.

Erik’s head is banging and his mouth is dry, and he wraps his gown around himself, self-conscious and cold from the outside breeze. He says, “Um. Sorry, my-- the alarm didn’t go off.”

“It’s alright,” Charles says. He smiles. He has very white teeth. He’s got his arms wrapped around himself, and he says, “Can I come in?”

It’s his property, Erik thinks. He can do whatever the hell he wants.

“Sure,” Erik says. He moves out of the way, and he shuts the door once Charles is in, brushing his feet on the mat.

Charles is looking at the mess on the floor, the sheets and photos strewn everywhere, and Erik rubs at his forehead.

“Sorry,” he says. Again. “I tend to work better in chaos.”

It’s not a lie, but he’s never had this much chaos. There’s never been this much stuff to be chaos.

Charles grins, and he sets himself down at the breakfast bar, on one of the stools.

“I can’t judge, my friend,” he says. “Not after you saw my office. Well, my dining room.”

Erik smiles back, weak and almost forced, and he feels like an idiot stood in his dressing gown. His hairy legs and his big feet.

He leans against the breakfast bar, and he says, “I haven’t found anything. Yesterday, I just read through everything.” He scratches his stubble. Another day of not shaving, it’ll start turning into a beard. “This guy is fucked up, that’s all I can tell you.”

Charles hums. He bites his lip and leans his elbows on the counter.

“I already knew that, believe me,” he says. He sighs. “I just came to ask if you wanted anything from the local supermarket. Or if you wanted to come. I could show you round the local village, if you’d like. Well,” he says. “Point things out as we pass by.”

Erik looks at him. His mouth looks red and sore from biting.

He’d like to see the village. If he’s going to be here a while, he’d like some things to do. Keep himself occupied.

“Alright,” he says. He looks down at himself. “Just-- give me ten minutes.”

He gets dressed in the first things he grabs hold of. Black jeans and a black turtle neck sweater, and the two of them look like they’re going to a funeral, the amount of black that they’re wearing.

“You’ll want a coat,” Charles says. “It’s not raining, but it’s pretty fresh. About seven degrees at best.”

He tugs on his grey trench coat and pulls on his cheap Doc Marten’s, and he follows Charles across the gravel and through the house and to the Alfa.

It’s a fifteen minute trip to the village, one main road, the main high street, and Charles points out all the important things.

Driving in, there’s a big old church on the left. On the notice board, it says, ALL ARE WELCOME INTO THE ARMS OF GOD.

The village is all terraced houses, some big and some small, and half of them have ivy climbing up their fronts.

There’s a tiny little stream that runs alongside the road, Erik’s side, and there’s a post office and an off-licence.

Charles points down a street, says, “There’s a park down there. It’s good if you ever want to take a walk away from the house. Wouldn’t go after school hours, though,” he says. “Children.”

There’s a fish and chip shop and a Chinese takeaway, and on the other side of the village, there’s an old country pub. The Spotted Dog.

They get back to the house just before half eleven, and Erik offers to help Charles put away his groceries.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Charles says. He hands Erik the bag with his things in. A packet of stir fry vegetables and some Tsingtao.

Two am, after going back through to the village on his motorcycle and walking through the park and going to the pub, Erik is back on the living room floor.

Been sat there since eight pm, his arse is sore and his back is aching.

There’s nothing on the television at this time, save for re-runs of Jeremy Kyle and Location, Location, Location, those ones with the signing woman in the right hand corner, and he’s sat in silence, staring at paper and pictures on the Persian rug. Chaos.

He’s looking at the orgy murders, the five boys, when he pauses. He frowns.

He’s reading the autopsy reports. Has all five of them spread out in a line in front of him.

Going along the bodies, each victim had had a different number of fingers cut off. Hacked at with a dull blade.

From Bale to Williams: nine, zero, five, two, one.

Erik frowns.

You wouldn’t take the time to do that without reason.

You wouldn’t do that.

You wouldn’t.

Erik rubs at his forehead.

These aren’t just clear cut murders.

If you wanted to kill somebody, you’d put a gun to their head and blast their brains against the ceiling.

You wouldn’t drug them and slice them up and cut off their fingers.

You wouldn’t mutilate them. You wouldn’t choke them.

Nine-zero-five-two-one.

90521.

He grabs the pictures, checking that the autopsy reports were right, and he runs his hand down his face, dragging it over his chin.

He still feels a little ill, looking at these pictures. Knowing that these people are dead.

His laptop is by his side, and he types the number into Google.

The internet connection is slow as hell, and he’s bouncing his fist on his knee as he waits.

The first thing that comes up are old physics exams.

He grunts, scratching at his hairline, and he searches, phone 90521.

Nothing.

He searches the number on Google maps, and it takes him to Ukraine.

Rus'ka Mokra
Zakarpats'ka oblast
Ukraine
90521

He swears to himself; shoving the laptop away and tucking up his knees.

“Fucking murderers,” he says.

He stretches his arms above his head; yawning and cricking his neck from side to side, and he stares at the ceiling. The black beams and the white paint.

90521.

Raised in a Jewish family, he’d had a Torah shoved in his face every week or so.

He’s assuming that verses and codes work the same in the bible as they do in the Torah.

90521. Nine. Ninth book of the bible.

It’s late, and he should probably leave this until morning. There’s an empty can or two of Tsingtao on the coffee table.

He takes back the laptop, searches, ninth book of the new testament.

Epistle to the Galatians.

He searches, epistle to the galatians 0521.

Nothing.

He’s knocks his knuckles against the keypad. He searches, epistle to the galatians 521.

Nothing.

He’s about to throw his laptop out the window or across the room.

Galatians 521.

Erik stares at the screen.

“and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Orgies.

“Fuck me,” he says.

He reads the verse again.

90521.

Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

He huffs, running a hand through his hair.

He laughs, a desperate hiccup of a thing, and he says, “Fuck.”

It’s raining outside, and he pulls his dressing gown over his joggers and his t-shirt.

He shoves his laptop under the gown, and he runs across the gravel.

Almost two-fifteen in the morning, and Erik is knocking on the big French doors.

He’s freezing cold and his feet are bare, gravel sticking and scratching at his soles, and he bangs the side of his fist against the glass.

The dog starts barking, and Erik shouts, says, “Charles.” He knocks harder, shaking the glass, and he says, “Come on. Charles.”

The hall light flicks on, and Erik keeps knocking.

The kitchen light comes on, too bright, and Erik blinks against it.

Charles is there, tartan red pyjamas with the top three buttons undone, and he’s frowning.

He grabs a set of keys from the kitchen counter and walks over. Unlocking the door, he says, “Erik, what the fuck.” He moves out of the way, and he says, “Come in, you daft bastard.”

Erik shakes his head when he steps into the warm, like a dog, and he’s got wet hair slapping against his forehead. Charles asks, “What’s wrong? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I found something,” Erik says. “Something new. Something-- not in the police records.”

Charles stops talking.

He shuts the door, and he turns and stares at Erik.

Erik pulls his laptop out, and Charles says, “What? What did you find?”

There’s this desperate look on his face, like he needs this, and Erik swallows the lump in his throat.

This means everything to Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

“I-- here,” Erik says. He opens up the laptop’s lid, and he walks over to set it on the kitchen counter.

Charles follows him, right at his side, forearms brushing together, and Erik jabs a finger at the screen.

Charles frowns, looking at it. He says, “I don’t understand. What is that? A bible verse?” He looks to Erik. “How did you come to this?”

Erik scratches along his jaw line, and he says, “The orgy victims.” Charles glances at him. He says, “Their fingers-- they each had a different number of fingers missing.”

Charles runs his hand through his hair, musses it up and leaves himself with a worse bed-head than before, and he says, “And?”

Pursing his lips, Erik says, “The first victim had nine. The next zero. Then five, then two, then one.”

Charles is still looking at him. Waiting. Expecting.

“Nine-oh-five-two-one,” Erik says. “It’s a bible code.”

Charles blinks, and his eyes go owlish.

Big and blue, he says, “You mean, you found this because of the fingers? You found-- this-- because of the fingers?”

He’s pointing at the screen, and Erik nods.

“Fuck me,” Charles says. He laughs, shaking his head. “God,” he says. “I knew you were good, but-- what the hell.”

Erik bites his lip and offers Charles a smile. He says, “It fits. The verse.” He nods his head towards the laptop.

Charles looks back at the screen. He grabs the edge of it, tilting it forward, and he reads the verse aloud, says, “And envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” He frowns, face twisted up with it. He says, “Fucking hell.”

Erik huffs. “You think you’re dealing with some bible-basher?”

Charles rubs across eyes, leaning against the counter.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It wouldn’t be the first.” He groans, hands steepled beneath his chin. “But this-- this is fucked.”

Erik hums.

Charles’ eyebrows pull together, and he says, “Wait.”

Erik looks to him. “What?”

“That verse,” he says. He taps the screen with his index finger. “It starts with and,” he says. He pauses, chewing his lip. He says, “Search the one before it.”

Erik does, and he’s cold enough to start shivering.

Charles looks at him, and he says, “Wait there. I’ll get you something warm.”

Erik’s about to say he doesn’t have to, he’s fine, but Charles is already walking out towards the hall.

Galatians 520.

Galatians 5:20.

“idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions,”

Witchcraft.

Somerset. The palm reader.

Erik rubs his jaw. The verse starts with lower case.

He’s about to search galatians 5:19 when Charles comes back, big black jumper in his hands.

“Here,” he says. “Take off your wet top. You’ll catch pneumonia.” He huffs a laugh, mostly to himself, and he shakes his head. He says, “How old are you, twelve? You should know better than to go out in the cold without proper clothing.”

“I’m thirty six,” Erik says, undoing the tie around his waist. Charles has got his hand out, waiting to be given the gown, and Erik says, “You sound like my mother.”

Charles takes the dressing gown, sopping wet, and he says, “Your mother sounds like a smart woman.”

Erik grunts. He’s not wrong.

He tugs his t-shirt over his head, long sleeves getting caught and stuck to his arms, and Charles grabs it and pulls it over his hands. Erik blinks at him, and he gives Erik the jumper.

“Thanks,” Erik says.

About to pull it on, he says, “Is this going to fit?”

Charles shrugs. “Better than standing there freezing your arse off.”

True. Erik tugs it on and down his torso. It’s not itchy, but the hem comes just short of the top of his joggers, so he’s stood looking like an idiot with a stretch of midriff showing.

The sleeves come to an end three quarters of the way up his forearms.

Charles doesn’t say anything, just stands there and smirks, and Erik frowns.

He goes back to the laptop, and he points at 5:20.

“Witchcraft,” he says.

Charles looks at it. He lets out a breath, says, “Somerset.”

Erik finishes searching galatians 5:19, and Charles is the first to say it.

“Sexual impurity,” he says. He smacks his hand off the counter, hard enough to leave a dull thud that doesn’t ring out, and Erik almost flinches. “Impure. King. The-- the fucking bastard.”

He links his hands behind his head and looks up at the ceiling, and Erik watches him.

He feels a little wary, how manic Charles is with this thing. Too involved.

Erik looks to the verse. “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;”

He says, “So is this guy just following this? Galatians five-nineteen to twenty one?”

Charles sets his forearms on the counter and rests against it.

He ducks his head against his hands, and he tilts his face towards Erik.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, it fits with King, Somerset and the orgy crew, but what about the others? Taylor and Gaines?”

Erik scratches the back of his head. His hair is still wet.

He looks at the screen, and he pauses.

“Gaines,” he says. Charles looks at him. “The one with the ex wife’s boyfriend on his forehead.”

Charles hums. “Yes. That guy.”

Erik swears under his breath.

He re-searches galatians 5:21, and he says, “Envy.”

Charles stands up straight. He all but shoves Erik to the side as he grabs for the laptop, pulling it towards him.

“Fuck,” he says. He slaps his palm on the marble again, twice, three times. “I can’t believe this.”

Erik stands there, unsure. He says, “He envied his ex wife’s boyfriend, right? For the kids. He had the kids.”

Charles is nodding. He rubs a hand down his face and keeps it over his mouth. He looks pale, freckles across his cheeks and his nose.

He pinches his nostrils together, and he breathes through his mouth.

Erik itches at his wrists. He’s waiting for Charles to do something. Say something.

“Okay,” Charles says. He nods. To himself. “Alright,” he says. He pats Erik on the back, and he leaves his hand there, leaning against him slightly. “Okay,” he says.

Erik looks down at him. “I-- erm. Are you alright?”

Charles glances up. “Me?”

Erik huffs. “Yes,” he says. “You.”

Charles hums. He’s looking at the computer screen.

“So what about Taylor?” he asks. He stops his leaning, and Erik frowns at him. He twists his head towards Erik, says, “Any thoughts?”

Erik eyes him slightly, but he shrugs. He looks at the laptop, at the verse they’ve got up, 5:21, and he says, “With this one, I’m guessing she’s safe from the orgy pile.”

Charles barks a laugh.

“Drunkenness,” Erik says. He can sympathise. “Was she a heavy drinker?”

“No,” Charles says. He pushes both hands through his hair, and he knots his fingers at the nape of his neck, elbows stretched out. “She was into the punk scene,” he says. “She was-- shit, what’s it called.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, eyebrows drawing together.

There’s this little crease between them, and Erik doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“You know,” Charles says. He brings his hands down and snaps his fingers.

“I don’t know,” Erik says. He shakes his head. He’s trying not to laugh. He doesn’t know if it’s appropriate.

Charles groans, says, “When they don’t drink or do drugs. Or smoke.”

Straight-edge. He’s talking about straight-edge.

“That’s it,” he says. He grins, patting Erik again. “So no,” he says. “Drunkenness is out, too.”

They go through all of them. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery.

“No,” Charles says. He shakes his head. “She had the same boyfriend for five years. Very vanilla, as well. They were engaged. He was devastated,” he says.

Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions.

“I’d say fits of rage is out,” Charles says. They’re still leaning against the counter. It’s digging into Erik’s side. “She was very laid back. Well,” he says. “Apparently. This is all going on what family and friends have said.”

“Alright,” Erik says. “Witchcraft?”

Charles hums. He shifts to lean on an elbow. “There’s already Somerset for that. And Taylor wasn’t into that. Wait,” he says. He scratches his chin. “She was Christian. Yeah. So no.”

Rachel Taylor didn’t hate anyone either, apparently. Not even Margaret Thatcher, and Taylor was a self-confessed socialist. She also had no discord with anyone. Not even Margaret Thatcher.

“Dissensions is out, too,” Charles says. “It’s the same as discord, more or less.”

She wasn’t selfish. She was always looking to give a helping hand. Even volunteered at charity shops and homeless shelters when she wasn’t bogged down with university work.

“So we’re left with idolatry and factions,” Erik says. “And envy.”

Charles shakes his head. “Envy, no,” he says. “And since she was Christian, I’d cut out factions, too.”

He frowns, looking at the counter.

He says, “I get the feeling we’re going to be here a while. We might as well sit down.”

Erik practically sinks into the sofa, some massive plush thing that makes his aching arse disappear into it, and he manages not to yawn, this time.

“Idolatry, then,” Erik says. He relaxes into the seat, and he draws his legs up under himself when Charles does the same. “Who’d she idolise? Marilyn Manson?”

Charles reaches over to bat at his arm. “Don’t make fun of the dead,” he says. He’s grinning. Erik grins back, a little sleepy, and Charles says, “But no, not Marilyn Manson. She was a big fan of someone. Some musician. God, who the hell was it.”

“You know,” Erik says, “If you’re tired, it might be better to do this tomorrow. Just-- you might be able to remember things better.”

Charles glares at him. Erik raises a hand in defence.

“I’ll have you know, I’ve remembered,” Charles says. “It was Springsteen.”

Erik laughs. He can’t help it.

He’s tired and he’s stressed and he’s helping an off-the-job detective look for a murderer, and he has to cover his mouth, he’s laughing so hard.

Charles hits him again, says, “Fuck off. It was.”

Erik keeps laughing. He wants to stop, mostly, but when he looks, Charles is biting back a smile, and Erik tips his head back against the sofa cushion.

“Bruce Springsteen,” he says. His chest jumps with his laughter, and he shakes his head.

Charles starts, then, and he’s got this laugh that’s all childish glee mixed with an old man’s chuckle, and Erik has to turn his head to the side to hide the yawns that come between laughs.

“Okay,” Charles says. “This is good. This is-- this is really good.”

He gives Erik this big smile, and Erik rubs the back of his neck.

“God, Erik, you have no idea how long I’ve drivelled over this crap,” Charles says. He lets out a sigh, long and low, and he stretches out on the sofa, feet at Erik’s thighs. “Shit, I hoped you’d find something. I don’t-- I don’t even know if this means anything, but it’s something.”

He lays his head on the armrest, and his neck is this long pale column.

“Thanks,” he says. Erik chews the inside of his lip. It’s getting sorer by the day. Charles says, “Thanks. I mean it. I’d never have seen the fucking fingers thing. And I’m the detective here.” He huffs, running his hands up and over his face. He rests them on the top of his head, says, “At least we know we’re looking for some religious fanatic, not just some guy who loves gore and cutting people.”

Erik hums. “A wide demographic.”

He picks at his fingernails.

“And you’re welcome,” he says, quick. Charles grins at him. It’s past three am.

They’ll go down to London, tomorrow, Charles says. They’ll go down to the precinct, to the new detectives on the case, and they’ll show them.

They’ll go after dinner. Gives them a chance at a decent amount of sleep.

Most of the way there, Erik is asleep; side of his face pressed against the passenger side window.

He wakes up when Charles starts patting at his arm with the back of his hand.

He doesn’t, straight away, and then Charles whacks him one, says, “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. We’re almost there.”

He startles awake, and they’re on the road along the Thames.

Erik yawns as he stretches his arms out in front of him, and the London Eye is on his left, about ten o’ clock. Charles says, “I’m guessing you didn’t sleep much last night.”

Erik huffs. “No,” he says. He’d been reading the whole of Galatians and staring at fingers and stubs. “Sorry,” he says. He rubs his eyes. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

Charles shrugs, and Big Ben is right up in front. He says, “You’re fine. I was meaning to ask.” Erik looks to him. “While we’re here, is there anything you need from your place?”

He should probably check in with Anomie. Then he remembers Emma’s palm against his face. He shakes his head. “No, I’m good.”

They pass the Houses of Parliament and Parliament Square, and it’s two minutes from there to New Scotland Yard.

All you ever see on the news is the reporter stood in front of the sign, that big blocky revolving one that screams NEW SCOTLAND YARD, and Erik’s never been here, before.

It’s this big tall building, wider than it is high, and its windows are mirrors. The whole place is grey with the clouded over sky.

Almost everyone in the place welcomes Charles with wary smiles and a shake of the hand, but the new detectives on the case look at Charles like he’s dirt.

Erik bristles, and they don’t look at him much better, either.

“Xavier,” one of them says. Their office is all modern and silver with white metal blinds on the doors and the windows. They’re pulled closed, and the detective in question is balding and old with a beer gut the size of a small dog.

Erik’s teeth are biting together, and the detective says, “You’re not on this anymore. What the hell are you doing here?”

He’s sat behind his grey desk. His tie is diagonally striped with different shades of green, and the notice on his desk tells Erik that he is D.C.I. Telford.

The other detective is stood to his left. He’s younger. Not as young as Charles.

Charles says, “I found something. I’ve come to share it with you.”

His voice is flat. The same as when he’d said to Erik, I’m a Detective Inspector with the Metropolitan Police’s homicide department.

The younger detective raises an eyebrow. The side of his mouth quirks.

Erik stays behind Charles, slightly to his right.

“Oh really,” Telford says. Erik doesn’t like the way he talks. He doesn’t care about the accent. The typical Cockney. He cares about the slime. The sarcasm.

The man nods towards Erik.

He says, “I see you’ve brought a friend.”

Charles says, “That’s not important.” He tosses his notebook on Telford’s desk, and he points at it. “That’s important.”

The other detective, maybe forty with a receding hairline and the grey stubble of a stressed man, he says, “You were taken off this, Xavier. You were told to leave it be.”

Erik can see the muscle at the side of Charles’ jaw. How it moves with the clench of his teeth.

“That doesn’t matter,” Charles says. He’s got one hand in his trouser pocket, and the other points back at his notebook. “I found something. Read it.”

The detectives exchange glances. They’re mocking.

Telford grabs the notebook. Charles had written up everything before they’d left.

His handwriting is loopy and slanted and pleasing to the eye, and Telford’s barely reading for fifteen seconds before he’s looking up again.

“Fingers,” he says.

Erik’s right hand curls into a fist in his pocket. He’d dressed smart, for the occasion.

Telford laughs, sarcastic and bitter, and Erik has never had a like for police.

“You’re telling me that you found something because of those homos' fingers,” Telford says. Erik scowls. The man doesn’t even look at him. Telford shakes his head, says, “You’ve got to be kidding me, Xavier.”

“I’m not kidding you,” Charles says. His shoulders are stock straight.

Telford just laughs. His chest sounds like he smokes fifty a day.

He passes the notebook to the other detective, and he says, “Here, Mills. Get a load of this. There was a reason you were taken off this, kid.”

He’s looking at Charles again.

“Don’t you remember?” he says. “Too involved,” he says. He shakes his head and chuckles. It’s not a nice chuckle. “And this just proves it.”

The other detective, D.I. Mills, he’s frowning at the notebook, and then he’s laughing as he looks up.

“Fingers,” he says. “Good one.”

“You listen to me,” Charles says. He steps forward, one hand resting on the edge of Telford’s desk, and the other is raised to jab his finger towards the man. “This is important information,” he says. “You read every single word in that fucking book, do you hear me? This isn’t a fucking game. This is a murder investigation.”

Erik wasn’t expecting the retaliation, and it looks like no one else was, either.

He’s trying not to smirk at the look on Telford’s face.

Good on Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Telford’s mouth pulls up in a snarl, and he says, “I don’t have to do a damn thing you say, Xavier. You have no authority here anymore.”

Charles stands up straight. He says, “I don’t care. However, I do care if more bodies with Xs and Os turn up. And I’d hope that you cared, too.”

Telford says, “Get out.”

The wrinkles in his forehead are deep, and he snatches the notebook from Mills’ hands.

He tosses it at Charles, and it hits his chest and drops to the floor.

He says, “Get out and take your crackpot fucking theories with you.”

Charles doesn’t say anything.

Erik is waiting for him to say something.

He doesn’t, and Erik purses his lips.

Quick as he can, he moves and picks up the notebook.

He’s dealt with idiots. He can deal with idiots.

He can also deal with police.

Arrogance and ignorance and insolence, and he can feel Charles staring at him; can see him out of the corner of his eye, and he slams the book down on Telford’s desk.

“You,” he says. He points at Telford. He points at Mills, “You. You listen to me, you piss poor excuse for detectives. You are going to read this.” He jabs his finger on the notebook, and he says, “You are going to pour over it at fucking three am, if you have to. But you are going to fucking read it.”

There’s this silence as everyone in the room looks at him.

Erik is glaring at Telford. His jaw is aching.

The man’s face hardens, and Erik is leaning on the knuckles of his fists.

“And who the fuck are you?” Telford says.

Charles says, “A friend.”

Mills says, “He’s that journalist, that’s who he is.”

Telford looks to him. Erik hears Charles swear under his breath.

Mills says, “He’s that fucking lying journalist who was on the news.” He looks at Erik, eyes narrowed as he says, “Yeah. He’s the one who went after Kurt Marko. He’s a libelist. A liar.”

“No he’s not,” Charles says. Erik turns to look at him. His face looks harsher and older with his anger. He says, “He’s not a liar. Just-- just read my notes, for fuck’s sake--”

Telford cuts him off. “Shut the fuck up, Xavier. You’re nothing here, not anymore.”

Erik snarls. He bangs his fist off the desk, and Telford jumps in his cushy leather chair.

“Don’t speak to him like that,” he says. “He’s bringing you important information-- important information relating to a fucking serial killer, and you’re treating him like a god damn child. He’s a Detective Inspector, same as you.”

Telford spits, says, “I’m Detective Chief Inspector.”

Erik rolls his eyes, lip curling up as he throws his arms in the air, says, "Well, good for you.”

Mills steps forward. Erik frowns at him. He says, “You’re a libelist-- you’re a German libelist. No one cares about what you have to say.”

Erik goes to step towards him, but Charles grabs at his sleeve.

Erik goes to hit him, but Charles grabs at his sleeve.

“Erik,” he says. He pulls on Erik’s jacket, and Erik steps back.

Charles puts himself between Erik and Telford and Mills, and Erik drums his fingers along his thighs to stop from making fists.

He’s been drivelling over this murder shit for days.

He’s been surrounded by autopsy reports and crime scene photographs, and now these bastards in cheap suits won’t give their own colleague the fucking time of day.

German libelist.

Charles says, “Look.” He says, “Just read it. It’s five pages of writing.”

Telford frowns. He picks up the notebook.

He turns the pages, checking to see if Charles was right, and then he closes it.

Erik hisses, says, “Just read the fucking thing,” and Charles smacks him in the gut.

“Fine,” Telford says. Charles’ shoulders sag. He lets out a breath, loud enough for Erik to hear, and Telford says, “We’ll read it. But I swear, Xavier.” He waves his finger. “This is it. You come back here with anymore of your notebooks and your fucking theories, and you’re looking at unpaid leave. Do you hear me?”

Erik looks at Charles.

Charles says, between his teeth, “Yes.”

Back in the car, Erik sits in his seat and stares out the windscreen. He says, “What the fuck was that?”

He turns to Charles, and Charles says, “Shut up.”

He flicks on the radio, and he turns up the volume.

The whole way back to Cambridgeshire, Erik is scowling out the window, Charles is scowling out the windscreen, and Radiohead’s The Bends is playing too loud through the car’s speakers.

By the time they pull up on the gravel, the CD has looped back around.

It’s halfway through again, Fake Plastic Trees, and Charles is tugging on the hand brake.

The dog is in the kitchen, where it always stays when Charles goes out, and it’s barking and wagging its tail as they walk in.

Erik is about to head out the French doors, irritable and pissed off, a German libelist, but Charles says, “You didn’t have to do that.”

Erik turns around. Charles is shrugging out of his coat. Not the parka. The navy pea coat.

Erik raises an eyebrow.

Charles drapes his coat over the kitchen counter, and he says, “You didn’t have to defend me in front of them.”

Erik frowns. He folds his arms across his stomach, says, “Someone had to.” Charles looks over. “You weren’t going to.”

Charles scowls at him. The dog is back in its bed in the corner. Charles says, “You don’t have to work with them, Erik. I do. You shouldn’t have-- you shouldn’t have done it.”

Erik is clenching his jaw again.

He says, “I barely fucking said anything.” He says, “You asked me to come here and help you find a serial killer. And I said yes.” He huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “I said yes. And I found something.”

Charles is glaring at him.

“I found something,” Erik says. “And those bastards didn’t even care. They laughed at you. They were mocking you, Charles. Detective Inspector.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Charles says, spits. He walks over, pointing that fucking finger in Erik’s face, and he says, “It doesn’t matter what they were doing. That they were mocking me. It doesn’t fucking matter,” he says. “You didn’t have to and you shouldn’t have. You could have gotten both me and yourself in a lot of trouble. What were you going to do?” He asks, raising his eyebrows. He spreads out his hands. “Punch Mills in the face? Is that what you were going to do?”

“No,” Erik says. It’s a lie. “No,” he says. “Look, I was doing it for you, alright? The least you could do was say fucking thanks, you little shit.”

There’s a lot of pent up anger.

There’s a lot of Kurt Marko and a hundred thousand pounds and a couple of bastard detectives who won’t listen, and now he’s spitting it all out at Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

There’s a murderer and a murder case and nine dead bodies, and now they’re spitting it all out at each other.

Charles snarls, and he shoves his palms at Erik’s chest.

He does it again, until Erik stumbles back, and Erik lets him.

“Fuck you,” he says. He pushes Erik, harder this time, stronger than he looks at five foot seven, and he puts his weight behind it. “I asked for your help because you’re a good fucking investigative journalist and because of your-- your shitty god damn no nonsense reputation. I didn’t ask for your help so you could come down to fucking New Scotland Yard and defend my honour. I’m not-- I’m not a fucking damsel in distress, I can handle those idiots myself.”

Erik’s glaring at him, being shoved back against the glass of the French doors, and he says, “What are you going to do? Punch me in the face?”

He’s smirking, this malicious twist of his lips, and Charles just shoves him again.

He says, “Fuck you.”

And then he’s got his mouth on Erik’s.

His hands are at Erik’s shirt, fingers curling at it, and Erik stands there.

Charles’ lips are soft where they look chapped and cracked, and Erik all but growls into Charles’ mouth as he grabs him by the hips, moving and spinning them so he has him up against the glass.

“What are you doing,” he says.

He’s pressing Charles in place, looking down at him, and Charles’ eyebrows pull together in a scowl before his hands are in Erik’s hair, pulling on it, and he’s kissing Erik again.

He’s rough with it, up on his tiptoes and teeth biting at Erik’s bottom lip, and Erik cups his face in his hands before he opens up.

Charles kisses like a madman, fingers tugging hard enough at Erik’s hair to have his scalp burning with it.

He says, “Fuck you,” and his mouth is back before Erik can reply.

His face is soft under Erik’s hands, and he moves one to the back of Charles’ neck to pull him deeper.

They’re uncoordinated and they’re messy, but Charles is gasping for it. Erik is gasping for it.

He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t want this.

He’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t attracted to Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Blue eyes and floppy brown hair.

He pulls back, and there’s spit dribbling down Charles’ chin.

Charles blinks, and Erik rests their foreheads together.

He’s got his thigh between Charles’ legs, and he can feel Charles’ dick getting hard.

He says, “This is very unprofessional.”

He grunts when Charles pulls on his hair. He needs a haircut.

“Shut up,” Charles says. His hands move to yank at Erik’s coat. He can’t get it off of Erik’s shoulders, and he huffs and tries to shove at Erik’s chest again.

Erik doesn’t move, and Charles looks up and glares at him.

Erik says, “Is this really the best idea?”

Murderers and sex.

Charles has hold of the lapels of Erik’s coat, and he pulls them together.

It has Erik leaning forward, and against his mouth, Charles says, “Probably not.”

He kisses Erik, again, just once.

It’s slow and it’s lingering, and Erik lets himself sink into it.

When Charles leans back, Erik tries to lean with him.

Charles is smirking, and his nails scratch at the top of Erik’s shirt, right where his collarbones meet.

Erik’s fingers curl at the hair at the nape of Charles’ neck. Charles says, “But then again, the two of us aren’t really known for good ideas, are we?”

Erik hums, and he rolls his hips forward.

Charles groans, and Erik kisses the side of his jaw.

“I suppose not,” he says, at Charles’ ear. He bites at the lobe, dragging it between his teeth, and Charles’ hands fist in his lapels.

He says, “I need you to fuck me.”

Erik pulls back. He stares down at Charles, lips all red and swollen.

He’s never fucked a Detective Inspector before.

He’s never wanted to fuck a Detective Inspector before, but he’s got a soft spot for Detective Inspector Charles Xavier. He wants to fuck Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

“Erik,” Charles says. Erik blinks at him. Charles lifts his foot away from the floor, and it rubs his thigh against Erik’s cock.

Erik pants, and he holds Charles’ face as he presses their mouths together.

Open and sloppy and wet, and he doesn’t care. Charles’ fingers are working on the buttons of his shirt, and he doesn’t care.

He can’t get enough of it, hasn’t touched anyone in weeks, and Charles is mewling and moaning against him like a cat in heat, and he wants more.

“I need you to fuck me,” Charles says-- repeats. “I need you to fuck me. Now. Get it-- get it all out. Fuck me.”

His posh accent and those filthy words, and Erik huffs a breath through his nose.

He trails his mouth down Charles’ chin, leaves kisses and nips of his teeth along a trail to his pulse, and Charles’ palms flatten against the parts of Erik’s chest he can reach, top three buttons undone.

He tastes like sweat and the smell of Dove soap, and when Erik bites at the side of Charles’ neck, Charles whines, says, “Bedroom. Fucking-- Erik.”

Erik stops, and he licks his tongue over the indents and the mark that he’s made.

He pulls back and looks at Charles, and his eyes are big and his pupils wide.

“Not here,” Charles says. He looks over Erik’s shoulder. “The fucking dog is right there.”

Erik smirks, and he lets his leg press up against Charles’ crotch.

Charles slaps at his chest, and he says, “Stop it. I’ve got-- everything is in my room.”

His room is on the second floor, and he’s pulling Erik along by his wrist.

Erik trips up more than a few stairs, and they’ve barely stepped foot in the room before Charles is grabbing at Erik’s coat, tugging it off of his arms and tossing it to the side.

“Take your clothes off,” Charles says.

Erik watches him toe off his shoes and undo the fly of his trousers, and he pulls his own shirt up and over his head, already half undone from Charles’ fingers.

He stands there, watching Charles throw away his jacket and yank at his tie, and Charles looks up at him.

His legs are skinny and pale, and his calves and thighs look like he’s run after his fair share of criminals.

Charles says, “The faster you get undressed, the faster we can fuck. Hurry up.”

Charles is waiting on the bed before Erik has even finished.

He’s lying there, spread out on his four poster king sized bed, and he’s got a hand around his cock as Erik is trying to pull off his trousers and socks, all in one.

He can’t concentrate, not with Charles there on the mattress, his hair dark against the pillows and his skin pale against the sheets.

There’s a packet of lube and a condom on the bedside table, and Charles tosses them at him as he crawls between his legs.

Erik lets them sit on the sheets, and he bends down to press their mouths together.

Charles moans into it as Erik slides their cocks against each other, this long drag of aching pleasure, and he bites and nips at Charles’ lips as Charles’ hands come up and loop around his neck.

“Fuck me,” Charles says. His nails scratch at Erik’s skin, and he forces Erik’s head back down to kiss, harsh and carnal and open-mouthed, and Erik gives as good as he gets.

He pulls away, sitting back on his calves, and there’s a blush that runs from Charles’ cheeks and right down to his cock.

He’s beautiful to look at. He’s pale and pink and he’s got these freckles that fan out across his face and his shoulders.

He’s got the body of a runner, slim and well-built with a belly that’s soft at Erik’s fingers, and he’s got a damn dirty mouth.

“Come on,” he’s saying.

He’s restless, chest heaving, and he spreads his legs as Erik grabs the lube.

“Fuck me,” he says. “I need you to. I need your cock inside of me.”

Erik groans, his cock aching and jutting up at his stomach, and he smacks at the side of Charles’ thigh.

“Shut up,” he says. He flicks open the cap, and he squeezes lube onto his fingers; wastes no time before he’s placing them at Charles’ entrance.

Charles huffs, trying to push down, but Erik uses his other hand to hold at his right hip, keeping him in place.

He rubs the tips of his fingers against Charles’ hole; feels the muscle move and twitch at his touch, and Charles grunts, foot lifting up to kick at Erik’s side as he says, “Hurry up or I’ll fucking do it myself.”

Erik pushes two fingers in, then, and it has Charles moaning and throwing his head back against the pillows.

There are no scars along Charles’ skin. Erik kisses at his stomach, tongue licking over his bellybutton as his fingers twist and rub and drag.

Erik’s got marks all over his thighs, nine little dots.

He’s got the scars of track marks along his femoral veins, but Charles doesn’t say anything about them.

Charles lays there, his back arching as Erik’s fingers nudge up against his prostate, and he cries out, says, “Erik.”

Erik grins, and he smoothes his hand over Charles’ stomach and presses down as he pushes in another finger, says, “Charles.”

Charles lets out this strangled noise, eyes scrunching shut as his hand grabs at Erik’s arm, and his cock is leaking against his belly.

It’s long and thick, maybe six and a half inches of uncut dick, and Erik gets one lick to it before Charles is wrapping his fingers in Erik’s hair and pulling him away.

“That’s enough,” he says.

He’s panting, and Erik spanks at the underside of his thigh.

Erik says, “I’ll do what I want,” and he stretches his mouth down over the head of Charles’ cock.

It’s this musty and salty taste that he’ll never get used to, but Charles’ skin is silky like velvet, and he’s making these noises that Erik can’t get enough of.

He crooks his fingers up inside of Charles, and Charles’ hips buck, forcing his cock further into Erik’s mouth.

“Erik,” he says.

Erik takes it, and he bobs his head up and down until his nose is pressed up against wiry pubic hairs.

Charles groans, fingers curled tight in Erik’s hair, and he says, “Please.”

His mouth is dirty as sin, and he’s like a Union Jack spread out in a whorehouse, voice breaking on whines and moans as he’s saying, “Fuck me already. Ah-- Erik. Erik, please.”

His fingers tighten until it feels like he’s going to start pulling out tufts of hair, and Erik pulls off.

Spit drips down his chin, a line of it trailing from the tip of Charles’ dick and to the corner of Erik’s mouth, and he wipes it away with the hand that isn’t halfway up Charles’ arse.

Charles looks up at him, and he whines as Erik pulls his fingers out, but Erik shuts him up as he kisses him, slow and deep and hungry, and he’s never wanted to fuck anybody so bad. Never wanted anyone the way he does as Charles is licking into his mouth and scratching at his back.

“Fuck me,” Charles says. He bites at Erik’s chin, and he says, “Fuck me hard. I need you to. Please.”

His eyes are big and blue, and Erik kisses him one last time before he leans back and grabs the condom.

He tears open the foil, and Charles sits up on his elbows to snatch it from him.

“Hey,” Erik says. “If you want me to fuck you, I need that.”

Charles glares at him, and Erik groans when Charles grabs at the base of his dick.

He slicks his hand up the length, and Erik tips his head back and blinks at the ceiling as Charles slides the condom on.

Charles’ fingers are at his thighs, and Erik doesn’t give him the time to say anything. To think anything.

He grabs one of Charles’ legs and spreads him apart, and he uses his other hand to steady his cock as he pushes in at Charles’ hole.

Charles groans, and he’s pulling at Erik’s arse.

“Come on,” Charles says. He lifts his hips, and he’s biting his lip as he says, “You’re almost there, big boy. Just fuck me already.”

Erik pushes in as he braces his hands either side of Charles’ head, and Charles’ hands scrabble at his back as he moans, his face scrunching up as he adjusts, and Erik is panting through his teeth at the feeling of Charles around him, tight and hot and he’s kissing Charles again before he even knows it.

He has to pull away to fuck Charles properly, to roll his hips harsh and fast, and Charles’ nails are harsh at his back as he pants, short-lived staccato breaths as his head drops back against the pillows.

His ankles hook around the backs of Erik’s thighs, and he’s pulling Erik’s cock in deeper as he thrashes his head from side to side, face pushed up against the blue.

“Erik,” he says.

Erik pulls back so only the head of his dick is inside of Charles, and he groans as he pushes all the way back in, a slow drag that tugs at his stomach; his balls up against Charles’ arse.

“Gott-- you feel so good,” Erik says.

He drops his head down, forehead against Charles’, and Charles cups a hand around the back of Erik’s neck to pull him in for a kiss.

It’s sloppy as ever, and Erik moans as Charles tries to move his hips, shallow little movements upwards.

Erik keeps his thrusts coming slow, mouth panting against Charles’, and Charles’ lips fall into a little o as he scrabbles to make fists at Erik’s shoulder blades; as Erik’s cock finds his prostate.

His eyes widen and his jaw goes slack, and Erik grins, kissing from his cheek down to his chin.

He says, “Is that the spot?” and Charles bites at Erik’s lower lip and holds on.

His teeth are harsh enough to split the skin, right where Erik’s nervous habit sees him chewing at, and Erik grunts and leans down on his forearms, hands at Charles’ hair to hold him as they kiss; more teeth than lips, and Erik loves it.

His cock is barely getting anywhere, maybe an inch out and back in with each thrust, and when Charles mumbles harder against his tongue, Erik sits back and grabs either of Charles’ thighs in his hands.

Charles is looking up at him, breathless grin on his face, and Erik doesn’t hold back.

“Erik,” Charles says.

He’s got one hand twisted in the sheets, and the other is around his cock, and Erik can’t stop watching.

He’s watching his dick slide in and out of Charles’ arse, this tight warm heat around the latex of the condom, and he’s watching Charles fist at his own cock.

He tips his head back and closes his eyes, a low groan on the end of every breath, and his nails are digging into the muscle of Charles’ thighs.

Charles starts panting, moving back and forth on Erik’s cock, and he says, “Erik. Fuck-- god, Erik. Fuck you, this was a good idea.”

Erik snorts a laugh, and he opens his eyes to look back down at Charles.

He’s shiny with sweat; the scattering of hair between his pectorals and down to his crotch flat against his skin, and his moans start pitching higher and his arse starts getting tighter as he’s closer to the edge.

“Erik,” he’s saying.

He’s biting his lip and his cheeks are red, and he won’t stop saying Erik’s name as Erik is pushing into him, harsh and fast and relentless, and Erik’s toes are curling.

Charles comes first, jacking himself off, and it spurts across his stomach and his chest, and Erik pants as some of it drips at Charles’ chin.

“Fuck,” he says, and he drops back down to press their mouths together as he comes undone.

He’s biting at the curve of Charles’ neck as he comes, hard enough to leave little pinpricks of blood around the indents of his teeth, and Charles whines, fingers scratching lines down Erik’s shoulder blades.

It’s this white noise and this blinding feeling, and he grunts out Charles’ name at its climax; drops down on Charles’ side when he’s done.

He’s gasping for breath, and Charles is groaning and patting at his arm.

He says, “Pull out, you fucking idiot,” and Erik huffs, doing as he’s told.

He ties the condom, and Charles’ bedroom is so big he doesn’t know where to start looking for a bin.

“Just toss it on the floor,” Charles says. The side of his face is pressed up against the pillows, and he’s got this sleepy post-coital look to him.

The bed sheets are soft at Erik’s skin, and his thighs are starting ache.

He’s not sure what to do now.

They fucked. It was good. They’re looking for a murderer together.

He lies down, back to Charles, and he closes his eyes.

He’s still got that warm afterglow of orgasm running through him, and he gets to lie there for about a minute before Charles is nudging at his back.

“Hey,” Charles says. “Don’t you dare pretend to be asleep. It’s seven pm. And you just fucked me.”

He pushes his fingers at Erik’s spine, and Erik rolls his eyes and turns over to face him.

Charles offers him a smile. He’s got come crusted down his front.

“What?” Charles says. “That wasn’t good for you?”

Erik blinks, and he rubs a hand over his face.

He says, “It was good.”

Charles leans forward and kisses him, slow and chaste, a soft contradiction to minutes ago, and when he pulls back, Erik says, “It was really good.”

Charles grins. “Good,” he says. “It was good for me, too.” He cups a hand around the back of Erik’s neck and pushes forward for a kiss, again, and he says, “By good, I mean, my arse is going to be feeling that for a while.”

Erik snorts a laugh, and he rests his hand on the curve where Charles’ ribs meet his waist. “I’m glad,” he says.

Charles stretches out, yawning, and he says, “Stay. I’ll make tea.” He dips his chin. “Well. In a minute.”

“Okay,” Erik says. He nudges his leg between Charles’, and he says, “So this is okay. Us,” he says. Charles blinks at him. “Working together. Sleeping together. Fucking.”

Work and sex are never a good mix.

Murderers and work and sex, that’s a new one.

“Sure,” Charles says. “I like working with you. And I just enjoyed being fucked by you.”

He’s got this wicked grin, this posh little thirty one year old vixen, and Erik can’t help but grin back.

“I like working with you, too,” he says. His thumb rubs at Charles’ side. It’s soft.

Charles smiles, and his eyes are bright.

“Most interesting work I’ve had in a while,” Erik says. He presses his mouth to Charles’, and he says, “Most satisfying sex I’ve had in a while, too.”

Charles makes them both tea, when he can be bothered to move. Roast chicken.

Erik sleeps in Charles’ bed, Charles curled up against his back from the cold, and they spend the next two days going over old things.

They’re in Charles’ dining room -- reading through interview transcripts with victims’ families and friends and autopsy reports and looking at those god damn gruesome crime scene photographs, and Charles is practically slamming his head against the dining table with frustration.

“This is bullshit,” Erik says. He pushes his hands through his hair. “Why doesn’t this guy leave fingerprints? Why doesn’t this guy leave-- anything. Anything. Footprints, hair, saliva. What the fuck.”

It’s dead end after dead end. Chasing Houdini. Chasing a ghost.

Casper the Unfriendly Ghost.

“I don’t know,” Charles says. He yawns, resting his head against Erik’s shoulder. “He’s smart. She’s smart. They’re smart. God,” he says. He presses the heel of his palm against an eye. “I’ve been on this coming up two years, and we don’t even know their fucking gender. We don’t know anything.”

Erik shrugs, and it jostles Charles’ head.

He says, “We know they love the bible. A lot.”

Charles laughs. It’s desperate and tired and more of a hiccup than anything, and he says, “Come on.” He pats Erik’s stomach. “Bed time. If I look at this any longer, I’m going to get into another fight with the wall.”

Erik gets an email from Emma the next day.

It’s snotty and it’s in size six font, and Erik is squinting at the screen of his phone trying to read it.

Good morning, Judas.
We all hope you’re enjoying your ‘personal stuff’. Just thought that I’d inform you that the money went out yesterday. £150k.
We’re going to last six months. Tops.
When you crawl back at our doors, make sure you’re ready to kiss my ass.

Erik purses his lips.

He sits with his back to the four poster bed’s headboard, and all he sends back is a thumbs up.

There’s been a shift, since they fucked.

Erik sleeps in Charles’ room -- only goes out to the annexe for clothes, and they’ve fucked every night.

They stare at case file after case file after case file, and then they fuck.

Charles is demanding and Charles is flexible and Charles moans down the house when Erik eats him out.

Charles is shameless.

Erik is getting laid for the first time in months by a five foot seven Detective Inspector, and he gets hit in the face with a newspaper when Charles comes back from the village shop.

“Read it,” Charles says.

Erik is frowning, side of his face stinging, and he picks up the paper from his lap.

He looks back up at Charles. “Is this-- is this serious?”

Charles’ face is tight. He nods.

He grabs back the paper, and he holds it up in front of Erik’s face.

“Look at this,” he says. He shakes it. Erik looks at him. He shouts, says, “Look at this. Look-- even the-- even the fucking Daily Mail gets a hold of this shit before I do. I can’t believe this.”

Two more dead. Two more bodies.

Two more bodies with Xs and Os, and it’s plastered across the front page of the Daily Mail.

HUGS AND KISSES KILLER: POLICE EXCLUSIVE ON DOUBLE MURDER.

Hugs and Kisses Killer.

“Fuck,” Charles says. His hands are shaking. He says, “Eleven people are dead. How many more-- how many more people is this bastard going to kill? How many more people have to die before they’re fucking satisfied with themselves?”

Erik has never done well with feelings. Emotions.

Tongue-tied when even his own mother hugs him, Erik watches Charles’ tremors echo through the paper pages.

He says, “You have to get the information on this.” Charles is still glaring at the paper. “We have to find out if it fits. With Galatians,” Erik says. He gets up out of the bed, sheets getting tangled around his legs, and he says, “Charles.”

Charles looks up. His eyes are bright and wide, and he drags a hand through his hair. “Okay,” he says. “But I can’t-- I can’t push this.” He tosses the paper on the bed, and he sits on the edge of it.

Head in his hands, he peeks up at Erik, says, “The last thing I need is to get a longer suspension.”

Erik grabs his boxers from the floor and tugs them on. He bites his lip as he looks at the paper. There’s a photograph of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.

He wonders what it’s like.

Knowing that if you don’t find the answer soon enough, more people will die.

He supposes he does. A little.

At least it’s not his job.

He says, “What’d you do to get suspended the first time?”

Charles frowns up at him. Erik raises an eyebrow.

Charles huffs, shaking his head. He says, “Get dressed. I’ll tell you in the car.”

Erik doesn’t sleep the whole way to London, this time.

He gets nauseous from reading in the car.

He gets nauseous from reading the Daily Mail in the car.

He says, “Do the Met always give their exclusives to this shit rag?”

Charles huffs a laugh, pulling onto the M11. “No,” he says. “Only the idiots. AKA Telford and Mills.”

Erik snorts, and he folds up the newspaper.

“So,” he says. “Two dead in Richmond.” He drops the paper in the foot well, says, “This thing doesn’t go into detail. Man and a woman, mid-forties, middle class. Found in the same house, left behind two kids. Very sad.”

Charles clicks on the windscreen wipers, says, “Don’t be sarcastic.”

Erik looks at him.

He’s still shaky. He’s got bags under his eyes, and his cheekbones are harsher from the clench of his jaw.

“Sorry,” Erik says. He’s not sure if he means it, but Charles is still tense as all hell. “Should you be driving?”

Charles says, “Don’t make me turn the radio on to block you out.” He rubs a hand along the steering wheel, fifty miles an hour, and he says, “I’m fine. It’s just-- fucked. I mean, I’ve worked homicide for five years.” He scratches the side of his face. “And this is the worst thing I’ve seen. And believe me,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot.”

“Yeah?” Erik asks. He sits up in his seat. There’s traffic, up ahead. “Like what?”

He’s interested.

Always loved horror movies and horror stories, and Charles side eyes him.

He says, “Like beheadings.” He rubs his jaw, lowering down to thirty. “Like children decapitated by their own mothers.”

Erik frowns. “I don’t know,” he says. “This stuff is pretty bad, but I’d say decapitated children might be worse.”

Charles manages a laugh.

“No, this is definitely worse,” he says. “At least with the kids, there was only two. And she kept the parts in the freezer. So no blood.”

“What the fuck,” Erik says. Charles grins at him. He mumbles to himself, says, “And I thought my mother was menacing.”

Speaking of his mother, he should probably call her.

The traffic movement starts picking up, and Charles says, “You know, they’re probably just going to tell me to fuck off again.”

Erik frowns. “Then tell them to fuck off. Although, not before they give you the details.”

Charles shakes his head, checking his mirrors before indicating into the outside lane.

“I can’t tell them to fuck off, Erik,” he says. “You know I can’t. It’ll be a miracle if I get anything out of this. Apart from an empty petrol tank.”

Erik goes to say something, but Charles beats him to it, says, “And don’t you go telling them to fuck off, either. You getting arrested for assaulting a detective won’t help anyone.”

Erik huffs. He folds his arms over his stomach. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Charles raises an eyebrow, looking to him. He looks back to the road as he says, “Wouldn’t be the first time for what?”

Erik chews his lip. He says, “Assaulting a detective. Well,” he says. He shrugs, looking at his nails. “I don’t think he was a detective. He was polis though.”

“Polis?” Charles says. He snorts a laugh. “What are you, Scottish? I thought you were German.”

“I am German,” Erik says. He slumps. “I had Scottish friends.”

Charles shakes his head. “I suppose the more pressing question is: why did you assault a police officer?”

Erik hums. “Quid pro quo,” he says. He looks to Charles, tapping his fingers against the wheel. “Why’d you get suspended?”

Charles huffs. “I did tell you, the first time we met.”

“I know,” Erik says. “Month’s paid leave. Too involved.” He folds one leg over the other. “I don’t know what that means. You said you’d tell me, in the car.” He waves a hand. “We’re in the car.”

“Hm,” Charles says. He moves lanes again. “Fine. I got a little-- overzealous, shall we say, with a suspect.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Charles throws him a glare. “This kid,” he says. “He was twenty one. He knew Winters-- orgy victim,” he says. He taps two fingers on the edge of the wheel, eyes straight ahead. “They had history. Bad history. They went to the same university. South Bank. This kid-- the suspect, he was homophobic. He’d been sending Winters threatening messages over Facebook and Twitter.”

Erik frowns.

Coming into Chigwell, Charles says, “I got angry. We’d been chasing dead ends and landing back on square one for far too long. Still are,” he says, running a hand over his mouth. “But god, I was pissed off. Fucking kid had been dragging us along for hours. Thought it was some sort of joke that five homos got killed.” He scoffs, and Erik’s eyebrows pull together. “Long story short,” Charles says. “I grabbed him by his collar and threw him against the wall. And I hit him. Several times. Another detective had to pull me away.”

Erik didn’t peg him for the sort. The fighting sort. More like the silent storm.

Then again, Charles had him up against the wall a few days ago.

“Fuck,” Erik says. He props an elbow against the bottom of the window, leaning his face against his palm. “You’re surprisingly feisty, for such a short detective.”

It was meant to make Charles laugh, lighten the air, and it does.

“Fuck off,” he says. Erik grins, and Charles nods towards him. “Your turn. Tell me about your rebellious past.”

Erik huffs. “You have no idea,” he says.

Charles glances at him.

“But,” Erik says. “To answer your question of why I assaulted a police officer,” he says, raising a finger in Charles’ direction. “It was back in Germany. Berlin. I’d been there a while, so I was probably twenty. Maybe twenty one. It doesn’t matter. Anyway,” he says. He brushes a hand through his hair. “The police officer was an arsehole. He attacked my friend before trying to get them in cuffs. So I attacked him before he could get them in cuffs.”

Charles asks, “Why was he trying to arrest your friend?”

Erik bites his lip. He says, “Story for another day. Maybe.”

They’re hitting traffic again, the slow drag of it heading into central London, and Charles says, “Okay. Sorry. Carry on.”

Erik scratches at his eyebrow. He says, “I knocked him to the pavement and punched him in the face.”

He was on a high. He was invincible.

He says, “I kept punching him in the face. I only-- I only stopped when I heard sirens.”

He rubs the side of his jaw.

He still doesn’t know what happened to the officer. How bad he was hurt. If he was alright.

He remembers hearing the crunch of cartilage under his knuckles.

The car slows down to a stop, and the line goes on as far as Erik can see.

Charles turns to him, hands resting at the bottom of the wheel. “So you both got away?”

Erik nods.

He looks at Charles out the corner of his eye, and he says, “Don’t worry. I was young and stupid. Believe me,” he says. “The shit I did back then caught up with me. Bad.”

New Scotland Yard goes about as well as Charles had predicted. Maybe worse.

Walking into his office, Telford is sat on his fat arse behind his desk, and he says, “Xavier. I thought I told you to stay the fuck away.”

Charles stands his ground.

“I need the information on the newest murders,” he says. Telford stares at him. He looks pale. Ill. Charles says, “You know. The ones that were in the Daily Mail today.”

Telford tilts his head. He looks down his nose.

He says, “As I seem to have to keep reminding you -- you are no longer on this case. You no longer have the right to any information. You’re fucking lucky that they let you keep all the shit you already had, you fucking lunatic.”

Erik straightens. Telford looks at him for a second, but then he’s back to glaring at Charles.

Charles says, “If we don’t find this killer, more people will end up dead. You need all the help you can get.”

Telford leans back in his chair, this smug little look on his bulldog face.

He says, “We don’t need your help.”

“Yes, you do,” Charles says. He steps forward, palms on Telford’s desk. “I need to know everything. I can help get to the bottom of this fucking thing before this guy decides that they’ve had enough. Because do you know what happens then?” He asks, spreading out his hands. “Because then they disappear off the face of the Earth. Then they’re gone, and you’re left with unfinished business for years. Decades. You’ll be putting out Crimewatch appeals on your fucking deathbed, Telford.”

Erik smirks.

Feisty little Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Telford stands up, and it sends his chair rattling behind him.

He points a finger in Charles’ face, and he spits at him, says, “You back the fuck off, Xavier. We don’t need you here. We will end this. Without you.”

Charles doesn’t back off.

He stands there, face to face with Telford.

Erik is impressed.

He’s also ready to break Telford’s nose, and Charles says, “I know more about this case than anyone else here.” His voice is low, a rumble and a threat, and he says, “I am the best chance you idiots have at finding this killer. You’re putting people at risk, you fucking fascist.”

Erik would have laughed at that, but Telford is shoving at Charles’ shoulders.

He’s shouting, saying, “Don’t you dare fucking speak to me like that, you little rat,” and Erik is there before Charles can grab at his sleeve.

He pushes Telford up against the blinds of his window, and he ignores Charles behind him. Telling him to stop.

He grabs a handful of Telford’s tie, blue, today, and he stares down at him.

“You even think about touching him again, I’ll break your fucking face.”

He gets escorted out of the building.

Two men flank him, keep his arms behind his back, and they shove him out of the door and onto the street.

Charles comes down five minutes later.

He doesn’t even look at Erik.

He walks past him, and he says, “God, you are going to fucking get it tonight, you bastard.”

Erik gets put in handcuffs for the first time in fifteen years, and Charles is riding his cock until he’s begging to come; begging to get his hands on Charles’ bare arse.

He feels on fire with Charles’ nails scratching down his chest, and he’s got his head thrown back and his spine arching as Charles bounces and clenches around his cock.

“You don’t resort to physical violence,” Charles says, sat still on Erik’s pelvis. “Say it.”

Erik would recite Baa-Baa Black Sheep if it meant that Charles would keep going, keep moving, and he says, “I don’t resort to physical violence.”

Charles raises an eyebrow. “Ever.”

Erik bites his lip as Charles digs a nail just below his bellybutton, and he says, “Ever.”

“Good,” Charles says.

He starts moving again, and Erik is moaning like a cheap porn flick whore.

He comes with his dick up inside of Charles’ arse, teeth biting into his lip hard enough to bleed, and Charles climbs off of him, just to straddle his face.

Erik is panting for breath, arms aching with the strain against the cuffs, and Charles looks down at him, eyes dark.

Erik opens his mouth, and Charles groans, pushing his cock into the heat and pulling Erik forward by his hair.

He whines and gasps and says Erik, harsh K spitting out of his red raw lips, and Erik has to tilt his head up to swallow.

He’s worn out and filthy and sore, and when Charles undoes the handcuffs and flops out next to him, he says, “I hope you’ve learnt your lesson.”

His chest is heaving, forehead sweaty against Erik’s shoulder, and he says, “If not, you’re either investing in a cock ring, or you’re getting shoved back into the annexe every night.”

Erik huffs, and he grabs Charles’ messy hair and pulls him up for a kiss; tired and wet.

They’re good together. Working together. Sleeping together. They’re good.

It almost makes Erik forget about the one hundred and fifty k.

Almost, because he gets another email from Emma.

Dickbag,
I just had to lay off two of our best journalists.
If you’re curious, it was Jean and Scott. On the brightside, they can cry into each other’s arms whilst they’re fucking.
Thanks for everything. You know, for leaving, and then for keeping in touch. Thanks a lot.
Hope you’re not dead or anything. That would be a shame.

Erik frowns at his phone.

He liked Jean. She was angry and she knew her stuff.

Scott was a cocky arsehole.

He sits up on his elbows, and he sends back a message, this time.

Emma,
I don’t care about Scott. You could have kept Jean.
I said I was sorry. I am coming back. Hopefully with the money to set us afloat again.
Until then, don’t murder any of the interns.
On the other hand, you can murder Sean.

They have to find out what they can from crappy newspapers and god-awful media websites, and Charles slams his head against the dining room table when Erik holds up the day’s issue of the Mirror.

Charles lifts his head about an inch or so off the wood before dropping it down again, and again, and again, and the dog jumps up at his leg to see what he’s doing.

Erik would be worried, if he wasn’t biting back hysterical laughter.

“God, who the fuck writes this,” Charles says, pushing his hands through his hair.

Erik drops the paper on the table and takes the seat next to Charles.

The dog wags its tail at him, and he scratches its ear before he shrugs, says, “I don’t know. Idiots and fans of Australian soap operas, apparently.”

He’d seen the paper in the village newsagents.

He’d stared at it a while, basket already full of alcohol and biscuits and teabags, and he’d gotten a dirty look from a young mother when he’d sworn, said, “This is a fucking joke.”

Charles says, “It’s not even noon and I need a drink.”

Erik says, “Maybe wait until at least afternoon.”

Charles grumbles, and Erik looks down at the paper.

There’s the big ugly red masthead and a picture of Kerry Katona, and splashed out in black and white is the headline.

THAT’S WHEN GOOD NEIGHBOURS BECOME GOOD FRIENDS.

“So they were neighbours,” he says. He scratches at his hairline. Charles has his arms folded on the table, and his face is smushed up against them. Erik says, “Man and a woman. Neighbours. Middle aged.”

Charles says, “I Googled it while you were out. They were both married to other people.”

Erik raises an eyebrow.

“They were fucking behind their respective spouse’s backs,” Charles says. He sits up straight, and he pats at the dog’s head before telling it to go back to its bed. He rubs a thumb along the line of his mouth, says, “So they were cheaters. What’s that word-- adulterers. Bible isn’t too fond of those, right?”

Erik huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “No,” he says. “Bet their spouses aren’t too fond of those, either.”

Charles laughs. It’s kind of desperate.

He’s got wet hair from a shower, and he says, “It fits with five-nineteen, right? Sexual immorality? Impurity?”

Erik hums. “Yeah,” he says. He purses his lips.

He’s never read the bible.

He’s never wanted to read the bible, but he knows the basics. What they teach you in school.

Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not commit murder.

Thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s house.

Thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s wife.

He’s up on Google at one o’clock in the morning, the light of the laptop reflecting around the room, and Charles groans.

He rolls over and shoves at Erik’s side, says, “Turn that off and go to sleep. Please.”

Erik scowls down at him. “I’m researching.”

“You can research tomorrow,” Charles says. “It’s late. My head hurts.”

As soon as the clock hit five minutes past noon, Charles was in the liquor cabinet.

Erik searches, thou shall not lay with neighbour.

The first thing that comes up is a Leviticus verse.

Charles says, “If you go to sleep now, I’ll suck you off in the morning.”

Erik ignores him, and he clicks the link. Leviticus 18:20.

“Do not defile yourself by having sexual intercourse with your neighbour’s wife.”

He huffs.

“Here,” he says. He edges the laptop towards Charles, and he can see Charles glaring at him. “Read it.”

Charles mutters something to himself, and he props himself up on an elbow.

His eyes scrunch up as he reads it, bright blue in the dark, and he frowns.

“Well,” he says. “That’s certainly-- rude. Surely if you sleep with your neighbour’s wife, you’re being a bastard and defiling her, not yourself. What’s this saying?” he says, voice groggy with sleep. “That your neighbour’s wife is dirty?”

“I’ve never met her.”

Charles hits him, and Erik can’t help but smirk.

“Behave,” Charles says.

He shifts onto his back, yawning, and his hair is messy from tossing and turning.

His skin is paler in the low light, freckles standing out where Erik can see them above the covers, and Charles sighs. He says, “You don’t think this is just five-nineteen, then.”

Erik bites his lip.

He shakes his head, says, “No, I-- this is more specific. I don’t know,” he says, rubbing his jaw. “The whole fact that they were neighbours. Having an affair. It’s more-- righteous. I don’t know.”

He chews the inside of his cheek, and he searches, bible shall not lay with neighbour kill.

Leviticus 20:10.

“If a man commits adultery with his neighbour’s wife, both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death.”

Erik stares at the screen, and Charles reaches a hand up to tilt the laptop towards him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Charles pushes his face into the pillow, saying something, but Erik can’t hear him.

He says, “Take your face out of the fucking pillow.”

“No,” Charles says. “I’ve had enough. I’m going to suffocate myself. So I don’t have to deal with this.”

Erik rolls his eyes.

He’s very childish, Detective Inspector Charles Xavier. Very cheeky.

Intelligent and humorous and vocal in bed, and Erik is almost glad to have had a murder case thrown at him.

He pokes at Charles’ side, just beneath his ribs, and the man lets out a small yelp.

“Okay,” he says, rolling onto his back. He holds up his hands, says, “Fine. I’ll just-- I’ll just hang myself tomorrow. Use my tie.”

“Shut up,” Erik says. He purses his lips. “If this guy has moved on from Galatians and onto Leviticus, there’s all sorts of crazy shit he can find in there.”

Leviticus isn’t known for its charms.

Charles groans, hands over his face.

“I’m going to regret asking this,” he says. He peaks through his fingers. “But like what?”

Erik searches, weird Leviticus.

He tries to stifle a laugh as he flicks through them. He says, “If you have sex with an animal, both you and the animal have to be killed.”

Charles hums. “To be fair, not a lot of people have sex with animals. I don’t think anyone’s going to die for that one.”

“Okay,” Erik says. “Okay. This one -- if you curse your mother or father, you are to be put to death.”

He looks down at Charles.

“Fuck. Okay,” Charles says. “That makes almost everyone on Earth a target. Including me.”

Erik huffs a laugh. “Also, if you lie with a man as you lie with a woman, you’re dead, too.”

Charles rubs his eyes, and he’s shaking his head.

“I suppose that explains why all of the male victims were gay or bisexual,” he says. “Well,” he says. “Apart from the latest one. Maybe he was bi.”

Erik yawns, and he says, “Maybe the killer will come after us. Gay parent cursers.”

Charles hits him again, a slap on the arm with the back of his hand, and he says, “Shut up. I’m already paranoid.”

Erik turns off the laptop, and he sets it on the bedside table.

He lies down, looking at the ceiling, and he says, “Why are you paranoid?”

Charles throws an arm over Erik’s chest.

“Do you know how many detectives are attacked by the person they’re looking for? A lot.”

Erik hums. “Don’t worry,” he says. “With your suspect hitting skills and my police hitting skills, I’m sure we could take them.”

Charles laughs, and he hugs himself up against Erik’s side.

He’s warm, but his feet are cold against Erik’s legs, and it’s been a while since he’s slept so regularly beside someone else.

It’s nice.

Apart from when Charles clings onto him like a limpet when he needs to take a piss.

He wakes up with Charles’ mouth around his cock, and Charles calls the detectives, later on.

The Dynamic Duo. Telford and Mills.

Erik is sat in the living room, watching Top Gear, and he can hear Charles swearing in the kitchen.

He mutes the television, and he hears Charles say, “Hey, fuck you, too. No, look-- you fucking listen to me, Mills, I don’t give a fuck.”

He’s got more of a backbone than Erik had given him credit for. More of a filthy mouth than Erik had given him credit for.

Feisty.

He’s passionate, above all else, and Erik laughs into his mug as Charles’ posh little accent runs throughout the house, says, “If you don’t listen to me, I will come down there and shove a bible up your arse. Oh, that’s a threat? It’s not going to be just any bible, it’s going to be one of those massive ones they have in churches, yeah-- yeah, Mills, the size of five fucking Harry Potter books, just-- just fucking listen to me.”

Erik’s mother would wash his mouth out with soap.

Erik, on the other hand, can’t get enough of Charles’ filthy mouth.

He comes into the living room, this blank look on his face, and he grabs the mug from Erik’s hands.

Erik frowns, says, “Hey,” but Charles sets it down on the coffee table, and he turns to climb onto Erik’s lap, knees either side of Erik’s thighs.

“I’ve been suspended for another month,” he says, and Erik doesn’t have time to react before Charles is bending down and kissing him.

He’s rough and needy and he’s pulling at Erik’s hair, like the first time that they did this, and Erik has to tip his head back to get him to stop.

He sets his hands on Charles’ ribs, shirt material crisp under his fingers, and he eyes Charles, says, “What?”

Charles glares at him, says, “Suspended. Another month.”

He goes in for another kiss, but Erik turns his head to the side.

He hisses when Charles tugs on his hair, and he digs a thumb in-between two ribs, says, “Stop it.” Says, “Why did you get suspended again?”

Charles bites at Erik’s earlobe, teeth tugging along the shell of his ear, and he says, “Threatening another detective. Harassing them about a case.” He shrugs. “Fuck them.”

Erik groans when Charles rocks his hips forward and bites at his neck.

Head resting against the back of the sofa, Erik says, “We’re talking about this later. You can’t-- you can’t just do that. You can’t just-- get suspended, and then-- and then come in here like this and pretend that it’s fine.”

“It is fine,” Charles says. “It’s totally fine. They don’t want to listen -- fine. We can do this by ourselves.”

Erik huffs, hands moving to grab at Charles’ arse, and he shakes his head.

“We can,” Charles says, a growl at Erik’s skin, and Erik closes his eyes, biting his lip. “We’ve got almost everything we need. And when-- when we find this bastard, those idiots are going to fucking worship us.”

Erik smacks a hand at Charles arse, says “Hold on. Stop it,” he says, Charles sucking below his Adam’s apple. “The other day, you said-- you said the last thing you wanted was a longer suspension. And now you don’t care.”

Charles pulls back, and his eyes are dark.

He likes solving his aggressions through sex, and he says, “I’ve changed my mind. Now shut the fuck up.”

He presses their mouths together, licking his way past Erik’s lips, and Erik gives in and pulls him closer; hips pushing upwards against Charles’.

A religious serial killer may or may not be one of the best things to have walked into Erik’s life, and they spend the next week going over everything.

Everything pinned to the walls of Charles’ dining room and everything written in shitty newsprint, and it’s enough to drive a man insane.

Charles’ sister turns up, on a Friday.

It’s six o’clock, and they’re taking a break.

Charles says, “We’re either watching the news or the Simpsons. Pick one.”

Erik huffs. He’d rather fuck than watch TV, but Charles is using his lap as a pillow and refuses to get up.

He yawns, every now and then, and Erik says, “Fine. Simpsons. I read up on the news earlier.”

Ecstasy deaths, rail fare rises, paedophile politicians. The usual.

Charles clicks the channel and rubs the side of his face against Erik’s crotch.

He’s acting oblivious to it, and Erik grits his teeth.

“If you’re going to do that, at least deal with the consequences,” Erik says, hand curling in Charles’ hair.

Charles shifts from his side and onto his back, and he tilts his head to look up at Erik. Erik frowns at him.

“Do what?” Charles asks. He pushes harder against Erik’s cock. It’s stirring in interest to the pressure. “I’m not doing anything,” he says. “I’m watching the telly.”

Erik pinches Charles’ nostrils shut with his fingers, and Charles grins, batting Erik’s hand away.

Erik is so close to getting his dick sucked when the doorbell goes.

“No,” Erik says. Charles looks to him. “Ignore it,” Erik says. Charles has got one hand down the front of Erik’s jogger bottoms, curled around his cock, and Erik bucks his hips, says, “Charles. They’ll come back if it’s important.”

Charles pulls his hand out, and Erik groans.

“Oh, shut up,” Charles says. He wipes his palm on Erik’s t-shirt. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Erik scowls at the television as Charles walks out and into the hall.

He listens out for Charles answering the door, and he hears a woman’s voice and Charles’ laughter.

“Fine,” Erik says. “I’m going to go masturbate in your downstairs toilet.”

It’s loud enough for Charles to hear, and he shouts Erik’s name as Erik comes out of the living room.

“Erik,” Charles says. His tone is harsh, and there’s a young girl stood next to him at the door. She’s all long blonde hair and round cheeks and blue dress, and there’s a baby bump hidden under the azure material. “Erik,” Charles says. “This is my sister.”

Erik stares at him.

He looks to the girl, maybe in her early twenties, and she’s biting back a grin.

“Oh,” Erik says.

He’s stood there, his cock hard in his joggers, and he says, “Hello.”

Charles raises an eyebrow as he shuts the front door.

“Hi,” the girl says. Her accent is American, and she’s pulling off green mittens. She says, “I’m Raven.” She smiles. “Charles has told me a lot about you. Although,” she says, “He did miss out the part about how big your dick is.”

Erik falters, and Charles snorts a laugh.

He reaches to take Raven’s coat from her shoulders, a black duffle, and he says, “I didn’t, actually.” He looks to Erik. “Don’t worry. I told her how big it was.”

Raven hums. “He did. He’s oddly proud of it.”

Erik doesn’t know what to say.

Charles hangs the coat on the stand, and to Raven, he says, “Go take a seat in the living room. I’ll go wash my hands and get you some tea. Put whatever you like on the television. Baron is in there somewhere, he’ll be happy to see you. And Erik,” he says. “You come with me.”

Erik does as he’s told, and in the kitchen, Charles splashes his face with cold water.

Erik frowns, panting out a breath from the shock, and he shoves at Charles’ shoulder.

“You’re worse than the dog,” Charles says. “You think your cock can go down by itself, or do you have to go wank one off?”

Erik scrubs at his face with the sleeve of his t-shirt. “It’ll go down,” he says. He folds his arms across his chest. “I can’t believe your younger sister knows the size of my dick.”

Charles huffs a laugh. He fills the kettle with water, and he says, “She doesn’t know the exact size. It’s not like I’ve had a ruler to it.”

Erik should have known that anyone related to Charles would love anything to do with sex. Especially talking about it.

“Oh, don’t act all embarrassed,” Charles says. He clicks the switch to start the water boiling. He moves over to press his mouth to Erik’s, and Erik takes it.

He grabs Charles’ sides and pushes him back against the counter, and he grinds his dick up against Charles’ hip bone.

Charles bats at his arm. “Erik, stop it. My little sister is in the living room.”

Erik nips at Charles’ bottom lip. He deserves it.

“The same little sister who you apparently talk about my genitals to,” Erik says. Charles tries to move, but Erik keeps him pinned where he is; rutting his hips.

Charles makes a small whining noise against Erik’s lips, and he says, “Just-- wait an hour or so. We’ll do whatever you want. When Raven has gone.”

Erik lets out a long breath. “Fine,” he says. “But now I do have to go wank off.”

Charles rolls his eyes, pushing Erik away from him.

He turns to drop tea bags into three mugs, and he says, “Go. But aim for the toilet or the shower. I don’t want your come stained into my carpet or my towels. It’s already on enough of my sheets.”

Erik moves behind him and rubs his crotch up against Charles’ arse, once, slowly, before he gropes a cheek in a hand and walks away. Charles calls him a bastard.

By the time Erik is done, flushed away all the evidence and washed his hands and caught his breath, Charles and Raven are mid-conversation in the living room; mugs of tea set out on the coffee table. Erik’s mug has a donkey painted onto it.

“There you are,” Charles says. Erik avoids eye contact with Raven as he sits down next to Charles on the sofa. Raven is sat in the armchair. “Better?”

Erik frowns at him. “Yes,” he says, grabbing his tea.

Raven is a nice girl.

She’s twenty-four, is Charles’ adopted sister, and she has a degree in fine art.

She’s engaged to be married to some six foot four Russian guy, Azazel, and she’s six months’ pregnant with her first child.

“Part of me hopes it’s a girl,” she says, sipping her tea. “Just so Azazel will have to learn how to plait her hair and play tea party.”

She’s enthusiastic-- has the same blunt humour and the same easy charm as Charles, and the black denim jacket she’s got on is stitched with patches of band names and feminist slogans.

She pulls Erik into a hug before she goes, three hours later, and her baby bump presses against his stomach as she says, “I know Charles can get a little crazy about his work, but please put up with him. All he talks about is you-- he’s like a fourteen year old girl. Treat him right, yeah?”

Erik nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll-- um, I’ll do my best.”

Raven grins and pats his arm. Charles helps her into her coat, and she says, “Well, bye, boys. Keep in touch, and safe sex, alright? You don’t want to end up like me, Charles-- all bloated with a tiny little human blob of cells inside of your womb.”

Charles laughs and shakes his head. “Don’t scare him off,” he says, “I haven’t told him about my womb yet.”

Erik stands with Charles on the doorstep to wave Raven off, the lights of her little cream Mini Cooper bright at Erik’s eyes, and when she’s gone, all Erik is thinking about is getting Charles out of his clothes and into the king-sized bed.

True to his word, Charles lets Erik do what he wants, and Erik wants Charles on his hands and knees. Erik wants his mouth and his tongue at Charles’ hole, and he wants Charles to push back and fuck himself on Erik’s cock as Erik kneels behind him, stock still.

Charles’ voice is hoarse with moans and whines and pleas as he comes, and Emma sends another email, the next Tuesday.

Dear Mr I-have-a-tiny-cock,
I don’t care that you don’t care about Scott. And I couldn’t have kept Jean. Do you know why? We have hardly any money. That’s why.
You’ll be glad to hear that I haven’t had to let anyone else go. Not yet.
Also, the interns refuse to leave. They’re working longer hours and doing extra jobs. It’s nice to know that someone cares about this magazine.
I’m interested to know exactly what it is you’re doing that could cover our 150k loss. Selling your body to rich old men? Or are you back to your dirty drugs tricks? I suppose you’re a bit too old to be a prostitute. I doubt you’d get twenty for a blowjob. Don’t get me wrong, sugar, you’ve still got your looks, they’ve just…aged. Shame.
Let me know that you’re still not dead. Or in jail. Or wanted by an international drugs kingpin.

And then there’s another murder.

A young man stoned outside of an abandoned church; nineteen years old and left to die. XOXO carved into his forearm.

The kid had had his head bashed in with what the newspapers described as a big hunk of rock.

So bad you could see brain matter.

Erik had opened up his laptop, and he’d searched through Leviticus.

He’d found it.

Leviticus 24:16.

“And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him.”

Charles starts shouting and yelling and screaming, and he calms down in time for the doorbell to ring.

He calms down in time for the Detective Sergeant to turn up on his doorstep.

This man with blonde hair and a long coat and a blue tie that follows Charles into the kitchen, and Erik frowns. “Who the fuck are you?”

Charles glares at him, and he says, “DS Lewis, please. Take a seat at the breakfast bar. Ignore him.”

Erik splutters a laugh, raising an eyebrow. “DS Lewis,” he says. Charles scowls. “What?” Erik says. He sets himself back on his feet from where he’d been stretched to put away a glass. “This is a joke, right? DS Lewis?”

The blonde man looks down at his hands, gold wedding band around a finger, and Charles takes the stool opposite him, next to where Erik is stood.

He hisses under his breath, says, “Shut the fuck up before I hit you.”

Erik folds his arms over his chest, small of his back against the counter.

“What?” Erik says. “Are you believing that? DS Lewis?”

Charles kicks his shin, but doesn’t look at him.

Erik kicks back, says, “DS Lewis.” Charles doesn’t react. “What?” Erik says. “You never watched Inspector Morse?”

“No,” Charles says. “Now shut the fuck up.”

He turns to the blonde man, DS Lewis, and Erik frowns.

A detective who doesn’t watch detective shows.

“Sorry,” Charles says. He’s got on his professional voice. Erik watches him from the side. “Just-- ignore him,” Charles says. Erik huffs. “Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee? Water?”

“No, thank you,” Lewis says. “I’m fine.”

Charles nods. There’s a pause, and he says, “Don’t get me wrong.” He says, “I’m happy to have you here, Detective Sergeant. I just-- I’m not exactly sure why it is that you’re here.”

Erik turns, to see Lewis’ reaction, and the man is fiddling with his fingers.

He says, “I’m on the serial killer case. The XOXO case.”

When Erik looks, Charles is clenching his jaw.

“Oh,” Charles says. “I assume you’re here to pick up all my things, then. To do with the case.”

Lewis shakes his head. “No, no,” he says. Erik narrows his eyes. “I-- after the-- the latest murder, I--” he stops, and he sighs. “Telford and Mills aren’t getting anywhere,” he says. Erik wants to laugh, but Charles won’t look at him. Lewis says, “Too many people have died. We need your help, Detective Inspector. No matter what Telford and Mills say.”

Charles rubs a hand over his face.

He says, “I don’t know why you’re coming to me. I’ve been off this case for almost a month. And I will continue to be off this case for the rest of my life.”

Lewis says, “I know that you’re still pursuing the case on your own time. We all know.”

Erik huffs a laugh, half hidden by a fist and a cough, and Charles kicks him again.

Charles says, “So what? They don’t want my help. I’m suspended.” He shrugs, leaning back in his seat. He’s playing cool. “There’s nothing I can do,” he says.

Erik looks to Lewis, and the man chews his lip.

He says, “I’ve brought you something.”

He reaches for the inside of his coat, and Erik eyes him, wary.

He pulls out a manila folder, and he sets it on the counter.

“It’s photographs,” Lewis says. “I couldn’t-- I couldn’t bring you the actual documents without Telford or Mills knowing. So I took photographs of everything.”

Charles is silent. He’s staring at Lewis, and Erik is staring at Charles.

Charles says, “What--?”

Lewis flips open the folder, and he grabs a few sheets in his hands, says, “It’s everything we have on the three most recent murders. The neighbours and the-- the kid who was stoned. Autopsies and interviews and-- everything. All we have.”

He holds out the papers, and Charles takes them. Slowly, and with shaking hands.

Erik sets a hand on Charles’ shoulder, and he scowls at Lewis, says, “Why are you doing this? This could get you fired.”

Lewis looks at him. His eyes are bright and his nose wide, and he says, “I just said. Too many people have died, and the Met, we-- we aren’t getting anywhere.” He scratches his chin, says, “We need Xavier. I’m the only one with an ego small enough to admit it.”

He’s about Erik’s age, maybe, give or take, and it must be a kick in the teeth to have a superior five years your junior.

Charles says, “I don’t know what to say.”

He doesn’t look up from the photographs, fingers flicking through them, and Erik says, “That’s a first.”

Charles ignores him. Erik takes his hand away and goes back to standing with his arms folded across his chest.

Lewis says, “You don’t have to say anything. I just hope that you can put this information to better use than the Met.”

Charles rubs a hand across his forehead.

“Thank you,” he says. “I hope-- I hope that you don’t get in trouble for this.”

Lewis offers a smile. It’s tight.

He’s got the sort of face that anyone would like to punch, and he says, “I’ll be fine. As long as you don’t say anything about this.”

Charles shakes his head. “Of course I won’t. Neither of us will.”

Lewis’ eyes flick up to Erik, and Erik gives him a grin. Sarcastic and slimy and full of teeth, and Lewis looks back to Charles.

“Thanks,” he says. “If we find anything else,” he says. “I’ll come back here. Give it to you.”

Charles breathes. Running a hand through his hair, he says, “I know the risk that you’re taking, doing this. I owe you one, Lewis. I really do.”

Charles sees him off with a bundle of thank yous and a handshake and a pat on the back, and when he comes into the kitchen, his face is blank.

He breaks into a grin when Erik looks over to him, and he walks over and wraps his arms around Erik in a tight hug.

It catches Erik off guard, but he returns it.

“God,” Charles says. “I fucking love Detective Sergeants.”

Erik huffs a laugh, and he’s leaning down to kiss at Charles’ mouth when he pulls back.

He spins and traps Charles against the counter, hands at either side of him, and he bends to nip at the bottom of Charles’ neck.

“No,” Charles says, palms pushing flat against Erik’s chest. Erik hums, and he stays where he is. Charles grumbles, says, “We have to look through this stuff. Save your horniness for later. Erik.”

Erik lets him go after he’s marked a purple bruise below the collar, and they’re sat at the dining room table with half a bottle of whisky sat between them, the dog snoring in its bed.

“I should have just smothered myself the other night,” Charles says, sorting the photographs into piles. He grabs the bottle and takes a swig. “This is just-- unbelievable,” he says, handing the whisky to Erik. “Telford and Mills, they-- look at this.” He picks up a photo and holds it out until Erik takes it. “The incompetence is just-- it’s a fucking joke, that’s what it is.”

It’s a sloppy, handwritten crime scene report, and it’s nothing like the others. The ones that Charles had filled out.

All it says is: body of young adult male found outside St. Barnabas’ Church. Victim between the ages of 18 and 23. Head injury. Massive blood loss. XOXO cut into forearm. Multiple stab wounds.

In Charles’ reports, there was page after page of scribbled cursive.

Erik chugs back the whisky until his throat starts to burn, and he wipes away the drops that spill down his chin.

“Okay,” Charles says. He’s got two piles of photographs. He taps the left one, closest to Erik. “This is the boy.” He taps the right one. “This is the neighbours. You take the boy,” he says, nodding his chin. He pushes a notepad towards Erik, and he sets a pen on top of it. “Jot down anything important. Anything that jumps out.”

Erik grabs the pen and paper. “Yes, sir,” he says.

“Don’t,” Charles says. “You’re already on thin ice after being rude to our guest. Our Very Important guest.”

Erik rolls his eyes. He says, “You’re the one who doesn’t watch Inspector Morse. Inspector.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?” Charles says. “No. Now get to work.”

Erik shakes his head, and he starts leafing through the photographs. He uncaps the pen with his teeth.

Mikael Armansky.
19 years old.
Swedish.
Studying at LSE. First year. PPE.
Other students reported him as being quiet. Kept to himself.
Smart kid. Straight As.

When he flicks the page and comes face to face with a photograph of a photograph of a bashed in head, he grabs for the whisky.

He looks down at Charles’ notepad as he’s swallowing, and he’s got a page full of ink already.

The kid’s face is young and fresh and covered in rusted blood, and the whole front right of his skull is crushed in.

A crater-like dent with blonde hair separated by cracks in smooth bone, and Erik rubs at his eyebrow.

There’s pale pink skin that’s flapped back like it’s nothing, and the boy’s right eye socket is cracked.

His eye is near falling out, and his brains look like raw minced meat. The newspaper didn’t go into this much detail. Erik’s stomach churns.

Charles makes a strange noise twenty five minutes in. Erik turns to him.

“I-- excuse me a moment.”

He stumbles up out of his chair, and he almost falls over in his rush to get out.

Erik can hear him throwing up in the downstairs toilet. The dog lifts its head.

Erik reaches over for the picture that Charles was looking at.

He blinks, and he gets up to go check on him.

“Hey,” Erik says. He stands in the doorway, and he says, “You alright?”

Charles groans, sat on the floor by the toilet. He rests his forehead on the rim, says, “No,” and then he’s puking again, hands pushing his hair away from his face.

Erik’s nose scrunches with the smell of it and the sound of it, and he remembers his mother rubbing circles into his back and stroking his hair whenever he was sick as a young boy.

He sighs, and he kneels down by Charles’ side.

“You’re fine,” he says, hand on Charles’ back. “It was probably the whisky. Or the chicken with ginger and spring onions. Or both.”

Charles grumbles, and he says, “I haven’t been sick from a crime scene since I started with the police. This is bullshit.”

Erik runs his fingers through Charles’ hair, this soft and shiny brown, and Charles slumps his head against Erik’s hand.

“Maybe we should stop. For tonight,” Erik says. Charles spits into the toilet. Erik shrugs. “If you brush your teeth, we could always fuck.”

Charles snorts a laugh. “You think you can distract me from my work with sex?”

Erik nods.

It’s worked before.

When he’s gotten sick and tired of detective papers and reports and dead bodies, he’s started kissing Charles’ neck. Palming at the crotch of his jeans. His slacks. His pyjamas. Biting at his earlobe until he groans and gives in; letting Erik suck him off under the dining room table -- his head thrown back against the wooden chair.

“Yeah,” Erik says. “Pretty much.”

Charles bats at his leg. He says, “It’s nice to know that you’re still thinking about fucking me when I’ve got spit and sick dribbling down my face.”

Erik smoothes a hand up and down Charles’ back, un-tucking his shirt from his trousers.

“You could be covered in blood and I’d still be thinking about fucking you.”

Charles shakes his head and grins, wiping over his mouth with a palm.

“Fine,” he says. “We can fuck. But we’re spending all day tomorrow going over that stuff. Even if I do puke again. Or if you puke.” He waves a finger. “Part of me hopes that you do.”

Erik frowns. “I’ll puke on you, if you want.”

Charles smirks. “Do that, and you’re getting no sex for a week. At least.”

Charles brushes his teeth and rinses out his mouth with Listerine, and he comes out of the en suite bathroom with no clothes, cock half hard against a thigh.

Erik gets up from the bed to meet him, in his t-shirt and his boxers and his tattered thermal socks, and he pushes Charles back against the wall.

Charles grins.

He’s short and soft and scattered with dusty freckles and russet brown hairs, and Erik grabs his arse and pulls them flush together.

He kisses the corner of Charles’ mouth-- lingers, says, “What do you want, Detective?”

Charles grunts, rubbing himself up against Erik’s leg.

His hands come up to curl at the back of Erik’s head, and he says, “I want you to fuck me. I thought that was the plan.”

Erik bites at Charles’ lip, dragging it away from his teeth. Charles makes a low noise in the back of his throat.

“Be more specific,” Erik says.

He presses their mouths together, and he pulls away when Charles tries to open up.

Charles is scowling, eyebrows tight, and he scrapes his nails at the nape of Erik’s neck.

“Come on,” Erik says. He rolls his hips, and Charles scrunches his eyes shut, mouth panting open.

He loves the way Charles will say dirty words.

How he’ll say, blunt as anything, “Fine. I want you to suck my cock. Then, I want to suck your cock. I want you to fuck my mouth, and then I want you to bend me over the side of the bed and finger me.”

He pulls on Erik’s hair, and Erik’s cock stiffens in his underwear.

Charles says, “And then, for the big finale, I want you to pin me down and fuck me. Hard. Still bent over the bed.”

Erik breathes against Charles’ mouth.

Charles is staring up at him, eyes big and dark, and Erik swallows, says, “Alright.”

He squeezes Charles’ arse as he gets to his knees-- kneads the soft flesh in his fingers, and Charles groans, keeping a hold on Erik’s hair.

Erik licks up the underside of Charles’ cock, hard and heavy against his stomach, and Charles says, “God, am I glad I asked you for help on this case.”

Erik grins.

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier is the best thing to have happened in the last fifteen years of Erik’s life, and he looks up through his eyelashes as he sucks two fingers in-between his lips.

He watches Charles tip his head back against the wall, and he uses one hand to spread Charles’ arsecheeks apart.

He uses the other to push his split-slick fingers up against Charles’ hole, and he starts rubbing against the opening in slow circles.

It’s not what Charles asked for, but he’s getting it.

Erik gets his mouth around Charles’ cockhead-- presses his tongue into the slit and tastes the salt of pre-come, and Charles moans, low and loud.

“I love it when you suck me off,” Charles says. He strokes through the length of Erik’s hair, and his hips buck forward when Erik presses his index finger inside.

His cock slides to the back of Erik’s throat, fast and abrupt and it has Erik spluttering, spit slipping out the corner of his mouth.

“God-- sorry,” Charles says; his accent husky and warm. He says, “Just-- warn a guy, maybe.”

Erik ignores him, and he kisses down the length of Charles’ cock and to his balls.

Charles whines as Erik licks at them, says, “World famous journalist Erik Lehnsherr, sucking my cock.”

Erik huffs a laugh.

In reward, he takes Charles’ cock all the way; right up until he’s got Charles’ pubic bone pressed against his nose.

Charles moans, the sound of it echoing off of the wood of the wardrobes, and Erik bobs his head. Once, twice.

He keeps his tongue stroking at the underside and over the dark vein that pops out when Charles is hard, and he starts working his finger in and out as he’s bobbing his mouth up and down.

He’s not as good as sucking dick as Charles, red lips and blue eyes and all, but he makes it the best he can.

“Jesus, Erik,” Charles says. His hips barely move, undecided on whether to move forward into Erik’s mouth or backwards onto Erik’s finger, and Charles says, “I don’t want to come from this.”

Erik digs his nails into Charles’ arse, right at the crease where it meets the top of his thigh, and he presses in his middle finger.

Charles whimpers. “Erik.”

He makes this wet noise as Erik scissors his fingers and pulls back to lap at the slit of his cock, tongue at the small little opening, and he tugs on Erik’s hair.

“Stop,” he says. Erik doesn’t. “Erik, please. Ah.”

There’s a stinging at Erik’s scalp as Charles’ fingers tighten.

His eyes are watering, and he gets Charles’ dick at the back of his throat.

Charles starts making these hissing sorts of breaths, caught between his teeth, and he’s leaking pre-come right down Erik’s throat.

“Erik,” he says. “Erik-- I’m going to come. Please.”

Erik rubs and grips at his arsecheek, working his fingers all the way out and back in again, and he hollows his cheeks around the length of Charles’ cock.

He’s never much liked sucking dick. Hasn’t had as much practice as Charles, but he’d suck Charles’ cock for hours if it meant he’d keep making those choked off gasps and high pitched noises.

Charles starts gasping as he comes, this oh, oh, oh, as his hips make tiny thrusts forward, and Erik closes his eyes and swallows around him.

“Oh--oh God,” Charles says. His fingers loosen, and he pats lamely at Erik’s head.

Erik keeps his own fingers all the way up to the second knuckle, and he sucks Charles through it until he’s done; pulling him forward and swallowing everything that doesn’t dribble out and down his chin.

He laps up all that he can, and he pulls out and stands up with a sloppy grin on his face.

Charles pants, his hands dropping to the side of Erik’s arms and his back arched up against the wall, and his eyes open to stare.

He purses his lips.

He slaps at Erik’s face with an open palm, too light to hurt, and he says, “I told you I didn’t want to come.”

Erik shrugs.

He kisses Charles, open and filthy and wet, and Charles licks at the inside of his mouth with his hands clenching at Erik’s biceps.

He starts tugging at the hem of Erik’s shirt, shucking it up to under his armpits until Erik pulls back, and he yanks it over Erik’s head.

Erik presses his forehead to Charles’, and he says, “Don’t worry.” He grins, tonguing along Charles’ bottom lip. “You can get hard again by the time I’m fucking you.”

Charles hums.

He cups Erik through his boxers, his palm a hard pressure against Erik’s cock, and Erik groans.

“I’m adding something else to what I want,” Charles says. He grinds his hand up.

Erik grunts, says, “What?”

“After I’ve sucked your cock,” Charles says, biting at Erik’s chin, “You can calm yourself down enough to fuck me by sucking my cock back to fully hard.”

Erik nods.

He ruts his hips against Charles’ hand, his own hands at Charles’ side and Charles’ hip, and he says, “Where do you want me, Detective?”

Charles curls his fist around Erik’s cock, boxers still in the way as Erik bites his lip and breathes through his nose, and he says, “Call me Detective one more time, and I’m getting out the handcuffs.” He slicks his hand up and down, pulling the fabric with him, and he says, “Take off your pants and socks and sit on the edge of the bed.”

Erik does as he’s told.

He’s halfway to jerking himself off by the time Charles saunters over and kneels between Erik’s open legs.

He slides his palms along the lengths of Erik’s thighs, over the track marks and stopping at the jut of his hips, and he says, “So. You’re going to fuck my mouth.”

He gets his hands under Erik’s legs and pulls so that Erik is perched on the edge of the mattress, feet pressed into the shag pile carpet, and his hands are warm and soft where his nails are blunt and itching.

“And,” he says, “You’re going to stop before you come. I’m not waiting another half an hour, forty five minutes before I get fucked.”

Erik huffs.

He rests back with a hand against the bedding, and he threads the fingers of his other hand through Charles’ hair as he lowers his mouth down and onto his cock.

Erik groans and thrusts up straight away, pushing Charles’ head down as far as he’ll go.

He looks up at the ceiling as he bucks up and into the wet heat, and he bites his lip to keep from being too loud.

He loves Charles’ mouth as much as he loves his arse, red lips stretched around Erik’s cock, and Erik pants, says, “God-- you’re wasted as a detective.”

He moans, a low drone through clenched teeth, and he rolls his hips shallow and slow.

He teases, says, “Should’ve become a professional cocksucker.”

Charles slaps at the back of Erik’s thigh, makes a sharp clapping nose, and Erik thrusts deeper for it.

“You should intern at Anomie,” he says, stroking his hand down Charles’ face. He pats his cheek, and Charles opens his eyes to look up at him. Erik smirks, a small tug at the right side of his mouth. “You could stay under my desk and suck me off whilst I piss off politicians.”

Charles hums a laugh around Erik’s cock, eyes wet, and Erik pushes his face away before he gets too close to coming.

Charles wipes his mouth on a handful of mattress, and he stands up, says, “Get to work, then.”

Erik huffs and slides off the bed, back on his knees in front of Charles’ dick.

“If you don’t pull off when I tell you to,” Charles says, “I’m kicking you in the nuts and cuffing you to the dog’s collar.”

Erik pulls off when Charles tells him to.

His jaw aches from the stretch, and Charles’ cock is back to leaking against his stomach.

“Lube’s in the drawer,” Charles says. He drapes himself over the side of the bed, arms folded and cheek resting against them. “So’s the condoms.”

Erik looks down at him a while. The knobs of his spine and the muscles at his shoulders. The strong lengths of his thighs and the pale globes of his arse.

The only light coming from the bedside lamp, Charles looks ethereal and obscene, and Erik sets himself between the V spread of his legs.

He lubes up two of his fingers, rubbing them together to get warm, and he pushes them both in at once, Charles still loose from barely fifteen minutes ago.

Charles pants. His arse lifts up from the bed, and Erik smoothes his spare hand over a cheek.

He preps Charles until he’s begging, saying, “Now. Fuck me. Now,” and Erik can’t say no to that.

He slides on the condom and squirts another load of lube onto his cock and over Charles’ hole, and he uses his hand to guide himself in with a groan and a curl of his toes in the carpet.

Charles is hissing; face pushed into the mattress and hands curling in it.

He’s tight and hot and Erik is all the way in when Charles is saying, “Move.”

His voice is muffled by the duck egg blue bedspread, and he says, “You heard what I said earlier. Pin me down and fuck me.”

Erik often finds himself wondering if rough sex is Charles’ answer to everything -- frustration, anger, boredom, sadness, happiness--

Sometimes, Charles takes pills. Propanolol. Beta-blockers.

Erik doesn’t like it. Seeing Charles knock back pink pills with a glass of water.

He shoves one hand on Charles’ right shoulder blade, pushing him further into the mattress, and he uses the other to smack and pull at Charles’ arse.

The first smack has Charles moaning, loud and off-guard, and Erik does it again, harder.

He looks down to a red handprint on Charles’ arsecheek, and he groans as he starts thrusting.

He goes at the pace Charles wanted, harsh and fast and deep-- his hips working in fast snaps and making a slap each time the fronts of his thighs hit the backs of Charles’.

Charles pants, and he’s saying Erik’s name over and over.

Charles is the best fuck Erik has ever had, and his hand spanks Charles harsh enough to ring out like an applause.

It’s not what Charles asked for, again, but it doesn’t sound like he cares. Not with the way he’s moaning and rutting his hips against the sheets.

He’s come from just Erik’s cock, before. He can come from just Erik’s cock again.

That, and the friction of Egyptian cotton.

“Erik,” Charles says. He whines as Erik smacks him.

His flesh jiggles when Erik’s hands hit him, and it’s more erotic than it should be.

“’M gonna come,” Charles says. Erik can see his eyes scrunching where he’s got his face tilted to the side. “God-- fuck.”

Erik moves both of his hands to grab at Charles’ hips, pulling him back on his cock and down the bed, and it has Charles whimpering.

His skin is shiny and damp with sweat, and he clenches around Erik’s cock.

Erik pants, says, “Gott-- Charles.”

Charles does it again, says, “Speak more German. You never-- you never speak German. I like it.”

Erik huffs, rubbing the red mark on Charles’ arse.

“Ich liebe ficken dich,” he says. He slows his thrusts for a while; watches Charles clench and unclench his fists, and he says, “Es fühlt sich gut an.”

Charles moans, says, “Tell me what it means.”

Erik speeds up, chasing the tightening of his gut, and he says, “I love fucking you.” He bites his lip and tips back his head. His hands are back at Charles’ hips, and he’s holding hard enough to bruise. “Feels good,” he says.

Erik comes first, thrusts losing rhythm, and he pants out Charles’ name with a string of German curses, fingers digging sanguine crescents into Charles’ skin.

He pulls out with a grunt from Charles, but he ignores it in lieu of rolling Charles onto his back and grabbing hold of his cock.

He can come from Erik’s hand instead.

“Oh,” Charles says. He throws his head back and bucks into the circle of Erik’s fist.

He’s beautiful and he’s sexual and he’s unbelievable, and he’s leaking all over Erik’s fingers.

He arches up as he comes, back to that staccato oh-oh-oh, and he twists his head from side to side, spilling out onto his chest and stomach and Erik’s hand.

Erik licks Charles clean-- from his nipples to his hole to his over-sensitive dick, and he tosses the condom in the direction of the bin. He doesn’t check to see if it goes in.

Charles groans, rolling around on the sheets.

He gets his head on a pillow, and his hair is damp and mussed to his forehead.

He says, “Maybe I should be sick more often, if that’s what I get for it.”

Erik huffs, lying down next to him.

He strokes a hand up Charles’ stomach and to his chin; turning Charles to look at him.

“Believe me,” Erik says. “If this case disappeared, we’d be spending months in your bed.”

Charles grins, and he bumps his nose against Erik’s before kissing him; all soft and subtle with fingers tracing the length of Erik’s forearm, elbow to wrist.

“Unfortunately,” he says, dropping his head back down on the pillow, “This case isn’t going to disappear. So you’re going to have to settle for occasional sex.” He raises an eyebrow, says, “Occasional, but very good.”

Erik smirks. He nudges his thigh between Charles’, and lips close enough to brush, he says, “If and when you catch this guy, I’m going to fuck you over that dining room table.” He kisses at the corner of Charles’ mouth, says, “Watch you knock all of your files and your sheets away as you come all over them.”

Charles groans, and he shoves at Erik’s shoulder.

“Don’t,” he says. “I’m not sixteen anymore. My dick’s already worn out from coming twice. The poor thing can’t handle you saying those things right now.”

Erik laughs, pressing his face against Charles’ neck.

“I’ll suck you off again, if you want,” he says. He mouths at Charles’ Adam’s apple. “I’m sure your dick would be very happy to have my mouth around it.”

Charles scratches Erik’s shoulder, says, “Stop it. We can go again in the morning, if you’re so desperate. What are you, in heat, or something?”

Erik nods, lifting his head. “Or something.”

Charles shakes his head and shuffles closer to Erik, getting himself comfortable.

“Go to sleep,” he says. “We’re working all day tomorrow. That was the deal.”

Erik rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

They’re quiet, for a while; bedside lamp flicked off, and Charles moves to rest his head on Erik’s chest.

He’s still awake. They both are.

Erik still feels warm from the sex and the orgasm, and the sheets are cool against his legs where Charles is hot against his side.

Charles says, “You’re not asleep, are you?”

Erik grumbles. “No,” he says.

“Can I ask you something?”

Erik pauses, looking at the ceiling.

“Sure,” he says. “Why not.”

“When we went to see Telford, the second time,” Charles says. “I asked why your friend was getting arrested by that police officer. You said it was a story for another day.”

Erik hums.

He can see where this is going.

“It’s another day,” Erik says. “So you want to know if I’ll tell it.”

Charles nods. His hair tickles.

Erik sighs.

He doesn’t want to say it. Not after a good day and a good fuck.

He says, “You’re a detective. Tell me what you think.”

Charles runs his fingers up Erik’s side, the one he’s not resting against, and he says, “I don’t know. I don’t want to offend you, or something.”

Erik huffs a laugh. “Like shit you don’t.”

“I don’t,” Charles says. He props himself up on an elbow, biting back a grin as he looks down at Erik. He says, “If I wanted to offend you, I’d tell you that you were arrogant and don’t do as you’re told whilst sucking someone off.”

Erik smirks, shaking his head.

“You won’t offend me,” he says. “Say whatever.”

Charles eyes him, but lies back down.

He says, “Alright. But remember you said that.”

“I will,” Erik says. “I’m not a child. I’m not going to cry if you insinuate that I was a murderer.”

Charles laughs, this brief little chuckle, and he says, “No, I don’t think you were a murderer. I’m more inclined to say that your offence was drugs related.”

Erik raises an eyebrow. He’s looking at the ceiling.

“I suppose you say that because of the marks on my thighs,” he says.

Hard to miss when they’re so close to the dick that Charles has been sucking.

“Yeah,” Charles says. He sounds unsure. “Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Erik says. The side of his mouth tugs up. “Although, I was also arrested a number of times for disturbing the peace. And once or twice for assault, but-- that time it was drugs.”

Charles traces two fingers along the curve of Erik’s ribs.

He says, “When was the last time you-- you know.”

“A long time ago,” Erik says. He remembers what it feels like. “Nearly fifteen years.”

Charles takes his head away from Erik’s chest, and he pulls at Erik’s shoulder.

Taking the hint, Erik shifts onto his side; faces Charles.

“I really am glad I asked you,” Charles says. His smile is soft in the low light. Erik smiles back. “Not just because of the sex and the-- the detective work. I like you.”

Erik bites the inside of his lip. Trying not to smirk, he says, “Detective Inspector, are we having a moment?”

Charles shoves at him, but he’s grinning.

“Don’t ruin it,” he says. “I’m actually finding something out about you. Apart from the fact that you have a serious problem with authority.”

Erik shrugs. “I was raised in East Germany until I was eleven,” he says. “What do you expect?”

Charles looks at him. Erik frowns.

“What?”

“You’re interesting,” Charles says. “Tell me something else. I feel like all we’ve done is fuck and go over case details. I barely know you.”

Erik hums. “How about like last time,” he says. “On the way to see Telford. Quid pro quo. You know. I go, you go. It’s only fair I find out things about you, too.”

He wants to know things about Charles.

Charles nods. “How about I ask you a question, and then you ask me a question.”

“Okay,” Erik says. Charles’ breath smells like mint and mouthwash and sex. “I get to go first. Where were you born?”

“Keswick,” Charles says. Erik raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t sound like he’s from the Lake District. Charles grins. “How about you?”

“Dresden,” Erik says. “Where were you raised?”

Still with that grin, Charles says, “Oxford.”

That explains it.

“Where else have you lived?”

Erik scratches his hairline, says, “Berlin. Glasgow, for university. Bordeaux. London.” He smirks. “Cambridgeshire.”

Charles rolls his eyes, but he shuffles forward to press his mouth to Erik’s. Chaste.

Erik says, “When were you born?”

“Nineteen eighty-three,” Charles says. “April twenty-first, if you want to get me a gift next year.”

“Sure,” Erik says. “I’ll get you a ball gag.”

Charles glares at him. “When were you born?”

“April second, nineteen seventy-eight.”

“Wow,” Charles says. He’s smirking. “You’re old.”

“Fuck off,” Erik says. “You’re only five years younger than me. You’re no spring chicken either.”

Charles laughs.

Shaking his head, Erik says, “When did you join the police?”

“After uni,” Charles says. “So when I was twenty three, maybe.” He grins. “When did you first get arrested?”

Erik purses his lips. “When I was sixteen. What did you study at university?”

“Biology. Specialising in genetics. Why did you first get arrested?”

He’s discussing his criminal record with a Detective Inspector.

He’s also interested to know why a Detective Inspector studied science at university.

“Disturbing the peace,” he says. “I was at a protest. Took a coach to Berlin without my mother’s permission and had to spend the night in a police cell.” He hums. “I think my mother’s reaction was worse than the slab they made me sleep on.”

Charles huffs a laugh, says, “Very rebellious, weren’t you?”

“Mm,” Erik says. “She still uses it to blackmail me. My mother,” he says. “If she wants something, she’ll say, oh, Erik, do this for me. The things I had to put up with when you were a boy, this is the least you could do for me.”

Charles’ lips are folded inwards as he tries not to laugh, but he can’t hold it in when Erik laughs, first.

“Okay,” Erik says. He needs to check in with his mother again. Tomorrow. “Why did you study biology if you were going to join the police?”

“I didn’t know that’s what I wanted to do,” Charles says. He shrugs. “My parents convinced me to get my PhD, so I did.”

Erik frowns. “You have a PhD?”

“That’s another question,” Charles says. His face is smug. Erik scowls. “What was the worst thing you did when you were younger?”

“You’re very keen to get the dirt on younger me,” Erik says. Charles smiles, all innocent. Erik mutters under his breath, German, teufelchen, and he says, “Fine. The drugs, probably. The weed wasn’t that bad, I guess. The smack was. Then again,” he says, “The first time I got done for assault wasn’t much of a proud moment, either.” He huffs. “I didn’t do many good things. When did you get your PhD?”

Charles brushes his hand up against Erik’s.

“When I finished university,” he says. “So when I was twenty-three.”

Erik’s eyebrows pull together. “That’s pretty young to be getting a PhD.”

Charles shrugs a shoulder. “Do you have any siblings?”

Glad to be moving on from his criminal record, Erik shakes his head. “You?”

Charles snorts a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. He’s grinning. “A sister. You’ve met her. Not that long ago, actually.”

Erik nips at the skin he finds at the side of Charles’ hand, and Charles hisses and pulls away, glaring at him.

“I meant apart from Raven,” Erik says.

“Your problem,” Charles says. “Not mine. Although, I do have a stepbrother. Bit of an arsehole,” he says. “Why did you move to the UK?”

Erik pushes his feet against Charles’ shins. They’re warm.

“Fresh start,” he says. “My father passed away and left enough money in his will for my mother and I to come here. And for me to go to university. My mother told me that if I didn’t get my act together she’d make my life hell. She once said she’d force me into a marriage,” he says. He frowns at the thought of it. “So I didn’t doubt her.”

“I like your mother,” Charles says. “She sounds as if she’s got guts. Then again,” he says. “That’s probably where you get it from.”

Erik grins.

He runs his fingers through Charles’ hair, cupping his hand at the back of his neck and pulling him forward to kiss.

“I’m sure my mother would love you,” he says. He grabs one of Charles’ cheeks between his thumb and forefinger-- coos, says, “All fresh-faced and innocent, little Detective Inspector.”

Charles bats his hand away. “Fuck off,” he says. Erik smirks.

“Alright,” Erik says. “One more question each. If I don’t get eight hours sleep before you wake me up to look at more dead bodies, the next dead body will be yours.”

Charles purses his lips. It’s a pout, if anything.

Erik’s mother would love Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Even with his dirty mouth.

“Fine,” Charles says. “It’s your question.”

Erik hums. “Why’d you decide to join the police?”

Charles’ expression falters, and his eyes flick away from Erik’s.

He mumbles, says, “Ask a different question.”

Erik would complain, but the look on Charles’ face tells him not to.

“Story for another day?” he says. Charles nods. “Okay,” Erik says. He chews at his cheek. “Okay. What’s the worst thing you, Detective Inspector Charles Xavier, ever did when you were a kid?”

Charles looks back to Erik, and his lips tug up as he grins, shaking his head.

“I was nowhere near your level,” Charles says. “I got pretty drunk, a few times.” He hums, tilting his head. “Maybe when I was seventeen, and I let a thirty year old fuck me. To spite my parents.”

Erik blinks. Charles grins.

“It was at our holiday home in the south of France,” he says. “The guy was American, from Pittsburgh, or something, and I brought him back to the house and kissed him in front of my mother. I let them hear it, when he fucked me. Moaned the house down.”

Erik snorts.

He drags a thumb down over Charles’ nipple, rubbing it back up, and Charles closes his eyes and dips his head, butting his forehead against Erik’s chin.

He makes a soft noise, says, “They left the next day. My parents. They took Raven and went back to England. Left me by myself.”

Erik frowns. He flattens his palm over Charles’ chest. “Nice of them.”

Charles shrugs. “It meant I could spend time by myself in a big house in France. I didn’t care. Besides,” he says, “I got plenty of sex whilst they were gone.”

He’s grinning, like the vixen and the minx that he is, and Erik kisses the space between his eyes.

“So you were a sex pest,” Erik says. Charles tilts his head up to tug at Erik’s lip with his teeth. “Mm,” Erik says, pressing against Charles’ mouth. “Somehow I don’t doubt it.”

“Shut up,” Charles says. He pecks at Erik’s lips, just once, before moving back an inch or two. “What teenage boy wouldn’t take that opportunity? Anyway,” he says. “My last question.” He grabs for one of Erik’s hands, and his skin is soft.

Erik looks at him. His face is gentler. He’s not grinning anymore.

He says, “When this is over, or if-- if you get sick of it, I guess, are you going to leave?”

Erik stares at him, eyebrows furrowing. “Do you want me to leave?”

There’s a change in tone. A shift to serious from mocking and joking, and Charles’ thumb strokes over the knuckle of Erik’s.

“That’s another question,” Charles says. Erik tries not to glare at him.

“Fine,” Erik says. “You vetoed a question,” he says. “I veto that one.”

Charles lets go of Erik’s hand. “Fine,” he says. “Will you stay with me when this case is over?”

Erik huffs. “That’s the same question.”

“No it’s not.”

“Stop being difficult,” Erik says.

“No,” Charles says. “Answer.”

Erik frowns.

He wants to say with Charles when this case is over. If this case is ever over, but then there’s Anomie and the two hundred grand he was promised.

He bites his lip.

It’s not just about money and murder.

He’s never had anything like Detective Inspector Charles Xavier before. Playing twenty questions in bed with someone. Living with someone. Laughing with someone.

He sighs.

“Yes,” he says.

Charles’ eyes light up, and Erik pulls the duvet up to their shoulders; rolling over and onto his other side.

“Now go to sleep.”

Charles hums, shifting forward to press against Erik’s back.

He’s a warm weight along the length of Erik’s body, from his shoulders to his shins, and he says, “Okay.”

His nose nudges at the side of Erik’s neck, right where his hair starts to curl, and he says. “I do want you to stay, by the way.” Erik doesn’t say anything, and Charles says, “And I don’t think you’re a bad person for what you did when you were younger, you know.”

Erik closes his eyes.

“I know,” he says. “Thanks,” he says. “And I like the fact that you were a sex pest. Are a sex pest.”

He gets woken up after only seven hours of sleep, but Charles lets Erik pin him up against the tiles of the shower wall. He lets Erik fuck him and jerk him off as he’s trying to wash his hair, and the soap stings at Erik’s eyes when Charles rubs shampoo across his forehead.

Sat at the dining room table, Erik lays his head on his arms and yawns.

Charles pushes at his side.

“Come on,” he says. He points at the pile of photographs. “It’s not even six. Finish looking through those.”

Been at it since ten in the morning, Erik has nine pages of scribbled notes.

Quotes from university students and the strained English of devastated parents, and Armansky was homosexual.

Raised in an evangelical Christian household, but his mother and father had accepted him with open arms, cocksucking and all.

Armansky himself wasn’t religious. Turned his back on the church when they turned their back on him.

Erik says, “It’s making my head hurt.”

Armansky was stabbed, before he had his head bashed in -- multiple times in the stomach with a blade approximately six inches, and he’d had ribs and fingers broken to pieces with stones, too.

Charles huffs. “Yeah, well,” he says. ”My arse hurts. We all have problems.”

Erik sniggers a laugh, rubbing at his forehead. He sips at a crystal glass of Scotch.

“At least you got arse ache from something enjoyable,” he says, setting the glass down on an empty file. “I’ve got a headache because of a serial killer.”

Charles shakes his head. He jots something down on his page, using his expensive blue fountain pen, and he says, “I’ve had a headache because of a serial killer for over two years. Deal with it.”

Erik grumbles, twirling the black biro between his fingers.

He calls his mother, when he tells Charles he’s taking a break.

Sat in the living room with the dog and watching Strictly Come Dancing, he lulls his head against the back of the couch, says, “Hallo, mama. It’s just me.”

“Liebling,” she says. He smiles, scratching the side of the dog’s face. “You haven’t called in a while. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m fine. I was just calling to check in. See how you’re doing.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about me,” his mother says. “Are you still with your friend in Cambridgeshire?”

Friend. “Yeah,” Erik says. “You should see his house,” he says. “He’s got three bathrooms and like, two acres of land.”

His mother had always loved nice houses. He did his best to find her a nice place in Surrey with the money that they had.

She laughs down the line, her light chuckle, and she says, “Boychick, you never told me you were friends with a millionaire. You should have invited me along.”

Erik huffs. He could see that going well.

“Maybe you could come up some time,” he says. He yawns. “He probably wouldn’t mind.”

His mother hums. “No, no. I’ll leave you and your friend to yourselves.”

There’s that little knowing edge to her voice, and Erik frowns.

“Mama,” he warns.

She chuckles again, soft and warm, and she says, “It’s about time you found someone. You’re not getting any younger.”

Erik rolls his eyes. “Thanks,” he says.

“I get to meet him though, don’t I?” his mother asks. “Your friend. You need a mother’s approval.”

He stretches his legs out in front of him, slumping down the back of the sofa. “Maybe,” he says. He changes the subject, says, “Are you watching the dancing?”

His mother makes a small noise, caught between a hum a huff and a grunt, and she says, “Yes, but don’t you go playing that trick on me. Tell me about your friend.”

Erik pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.

“He’s called Charles,” he says. “He’s thirty one.”

“Hm. Younger.”

Erik scowls. “He’s not that much younger,” he says. “It’s not like I’m seeing a twenty one year old, for Christ’s sake.”

His mother laughs. “Go on,” she says.

Erik grumbles, letting the dog rest its head on his thighs.

He strokes at the scruff of its neck, says, “He’s a Detective Inspector. He has a PhD. And a dog.”

His mother says, “A policeman?”

“No,” Erik says. “A Detective Inspector.”

He knows what she’s going to say.

“Erik Lehnsherr, the little rebel of Dresden, seeing a policeman?”

“He’s not a policeman,” Erik says. He relaxes his jaw. His mother is laughing at him.

After five days, he starts doubting.

After six days, it makes it six weeks since the start.

After nine days, he’s ready to set fire to it all.

He’s ready to set fire to it all and let himself burn with it, if it means he’ll never have to look at this bastard case ever again.

“I’m going insane,” he says.

He’s looked over Charles’ notes on the neighbours.

Elizabeth Freeman, 43, and Mark Hollis, 47.
Freeman married to Thomas Freeman, 44. (questioned and interviewed: see page 8)
Hollis married to Annabelle Hollis, 44. (questioned and interviewed: see page 9)
Freeman mother to one child, Rebecca, 12. (questioned and interviewed: see page 10)
Hollis father to one child, Alexandra, 19. (questioned and interviewed: see page 10)
Freeman, receptionist at local GP surgery. 5 years. (employees/colleagues questioned and interviewed: see page 15)
Hollis, sales manager at Peugeot garage. 7 years. (employees/colleagues questioned and interviewed: see page 18)

Etcetera.

XO carved into Freeman’s chest. Another XO carved into Hollis’.
Both died of blood loss and organ failure after multiple stab wounds.
Cuts can be seen on Hollis’ hands from defence. Freeman was stabbed first.
Freeman had been raped with knife (approx. six inches) after death. Hollis had his penis removed with (assumed same) knife.

Looking at the pictures, it’s easy to see why Charles was sick.

He’d seen the offending picture, before, but he’s biting into his tongue as he sees it again.

Bloodstained sheets and spread legs. The remnants of female genitalia. Bloody and mutilated.

He runs his hands through his hair, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling.

“Charles,” he says.

Charles shouts back, from the kitchen. “What?”

Erik gets up, walking down the hall to grab his coat from the stand by the front door.

He throws Charles’ scarf around his neck, and he says, “I’m going for a walk around the grounds. Do you want me to take the dog?”

Charles is standing in the kitchen doorway when Erik looks up, tugging on his boots.

He’s got on an apron and his tattered old jeans, ripped at the knees, and he says, “I’m making tea. Can you not wait?”

Erik shakes his head. “I just need a break. Clear my head.” Of cut up genitalia. Murder. “I’ll only be a few minutes,” he says. “I won’t be long. What time will tea be ready?”

Charles shoves up the sleeve of his black cardigan-- looks at his watch. “About half six.”

It’s five past. “I’ll be back by then. You want me to take the dog, or--?”

“Yeah,” Charles says. “Might as well.”

He shouts Baron’s name, whistling for him, and the dog comes trotting along the landing and down the stairs, its name tag jingling against its collar.

Erik calls him down the hall, and he pulls the lead from the stand.

He likes walking around the grounds of Charles’ house.

All views over green fields and the bare trees of mid-autumn, and Erik digs his phone from his pocket and flicks on the torch.

He’s having doubts.

Can’t see anything but the moon and the stars and what the tiny solar gnome lamps show him, and his breath echoes out in front of him in the cold and the dark.

It’s been a while, since he’s been here. Since he first came to Charles’ summer home in Cambridgeshire. Since he first followed Charles’ Alfa Romeo on his motorcycle in the rain.

He’s having doubts.

Over a month, six, seven weeks of nothing but case reports and manila files, nothing else, that’s it, and that’s nothing compared to the two years that Charles has been at it. At this case. This murderer.

Nothing. He’s having doubts.

Erik swears to himself and tugs the dog along, letting it stride out ahead of him with a wagging tail and a sniffing nose.

They’re not getting anywhere. Erik knows of the thousands of murders that go unsolved. The appeals ten years later. Fifteen years later. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. The Crimewatch reconstructions. Jill Dando.

In five years, Charles will be stood on the television talking to BBC News and Kirsty the Crimewatch presenter, and he’ll be pleading for anyone to come forward. To call Crimestoppers. To give information. To know something. 0800 555 111.

The murderer will stop. They’ll get bored. Move on.

Like Charles told Telford, they’ll disappear.

The newspapers will talk about it, maybe for a week or so. Maybe for a month.

Then it’ll go quiet.

Charles will go back to work and he’ll be put on another case, and his dining room will be redecorated.

He’ll be haunted by another unsolved case, twelve dead bodies, and they’ll never catch the killer.

Erik will never get the two hundred grand to get Anomie back on its feet, and he’ll be unemployed and living off of the wealth and the salary of Detective Inspector Charles Xavier until one of them grows tired of it, and then he’ll be sleeping on his mother’s couch.

Emma will never speak to him again, maybe send him an email every now and then calling him a dickbag and a fucking idiot, and it’s all this murderer’s fault.

It’s all Erik’s fault.

It’s all Erik’s fault and Kurt Marko’s fault, and he almost steps in dog shit as he’s looking up at the moon.

He gets back to the house and hangs up his coat and wipes the dog’s feet dry, and Baron licks at his face as he’s sat on the floor to tug off his boots.

“Baron is another word for freeman in German,” he says, stroking a hand down the dog’s nose. He huffs. “Funny,” he says. “Freeman. Free man. This killer is a free man, isn’t he? Or woman.”

The dog’s tail wafts against the floor as it pushes its face into his hands, and Charles shouts down the hall.

“Stop talking to the fucking dog and come get your food.”

Erik rolls his eyes and gets back to his feet, the dog hovering at his legs.

He thinks it might be worth it. For Charles. For the time he’s spent with Charles and for the friend he’s found in Charles.

Charles says, “Step in shit this time?”

He’s lost his reputation and his magazine and Emma, but he’s got Charles, now. Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Erik shakes his head. “No. Almost did.”

Almost every other time he’s been out there, night or day, he’s stepped in shit.

Dog shit, fox shit, cat shit.

Charles huffs a laugh and grabs two plates from the counter. “Go sit at the table,” he says.

Erik’s sat at the round little kitchen table, poking his fork at spaghetti Bolognese, and Charles is sat opposite him.

He can feel Charles’ eyes on him.

“Are you sure you didn’t step in shit?” Charles asks. Erik keeps looking down. At the pasta. Charles hums. “What’s up with you?”

He nudges at Erik’s shin with his toes.

Erik shakes his head. Nothing.

“Nothing,” he says. “Just-- tired. I guess.”

He rubs at his eyebrow as he shovels in meatballs and tomato sauce, elbow propped up on the table cloth.

After tea, he’s sat looking at the case again.

Again.

Again.

He grabs for the whisky bottle, and Charles grabs for his wrist.

“I don’t think so,” he says. Erik frowns. Charles takes the whisky and moves it away. “You’ve been in a bad mood since before you went out,” he says. “Has something bad happened? With your magazine?”

Erik looks to the bottle, and he says, “No. I just want a drink.”

Charles shakes his arm. Erik glances at him.

He asks, “You want to take a break?” and Erik laughs.

This desperate little strangled ha caught in the back of his throat, and he covers his face with his hands.

They’re not getting anywhere.

They’re searching and searching and fucking and fucking and he’s going insane.

How Charles has lasted two years, he’ll never know.

The longest he’s gone with loose ends is a week or so.

He’s ready to start pulling out his hair.

All they’re doing is picking up the pieces.

Collecting all the evidence.

Looking at all the pictures. All the interviews.

Putting everything in a nice little pile.

Filing it all away.

Searching through manila files with one hand, a bottle of whisky in the other.

Looking, in the off chance that they’ll find something. Something that matters.

Charles says, “Erik.”

He has a hand on Erik’s arm.

Erik huffs, lowering his hands from his face.

“What are we doing,” he says.

Charles looks at him, big blue eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“What are we doing,” Erik says. He sets his elbows on the edge of the table and runs his hands through his hair.

He sits up, straight, fast, and he shoves the files away.

“What-- ” He stops. He breathes. “Even with this new stuff,” he says. He grits his teeth. “We’re not-- we’re not fucking getting anywhere, Charles.”

They’re not getting anywhere.

The only place Erik has gotten is Charles’ arse.

Charles says, “Erik,” but Erik shakes his head.

“What are we supposed to do with what we have?” he says. He jabs a finger on the closest sheet, a photograph of a photograph of a dead nineteen year old, and he says, “This. What are we supposed to do? All we know is that this bastard likes signing their work like they’re fucking Picasso, or Da Vinci, or something, and that they like the bible. That they fucking love the bible. What are we supposed to do with that?”

Charles’ jaw is clenched.

He says, “You want to give up.”

Erik closes his eyes.

He doesn’t want to give up.

He wants it to end.

He says, “I want to find something. I want to find this killer.”

“Then stop complaining and fucking help me--”

Erik stands up, jerking the chair back with him, and he holds out his arms.

He spreads his palms, bending to shout it at Charles’ face, at Charles’ level, say, “What the fuck are you expecting me to do? What?” He waves his hands. “Question every fucking lunatic in London? In the country? Track down every fucking religious Christian fanatic in the world? Is that what you want to do? Ask the local vicar if he hates gays and sinners and kills them in his spare time?”

Charles’ eyes are harsh.

Hurt.

He spits, says, “Stop being so fucking negative and sit the fuck down.”

“No,” Erik says. He shakes his head and laughs. “No. You tell me what the plan is.” He points at the table. The files and the photos and the laptop and the whisky. “You tell me where the fuck we go from here. Because I don’t know.”

It’s all been bundled up again.

All been pent up.

A couple of days or a week’s worth of frustration.

All that, added with the sinking of the Anomie ship and the painful reminder of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds ringing through his ears.

He’s really fucked up.

Again.

All he’s got to show for it is Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

A needle in a haystack.

A present in a pile of horseshit.

Charles says, “At least we’ve got something.”

His voice is softer.

“Something,” Erik says. “Well, that’s great,” he says, hands on his hips. He wafts one through the air, says, “At least we’ve got something. Brilliant. Excellent work, Detective Inspector. At least we’ve got something.”

“It’s not my fault,” Charles says. Shouts. He stands, says, “Don’t you think I’m trying? Don’t you think that after months and months and years and years of this -- that I’m tired, too? That sometimes I want to give up? That I don’t know that we’re going fucking nowhere? Is that what you think?”

Erik glares down at him.

He’s not angry at Charles.

He’s angry at everything else.

And there’s no one else there to shout at.

“You’re the detective,” he says. He moves to grab a handful of notes and photographs, Charles’ careful writing and Charles’ careful work, and he waves them in front of Charles’ face. “You’re the detective, and here’s your fucking work.”

He tosses the papers and Charles’ chest, and they fall to the floor in a mess before Charles can catch any of them.

Erik says, “There. There’s your fucking breadcrumbs on an empty trail of bullshit. You’re the detective here, not me. This is your job. Not mine. How are you going to find this bastard? Wait for someone else to die? For them to make a mistake? Is that the plan?”

Charles’ shoulders hunch as his chest rises.

“Stop it,” he says.

Erik snorts. “Stop what? Telling the truth?”

Charles looks at the carpet. At the papers.

“Face it,” Erik says. He snaps when Charles keeps his eyes down, says, “There’s no forensics. There’s no witnesses. There’s no nothing, Charles. They’re too fucking smart for you. For us. For the fucking pigs you call workmates. We’re fucked,” he says. “Admit it.”

Charles shakes his head.

He looks up, his mouth set in a straight line, and he says, “No.”

Stubborn as a bull.

He won’t let go of this.

He’ll be on his deathbed, and he’ll still be chasing this killer.

“It’s going to devour you,” Erik says. He jabs his finger at the table, and he jabs it at Charles’ chest. “Do you know that? You’re never going to stop chasing this.” He drops his hand back to his side, and he gets right up in Charles’ face. Foreheads bumping, he says, “This is going to tear you apart.”

He’s seen it.

In the detective shows and the detective books.

Looking at Charles and his cluttered dining room and his frantic obsession, it’s not hard to see it in him.

Charles glares.

His teeth are biting together, and between them, he says, “Funny.” He says, “I thought the song went: love will tear us apart.”

Erik blanks.

He stares, eyebrows coming together, and he takes a step back.

He shakes his head. No.

This isn’t-- this isn’t the argument.

He looks around the room, at the closed navy curtains and the sky blue walls, and he looks at the door.

He says, “I’m going out.”

He all but runs to the front door, grabbing his leather jacket and tugging his arms through the sleeves, and Charles stands down the hallway.

“Where are you planning on going?” he says. His voice echoes down the wooden floors. Erik pulls on his boots, and Charles says, “Erik. Don’t you dare fucking walk out on me. Don’t you fucking dare.”

Erik grabs his motorcycle keys, and he curls them in his fist. He reaches for the door handle with his other hand, and he turns to point a finger at Charles.

“I’ve thrown away everything for this,” he says.

Charles has got his hands in his cardigan pockets, and his face is tight.

His eyes are bleak. Sad. Desperate.

Erik says, “I’ve thrown away everything. What was left of my journalistic career-- the magazine that I built from the fucking ground up-- I tossed it aside to help you chase your own fucking tail.”

It’s Erik’s fault.

Erik knows it’s his fault.

“I tossed it aside for the promise of two hundred grand that I now realise I’ll never fucking see. Let alone get my hands on.”

Charles doesn’t deserve this.

Erik looks at his boots.

“I’m going to the pub.”

He yanks open the door, and before he slams it shut, he says, “Don’t wait up for me.”

He can’t even drink.

He can’t even get drunk.

Sat at the bar in a pub full of locals with the television blasting out a football match, Chelsea verses Derby, Erik asks for a coke.

He runs his hands through his hair.

He’s a fuck up.

He thought he had nothing to lose.

He has everything to lose.

He didn’t know how hard this would be. How long this would take.

Charles had said he’d been suspended for a month. Erik had assumed that that’s how long this would take. A month. A month, and he’d be two hundred grand richer. He’d be able to fix everything. Everything would be fine. He could print fuck off Kurt Marko on the front page of his magazine, and everything would be fine.

Charles.

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Erik stares at the television screen.

He doesn’t care about football.

He sips at the coke, pint glass cold in his hand, and he gets up to sit on one of the sofas.

He asks the man with a half empty glass of Guinness if he can take the seat next to him, and the man nods his head and pats at the leather.

“Go ahead,” he says. He points at the TV. “You a Chelsea fan, lad?”

He’s got a local accent, and he’s got a beard that’s greying at the edges.

Fifty, fifty-five, and Erik offers a smile.

“Not really,” he says. “I just like to watch.”

It’s a lie. He doesn’t care, but the man nods his head and knocks back a mouthful of Guinness.

“They’re gonna walk this,” he says. “Easy.”

Erik slumps into the sofa cushions.

They’re never going to find anything.

The fingers were a one off. A bone tossed to them by the murderer. A teaser.

They didn’t mean anything.

They didn’t tell Charles who the killer was.

All they told him was something he could have probably guessed.

The murderer isn’t the only one out there in London who loves the bible. It doesn’t narrow it down.

No fingerprints. No blood. No hair. Saliva. Fingernails. Skin flakes.

The killer is laughing at them. Mocking them.

Charles must have felt pretty low, begging for even dandruff to be found on a crime scene.

Erik wants to be thirteen again. Running home to his mother after a day at school. Running home to a meal at the table and a kiss on the forehead.

He never was cut out for adulthood.

Adolescence was a warning sign. Cigarettes. Alcohol. Getting in with the wrong crowd.

Eighteen, officially an adult, and he’d gone out on the night and drank enough to leave him on a hospital gurney.

Once a child, always a child.

He rests his head against the back of the sofa and closes his eyes.

The pub erupts in cheers when Chelsea scores. Erik doesn’t know why. They’re miles from Chelsea.

They must hate Derby.

He’s still sat there, when the match is over. When there’s only a handful of people left in there with him.

There are a couple of guys playing pool, beers perched on the table’s edges, and there are two teenagers poking at the electronic jukebox.

Erik finishes his coke, the second, ice cubes all melted, and it’s almost half past ten.

He’s been out for an hour and a half.

Hendrix’s cover of All Along the Watchtower plays out from the speakers, and Erik pinches the bridge of his nose.

He needs a drink. He needs anything. Cheap beer. Lager. Red wine.

But he can’t.

He has to drive back to Charles on his motorcycle.

Charles.

Love will tear us apart.

Erik groans, leaning an elbow on the armrest.

He props his chin in a hand, wiping over his face with the other, and he’s messed up.

He shouldn’t have shouted at Charles.

It’s not Charles’ fault.

It’s Erik’s fault.

The sofa dips as someone sits next to him, and he doesn’t even look.

He stares at the empty glass and the painted wooden coaster, and he grits his teeth.

“You alright there, son?”

It’s an unfamiliar American accent, and Erik tilts his head to the side.

There’s some man frowning at him, late forties, fifty, maybe, and he’s got brown hair that’s pushed back.

“Yeah,” Erik says. “Fine.” He grabs his glass. “Excuse me.”

He gets up and goes to the bar, shuffling his way past the American’s legs.

There’s three people sat on stools wearing suits, the after-work crew, and Erik nods to the bartender.

He swallows the lump in his throat, and he says, “A pint of whatever you think’s best.”

A voice at his ear says, “Should you be drinking?”

It’s not Charles.

It’s the American.

Erik doesn’t look. He takes his beer, handing over the three pound fifty he has in change, and he says, “Yes.”

There’s froth at his mouth, and he downs half a pint.

One drink is fine. He won’t be over the limit.

The American sits there. Looking at him.

Erik turns. “Can I help you?”

The man’s smile is unnerving. No teeth. Lines curving around the edges.

“No,” he says. “Just checking to make sure that you’re okay.”

Erik frowns.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Go bother someone else. I’m not interested.”

The man laughs. He sets a hand on Erik’s arm.

Erik pulls away, standing up.

He’s not in the mood for this.

He wants Charles. He wants space. He wants everything back to how it was.

He wants everything back before Kurt Marko.

But he still wants Charles.

He says, “Don’t.” He squares his shoulders. “Fuck off.”

The man raises his palms.

Erik leaves the rest of his pint, and he zips his jacket up to his chin.

The American says, “I’ll see you later.”

Erik doesn’t look back.

He checks his watch, ten fifty-three, and he straddles his motorcycle.

They’re not getting anywhere. Erik can’t pretend anymore.

He can’t pretend like everything is fine. That he can stay with Charles forever. That nothing exists outside of a whitewashed house in Cambridgeshire.

He has bills to pay. He has a flat sitting back in London. He has a magazine. He has friends. Family.

He has everything that every other adult has.

He’s not a kid anymore.

It was nice while it lasted.

He pulls up at the house, and the lights either side of the door flash on.

He bites his lip, shoving his keys in his pocket.

It’ll be fine. He’ll apologise. Charles will understand. Charles will forgive him.

They’ll fuck; both of them riding out their emotions in the bedroom, and Charles will curl up behind him in the night, telling him that everything is okay. Everything is fine. He’ll kiss the back of Erik’s neck, and Erik will roll over and kiss him back.

They’ll fuck again, slow, this time, side by side, and Erik will pin Charles’ hand to the mattress; fingers wrapped around one another’s.

He opens the door, and all he hears is Baron barking.

He doesn’t expect Charles to come and welcome him in with open arms.

Charles isn’t in the sitting room.

In the dining room.

In the kitchen.

In the toilet.

Erik scowls, boots leaving faded muddy tracks on the carpet and the rugs and the wooden floorboards, and he heads up the stairs.

“Charles,” he says.

He doesn’t get a reply. All he gets is Baron barking. Scratching at the guest room door.

“Charles, I’m sorry.”

He is sorry, this time. He clenches his jaw.

He lets Baron out of the room, and the dog jumps up at him, yapping and yapping and yapping, and it scratches at his thighs.

Erik huffs. “At least someone is happy to see me.”

He strokes Baron’s head, setting the dog down, but it jumps back up, slobber drooling down the side of its mouth as it barks.

Erik frowns.

“Come on,” he says. “Maybe Charles will forgive us both. I assume you were in that room for a reason.”

Charles isn’t in the bedroom.

“What the fuck.”

Baron starts sniffing around, nose dragging along the floor, and Erik walks past the bed, heading to the en suite.

“Charles?”

Charles isn’t in there.

The Alfa was still on the driveway.

He wouldn’t have gone out for a walk and left the house unlocked.

Erik shouts, now. “Charles.”

He can feel his chest clenching. Worry.

It’s a habit. After living in the rundown flats of Lichtenberg.

He looks in every bedroom. In every bathroom. In every closet and every wardrobe.

He runs down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and the dog follows him.

He looks through all of the rooms again. Dining room. Sitting room. Old office. Toilet. Utility. Kitchen.

He pulls open the French doors, and he goes out to the annexe.

It’s locked.

He doesn’t know where the key is.

“Fuck,” he says.

He knocks on the door, fist shaking the wood.

Baron is there beside him, tail still, for once, and Erik shouts Charles’ name.

“Charles. Please answer me.”

Nothing. He gets nothing.

He walks back into the kitchen, hands pulling at his hair, and he scrunches his eyes shut.

He goes back to the bedroom, checking to see if anything is missing. Clothes. Toiletries. Books.

Everything is in its right place.

Erik kicks the dressing table.

Voice weak, he stares at it. “Why do you even have a dressing table,” he says.

He huffs, rubbing at his eyes.

“It’s fine,” he says. The dog whines, sat in the doorway. “It’s fine,” Erik says. “He’s fine. Everything is fine. Everything is wonderful.”

He looks up at the ceiling. The fancy black chandelier.

Charles keeps a book on his bedside table. That’s all he keeps on there.

Some nights he’ll have a glass of water. Some nights there’ll be a condom waiting on there.

Most of the time, there’s just a book.

Erik sits on the edge of the bed, dog’s head resting on his knee, and he picks it up.

It’s Erik’s. His battered and dog-eared old copy of Fahrenheit 451, and Erik smiles. Weakly.

He thumbs through it, and there’s a post-it note stuck to the back page.

He frowns. That’s not his.

He folds it open, cracking the spine, and he pulls out the note with two fingers.

Erik. There’s someone outside the house. They’re sat in a white transit van.

Erik stops.

He looks down at the dog, big brown eyes watching him.

I don’t know if you’ll find this. Probably, it’s nothing. Maybe someone’s trying to sell me something. Wouldn’t be the first time.
If it is something, and something happens whilst you’re out -- sulking, I might add, you fucking bastard -- there’s something I never told you about. I should have.

Erik swallows. He scratches nails into his thigh.

There’s a gun. Above the kitchen cabinets, next to the wine rack.
I shouldn’t have it. It’s a Browning L9A1. It’s loaded. I don’t know if you know how to use guns. Cock the hammer back. Pull the trigger.

Baron barks.

Erik startles, swearing, and he tugs a hand through his hair, letting it fall down over his forehead.

Everything is fine.

This is a joke.

Payback.

Charles is hiding.

Hide and seek.

Erik turns over the note.

I’m scared. I shouldn’t be. Maybe it’s early carol singers. In a white van.

It’s over a month until Christmas.

Don’t use the gun unless you have to. I’m probably just paranoid. But. Just in case. Better to be safe than sorry.
I’ll probably end up scrunching this into a ball and tossing it into a bin. Waiting for you to come home and say sorry and take me to bed.
Erik. Please stay safe.
Charles x.

Erik wants to be sick.

He stands up, crumpling the note in his fist and making the dog jump, and he shouts, loud as he can.

“Charles. Charles, please. Come out. This isn’t funny.”

This isn’t funny when they’re looking for a serial killer.

I’m already paranoid.

Why are you paranoid?

Do you know how many detectives are attacked by the person they’re looking for? A lot.

“Charles.”

His voice catches, cracking halfway through, and he bangs his palm against the wall.

He tries calling Charles.

He has to press his phone against his ear, hard; and his other hand is grabbing at his elbow to keep it still.

It rings out, beep-beep, beep-beep, but there’s no answer.

It goes to voicemail, and there’s Charles’ voice, Charles’ sweet little message, saying, “Hello, Charles Xavier’s phone. Sorry I couldn’t answer your call, but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Many thanks.”

“Please leave your message after the tone.”

“Charles,” Erik says. “Please. I’m sorry about earlier. I’m sorry,” he says. “Please. You’re the best-- you’re-- please.”

Detective Inspector Charles Xavier is the best thing to have walked into Erik’s life.

Beautiful and fun and worth his weight in gold.

Erik feels like falling to the floor.

Like punching through stone.

Like destroying everything in sight. Breaking all that’s in front of him.

Like crawling into a ball and wishing everything away.

He feels like pinching himself until he wakes up, but he can’t.

He feels like. He feels like shooting up. Like blurring all the lines until they disappear.

He can’t.

He braces his hands against the wall, and he screams, banging his palms against it. Over and over and over.

It has Baron barking, like he thinks there’s someone at the door, and Erik nearly slips and falls down the stairs as he’s running; hand clinging onto the polished banister.

Please be a joke.

Please let there be another note.

Ha-ha, got you! You prick. Now come and find me and beg to suck me off.

He grabs a stool and shoves it against the counter, just below the wine rack, and he has to steady himself and hold his balance as he stands on it.

There’s a gun.

There’s a gun.

A pistol.

It’s next to chocolate bars. Dairy Milks. Crunchies. Twirls. Charles’ secret stash.

Erik’s stomach turns.

The gun is heavy in his hands as he picks it up. A solid weight. A Browning L9A1.

He stares at it, holding it up to his face, and the safety is switched on.

When he steps back down to the floor, the dog is jumping up at the fridge.

“This isn’t the fucking time,” Erik says. “You can have a cocktail sausage later, you fat bastard dog.”

He looks to the gun, unsure of what to do with it.

In Berlin, his friend had handed him one.

An old Luger. Used in World War Two.

Erik had passed it back. His friend shot a man dead, a week later. Got twenty-five-to-life.

Baron barks, snarling, and Erik looks up.

The dog is jumping, leaping up at the side of the fridge, and Erik sees what it’s so interested in.

There’s another note.

Erik walks over, tucking the gun in the back of his jeans, and he yanks the yellow note from the fridge door.

LEVITICUS 20:13. XOXO.

He clenches his jaw, palm held against his mouth to stop from crying out. From sobbing.

“Charles.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. He Googles it, the best he can, shaking fingers knocking the wrong keys.

Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a man, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

Charles.

They shall surely be put to death.

Why didn’t they take Erik?

Why didn’t they take him?

Why did they take Charles?

Charles Xavier.

Erik has half the mind to put the gun in his mouth.

He would.

He’d blow his brains against the black marble kitchen counter, and the dog would whine and nudge at him to wake up.

He wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

About anything.

But he can’t.

He won’t.

He has to find Charles. He has to rescue Charles.

Charles isn’t a damsel in distress. Erik isn’t his knight in shining armour.

Erik shouldn’t have left.

There are tears prickling at his eyes, and he swipes them away with the heels of his palms; pressing them against his face until he sees stars.

He has no idea where to look. No idea where to start.

He rummages through the dining room, throwing piles of paper and tearing down sheets from the walls.

Looking for post-it notes.

There aren’t any.

There’s a choked sob in the back of his throat, and this is all his fault.

Everything is all Erik’s fault.

Everything is always Erik’s fault.

He’s a fuck up. This is what fuck ups do.

He catches his breath, a pathetic hiccup, and the Browning is pressing into the small off his back. His arse crack.

He’s tipping up the sofa when his phone rings.

He almost drops the thing onto the dog and onto his feet, trying to find his phone.

The ID says Xavier, Charles.

“Charles.”

There’s no answer. Erik can’t hear anything.

“Charles,” he says, desperate. “Charles, can you hear me?”

“Oh, he can hear you.”

Erik freezes.

He’s staring at the wall.

He’s got goosebumps.

There’s an American accent.

Rough and gravelly.

The pub.

The man.

The American.

He can feel his heart sinking.

He can feel anger bubbling. Worry curling and choking in his throat; fighting with rage.

I’ll see you later.

He stands, leaning onto the sofa for support, and he says, “Tell me where he is.”

The man laughs. The same laugh from the pub.

How could he have gotten to Charles before Erik?

How long has Charles been gone?

“Mister Lehnsherr. We are waiting in the arms of God.”

Erik wants to rip out this man’s throat. This man’s heart. This man’s eyes and this man’s teeth and his man’s brain.

He wants to turn this man to dust.

Twelve murders. Twelve dead bodies.

Twelve dead bodies and Charles.

He’s had Charles since the start. Since the first murder. Since Jonathan King.

Since Charles was put on this case. Unable to let go. He’s had Charles.

Erik shouts, fingers curling into the sofa cushions, and he says, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Tell me where he is, or so fucking help me I’ll choke you with your own fucking dick.”

There’s a laugh.

There’s a laugh, and, “All are welcome into the arms of God.”

Erik breathes.

He stares at the blank television.

He knows that. He’s heard that before. Seen that before.

He hits his forehead, where has he seen that before? Where?

Where has he seen that before?

All are welcome into the arms of God.

“Tell me,” he says. He presses his hand to his eye, all wet with salt, and he swipes it over his head, says, “Please. Tell me where he is. Where you are. You can-- you can have me instead. Don’t hurt him.”

Don’t hurt Charles Xavier.

No one should ever hurt Charles Xavier.

Charles is warm and soft and sweet and passionate, and he lives with everything he’s got.

Erik is brash and coarse and full of hatred and anger.

“You can have me. Please. You can do whatever you want with me.”

Torture me. Skin me. Burn me. Sell me.

The man says, “All are welcome, into the arms of God.”

Erik sees red.

“What the fuck are you saying?” he shouts. “Where the fuck are you? Tell me.”

“We’ll be waiting,” the man says. “In the arms of God.”

Erik slams his fist into the nearest wall.

He says, “Let me know that Charles is alright.” He breathes, closing his eyes. His knuckles throb. “Let me hear him.”

There’s a hum.

The killer’s voice is trivial. “Okay.”

Erik bites his lip when he hears his name.

Charles’ accent is choked and weak, but he says, “Erik.”

“Charles,” Erik says. “You’re alright.” No he’s not. “I’m coming to get you. You hold on for me.”

There’s the sound of someone spitting, and Charles says, “We’re at the church in the village.”

His voice is hurried, and Erik jerks up straight.

The church in the village.

ALL ARE WELCOME INTO THE ARMS OF GOD.

There’s a yelp.

There’s this awful strangled cry and Erik’s heart is in the back of his throat and the bottom of his gut all at the same time.

It cuts through him as easy as a knife.

He feels sick, and there’s the low drone of someone groaning.

Charles.

Erik hears panting. He hears whines.

“Don’t you fucking touch him,” Erik says. It’s too late. “Don’t you lay another fucking finger on him.”

There’s a laugh.

Erik could punch through stone.

“Well, well,” the killer’s voice says. Erik’s fingers curl. He’s close to being sick. That feeling like heartburn. Bile in his mouth. “It seems that your whore has ruined your riddle.”

It wasn’t a riddle.

Charles isn’t a whore.

The killer says, “Goodbye, Mister Lehnsherr. I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

The line goes dead.

Erik cries out.

He goes to throw the phone against the wall, smash it into a million pieces, but he holds it tight in his fingers.

He kicks and punches at the sofa, shouting and yelling and screaming, and the dog sits and stares at him.

Charles is less than fifteen minutes away.

Charles is hurt.

He dials 999.

“Emergency, which service do you require?”

Erik breathes. “Police.”

The woman, calm as anything, says, “We are connecting you to the police. While you are being connected, please give your details. What is your name?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Erik says.

“I’m sorry, sir, this is just procedure--”

“I don’t have time,” Erik says, yells. “My partner has been kidnapped. He’s been taken by a serial killer. He’s a detective with the Met, he’s-- he’s in danger. I don’t have time for this.”

The woman says, “It’s procedure.”

Erik hangs up.

He wants to cry.

There are tear tracks, cold on his face, but he wants to sob.

He’s useless.

He Googles Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard, Detective Chief Inspector Telford.

There’s a number.

It’s late.

Telford might not answer, but he rings.

He’s hoping and he’s hoping because he can’t do this on his own.

Telford picks up.

Erik wants to hug him. Give him a million pounds.

“Detective Chief Inspector Telford.”

“Telford,” Erik says. He tries to compose himself. It doesn’t work. “Telford, it’s Erik Lehnsherr. Charles Xavier’s-- friend. Please-- please don’t hang up.”

Telford’s voice is a snarl.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Charles,” Erik says. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and he swallows the phlegm at the back of his throat.

“What about him? Don’t be wasting my fucking time, you lunatic.”

“Charles has been taken.”

There’s a pause.

Please believe this.

“What?”

Erik’s voice is shaky, pathetic, and he says, “Please, you have to help. He’s been taken by the killer. To the church in the village by his summer home. You have to-- you have to send help. Please, Telford.”

He’s begging. He doesn’t care.

He’d get on his knees and kiss Telford’s shoes.

“Don’t pull my leg, Lehnsherr.”

“I’m not,” Erik says. “Please.” Please please please please please. “Send officers. Send anyone. It’s the only church in the village.” Please. “On the sign, outside of it, it says, all are welcome into the arms of God. In big capital letters. Please,” he says. Please please please. “Please believe me. Please help. There’s no one else to call.”

Erik wants to die.

He wants to break that man’s bones.

This is all Erik’s fault.

He got angry. He got angry and he shouted at Charles and now Charles is gone.

He left Charles alone.

“Okay,” Telford says. He breathes. He sounds shaken. Erik sags. “Okay, you mental patient, I’ll do what I can. I have his address. I’ll send the local force out to the church, they’ll be there ASAP. Don’t you go on your own, you fucking hear me?”

“Thank you,” Erik says. “Thank you. You can-- you can bring the guy in. You’ll have found him,” he says. “Thank you.”

He hangs up.

He doesn’t listen to Telford’s advice.

He leaves Baron in the kitchen with a bowlful of sausages, and he says, “Stay here. I’ll be back. We’ll be back. Be a good dog.”

Gun in the back of his jeans, he doesn’t even tug on his helmet.

He speeds the whole way.

The roads are empty. He goes at almost a hundred miles per hour.

The wind burning at his face, his lungs and his chest feel like they’re caving in. Around his heart.

Love will tear us apart.

Does he love Charles?

Does he love Charles Xavier? Detective Inspector Charles Xavier?

After a month? Just over a month? Six weeks? Seven weeks?

Does he love Charles Xavier?

His heart tells him yes.

His head tells him maybe.

His head tells him it’s too soon.

His heart tells his head to fuck off.

He forgets about the sharp corner of a B-road, and he almost crashes. He almost skids.

The tarmac is wet from rainfall and sleet, and the engine revs past country cottages as Erik enters the village.

There’s the church, on the left. All are welcome into the arms of God.

Erik leaves his bike out on the floor. He doesn’t stop to kick down the stand, but he stops to stare at the van. The white transit van.

He walks over to it, feet crunching on the gravel and the loose rock, and he’s got the pistol held between two hands; fingers overlapping around the rough grip of it.

The van is empty, dark, but there’s mud caked to the wheel arches and to the bottoms of the back two doors.

Erik reaches for his phone, and he shines the torch.

His jaw clenches.

There’s blood.

The red carmine of blood is dark against the thick brown muck.

There’s a smudge of it by the right door handle, the marks of fingers, and Erik flexes his hold around the gun.

He’s full of worry. Anger.

His short temper simmers in his gut and in his lungs.

Rising like bile at the back of his throat, Erik turns his eyes to the church.

He walks like a TV sleuth, gun down by his side and his footsteps silent, and he leans against the big wooden doors to take a breath.

This isn’t a game. This isn’t a joke.

This is life or death.

This is Charles.

He lets the anger push him, egg him on, and he shoulders open the door with the thought of breaking a murderer’s ribs on his mind. The thought of wrapping Charles up in his arms and holding him and kissing him and saying sorry, over and over, sorry sorry sorry sorry. The thought of Charles, warm and smiling and watching reruns of the Vicar of Dibley on his big flat screen television.

He cocks the hammer as he walks into the building, cushy carpet under his boots.

There are carol songs playing. Hymns. They crackle through speakers mounted to the walls.

There are no lights on, but there are candles along window sills and on the tops of tables, and they show him a notice board with adverts for choir and for mass, and there’s a long green arrow pointing to the left. MAIN HALL.

Erik swallows the thick lump in his throat

The walls are all panelled with wood, and Erik follows the arrow.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing hums around the building.

On the door to the hall, there’s a sign.

WELCOME SINNERS.

Erik raises the gun as he clicks open the door.

There are pews. Row after row of wooden seats with bibles for each red cushion, and the room is longer than it is wide.

At the end, at the top, there’s the alter.

The big white block of marble. Run through with creams and caramel oranges. Draped with a royal red cover. Gold-gilded candles. A body.

A body.

Erik stands there.

In the doorway, Erik stands there.

His eyes flick from stained glass window to stained glass window.

He has to tell himself to breathe, he’s so caught up in fear. Hate.

It spikes through his veins as he walks the aisle, bride to be, and he’s checking his back, gun waving in the air.

There’s no one there.

There’s no one in any of the pews, and Erik runs to the alter.

“Charles.”

Charles.

Charles is spread out-- spread eagle, and ropes are tying his wrists and his ankles to four golden posts at each corner of the alter.

Erik can’t stop staring.

He’s been stripped to his boxers, and his torso is a mess of blood and skin.

Like the other victim. Like Jessica Somerset, there’s a cross cut into him. Into his freckles and his soft hairs.

Erik can feel his face crumpling. The feeling like indigestion in his chest.

“Charles,” he says. He clicks on the safety and shoves the pistol in the back of his jeans, and he cups Charles’ face in his hands, patting his cheeks. “Charles. Charles,” he says.

He doesn’t get any response.

When he checks, there’s a pulse, and relief washes through him like the rain.

The cuts are deep and angry, blood pooling in their shallow dents, and it’s smeared all across Charles’ chest and Charles’ stomach.

It’s vibrant against the pale white of his skin, wiped across him like an animal, like a meal, and tracks of it trail in slips down the curves of his ribs and his waist and his hips.

It pools at his sides, merging into the red of the cover, and it’s so dark it’s almost black.

He’s washed with blood like watercolour paint, but this is no masterpiece.

There’s a burning behind Erik’s eyes, and this is-- this is like spray paint on a Monet. Like slashes in the Mona Lisa, and this is Charles. This is Charles Xavier -- Detective Inspector Charles Xavier, reduced to a bloodied canvas on a church’s alter, and Erik will skin this man apart.

An American psycho.

Telford said he was sending police, but there’s no sign of them. No sirens. No shouting. No nothing, and Erik is panicking and panicking and panicking because he’s not the tough rebel that everyone seems to think that he is.

Erik is terrified.

He’s good at hiding it. But not now.

This is something for the television, for made up stories in bookstores and libraries, and all of his worry and all of his fear are manifesting into a dangerous anger that he hasn’t seen in years.

He looks over Charles, and there aren’t any other injuries. There are fading bruises on his hips from yesterday morning. The skin under the ropes looks red raw, but there’s just the cross. The carved in cross.

From the dip in his collarbones to the hem of his boxers, the vertical line of it is maybe half an inch across, at its worst.

A third of the way down his chest, just above his nipples, the horizontal line of it is deeper.

An inch across, at its worst, and where the two lines meet, the skin flaps or curves in, and Erik’s hands are shaking.

The smell of copper is strong, like fingers after handling two pence pieces, and Erik tugs his hands through his hair, keeping them there.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. His words hitch in his throat, and he doesn’t know what to do.

The cuts are bad, but there isn’t enough blood to be worried about bleeding out.

He moves to tug at the rope at Charles’ right wrist, closest to him, and he tries not to jostle him too much. The blood could start running again. Like turning on a tap, Erik could fuck everything up over and over again.

Tied tight, the rope burns at Erik’s fingers when he pulls too hard, but he gets it undone, swearing to himself.

Moving on to the left wrist, Erik sees a mark on Charles’ arm. Above the crease of his elbow. A tiny little pinprick.

Charles.

Erik’s teeth bite together, and he’s going to kill this man. He’s going to destroy this man.

He runs his finger over the mark, and it coaxes a drop of blood to the surface.

He’s thinking of all the ways to torture a serial killer, and he hears a soft sound.

“Charles,” he says. He huddles over the alter, pressing a palm to Charles’ face, and Charles’ eyes peel open, drowsy and glossed over. “It’s okay,” Erik says. He bites his lip. Charles’ eyes aren’t as bright. “It’s okay, Charles,” Erik says. “Everything is going to be alright.”

Charles’ lips part in a quiet breath, and his skin is near white.

“Erik,” he says.

Erik is trying not to cry. There’s a gun digging into the small of his back.

“It’s okay,” he says. He rubs his thumb along Charles’ cheek. “You’re okay. I’m getting you out of here.”

Charles shakes his head. Erik would barely have known, if he hadn’t had his hand on Charles’ face.

“He’s still here,” Charles says. His voice is a croak, and Erik’s temper is running away without him.

He’d put a bullet through this killer’s brain, if he didn’t know that that was the easy way out.

Erik says, “I’ll get him.” He strokes fingers through Charles’ hair, cooing and shushing him like a child. “I’ll get him,” he says. He bends to press a kiss to Charles’ forehead. “I’m so sorry,” he says. Charles’ eyes are damp. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” he says, “I’ll get him.”

Charles says, “Erik, don’t,” but Erik can’t listen.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Charles is still all tied up. “Help is coming, alright? Just hold on for me. Please. You can do it, okay?”

Charles nods, a tiny movement of his chin.

Erik kisses him; a brush of his lips against Charles’, and he says, “I’ll be back.”

He’s leaving Charles again.

He’s leaving Charles again -- cut up and broken and tied with rope to an alter.

He’s leaving Charles again to beat a man to a bloody pulp. To a mess of bones and flesh and black eyes and broken nose.

The gun is back in his hands.

Erik’s head is cloudy with bloodlust and hate, and he steps back out and into the corridor.

His heartbeat is thick and heavy in his ears, and he makes it about four foot before he’s being knocked to the ground.

There’s this awful flare of pain at the back of his knees that has him crying out, and he’s landing flat on his side; carpet harsh against his ribs.

He gasps out, eyes scrunching, and he’s not got a hold of the gun anymore.

He scrambles up on a palm, stretching out to reach for the Browning, but he doesn’t get the chance to grab it before there’s the heel of a shoe crushing down on his hand.

Big brown loafer, and Erik pants and groans as he tries to pull back.

He rolls onto his stomach, teeth grinding, and he looks up; hair falling into his eyes.

He was right.

The American. The man from the pub. All rat face with lines along the edges.

I’ll see you later.

The killer purses his lips and tuts, shaking his head.

His hair is all slicked back, and his eyes are ice blue beads. He kicks the gun away.

He’s got a wooden baseball bat in one hand. He’s wearing black leather gloves. Erik can feel hope fading.

His anger stays.

His pain stays.

“Erik,” the killer says. He tuts again. Erik stares at his hand, trapped between a burning weight and a thin carpet. “You’re a very silly boy, Erik Lehnsherr.”

He lifts his foot, and Erik pulls his hand away, quick; cradling it to his chest.

He shuffles up onto his knees, and he hisses through his teeth as he pokes at the bones in his fingers.

Charles.

Block out the pain. Go to a different place.

Go to Charles.

Charles in bed on a lazy morning, hair all stuck up or hanging over his forehead.

Charles puttering about the kitchen making rice and chicken korma.

Charles.

Erik’s mouth curls into a snarl, but he doesn’t get the chance to get back to his feet.

The killer’s loafer gets him right under the jaw-- the toe of it jamming into his Adam’s apple.

It has Erik sprawling onto his back, a flash of pain echoing through him and his legs bending beneath him, and he’s choking for a breath. He’s grabbing for his throat with his hands, and he edges onto his side and his elbow; cough rough at his windpipe.

The killer stands over him, feet at either side of Erik’s arms, and Erik pants up at him.

His nerves are rattling, hasn’t been in a fight in years, and he’s never been in a fight without the high. Without the feeling of invincibility despite the split lips and the broken cheekbones.

He’s weaker than he’d like to think.

The killer waves the bat.

Erik swallows.

He’ll kill this man.

Where are the police?

He’ll tear out this man’s heart with a butter knife and his fingernails.

Where are the police?

He eyes the bat. There’s blood crusted into the grains of the wood.

The killer looks to the weapon in his hand, and he grins.

His teeth are yellow with tobacco stains, and the wrinkles around his eyes deepen. Erik’s throat feels constricted.

It feels as if someone’s got their thumb pressed against it. Strangling him.

The killer smacks the bat against one of his palms. The leather of his gloves squeaks.

“You wanna know where this has been?” he asks. His voice is light. His accent is still alien to Erik’s ears.

Erik jerks his chin up.

If looks could kill.

The killer swings the bat through the air, and Erik could kick him in the balls.

Erik could get him to the floor and grab the bat and hit him.

Hit him over and over and over and over until the bones of his ribs around his heart are nothing but shattered shards that will pierce his organs as easy as smashed glass.

The killer hums. He flips the bat, showing the thinner end. “You wanna know?” he says, eyebrows raised. “You wanna hear all about how I fucked your precious boyfriend with the end of this bat?”

Erik’s breath is caught.

He’s heating to boiling point.

The killer smiles. “How he cried? How he begged for me to stop?” He leans down and leers in Erik’s face, mouth curving up in a smirk. “How the little Detective Inspector begged for his life?”

Erik sees red.

Erik sees rage.

Charles.

He grabs a hold of the killer's shirt, ignores the screaming of his knuckles and his fingers and his bones, and he surges upwards with a snarl.

Charles.

He’s pulling the killer down as he’s lifting his shoulders up, and he headbutts the man, hard.

A Glasgow kiss straight to the nose.

Charles.

He curls his fingers in the cotton of a black t-shirt, and he’s got all his weight behind him as he forces the killer to the ground-- to the thin green carpet of a village church.

Everything lasts only seconds. Erik is hell bent on blood.

He’s on his knees, half slumped over the killer who’s got this surprised look on his face but this smug look in his eyes, and Erik growls.

He bashes the harsh juts of his knuckles into the bridge of the killer’s nose.

There’s no where for the man to go between the carpet and Erik’s fist.

Smack, and Erik’s head is a storm.

charles no one touches charles this man has touched charles this man has hurt charles this man has raped charles this man will choke by my hands this man will know the meaning of pain by my hands and my hands alone i will destroy every part of this piece of filth

Erik grabs the bat and throws it away.

He throws it down the hall.

His hands feel dirty from touching it.

His chest is bursting with his temper, and there’s blood dribbling from the killer’s nostrils.

With his head on the ground, it collects above his lips before slipping in horizontal lines down his cheeks.

“You shouldn’t have touched him,” Erik says.

He pushes his palm against the killer’s face, shoving it further down and into the carpet, but the man’s arms are at Erik’s torso, struggling against him.

Erik takes the knocks to the ribs.

One of them winds him, and he’s coughing spittle into the killer’s face.

He wants to breathe smoke.

He huffs and growls, nails digging into the man’s skin.

“You shouldn’t have fucking touched him.”

Erik pulls his hand away from the man’s face to wrestles his arms down to his sides, and he traps them there with his knees tight at either side; straddling the killer.

He doesn’t give the man a chance to say anything.

To move.

He doesn’t give the man a chance to breathe before he’s smacking his fist into the end of the killer’s nose.

He feels it crunch.

He feels it move underneath the bony points of his knuckles.

There’s this satisfaction that rings through him with the sick sound of it-- the bend of it to the left where his punch had curved.

The killer splutters. His legs are kicking.

Erik does it again.

And again.

And again.

He slams his fist into the killer’s tanned old leather face.

Over and over.

Over and over.

A chorus of children’s voices sing Silent Night as Erik’s fist smashes into skin.

His breathing is harsh and laboured and he is an animal.

He is rage and he is a lion over a cackling hyena, and this is better than any rush. Any high from any needle or any hash.

The killer spills bubbles of blood from between his lips-- a spray of it leaving dots over his skin, and Erik’s knuckles are so slick with it that they slip and drag down the man’s cheek.

He isn’t kicking anymore.

There’s blood climbing the tracks between his teeth. His face shines with it. It’s clogging in his eyebrows and staining Erik’s hands like spilt red wine.

Erik shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have fucking touched him.”

He spits, and it lands above the killer’s mouth, mingling with the red of blood until it turns a slobbery pale pink.

Through cracked lips, the killer grins.

Erik’s chest juts out, and his fist hits into an eye socket.

The sounds are dull thuds. Hard flat packing sounds. Like a slab of meat on a table.

Schluck. Schluck. Schluck.

He’s twenty one years old again, but this time, he isn’t hitting a police officer.

He’s hitting a monster.

“You should have kept away,” Erik says. His voice is a low growl, gritty with the saliva in his throat. “You touched him,” he says. His hair is straggly with sweat and hanging down over his eyes. “You hurt him, and you’re going to fucking pay for it.”

Erik’s knuckles are aching.

They’re crusted with dried blood and wet with fresh blood, and they’re raw from where teeth stick through the killer’s lips.

His front tooth is missing.

Another two stick through his lower lip. It jags his grin.

It’s grisly.

It’s gruesome.

It’s a masterpiece.

Erik’s teeth are bared, and he’s ravenous. He’s out of control.

Charles.

This is for Charles.

Charles cut up on an alter.

Erik’s fist pounds into the killer’s left eye. It’s swollen shut.

This bloated purple blister with blood thudding below the surface. An aubergine wash running out around it. Veins flow through it like branches.

Like a boxer bruised from a fight.

He still looks smug.

Like he knows something that Erik doesn’t.

His hairline is caked with copper, and blood crusts along the ageing wrinkles of his face.

His right eye is bright. Blue like ice.

He’s breathing in short gasps-- has to spit blood out the corners of his mouth.

A red and white froth drips down and into his hair and below his ears, and Erik’s arm burns with the effort.

The pain in his left hand is background noise. A low drone in a baroque symphony of blood and bruises and man becoming animal.

He blocks it out, thinking about Charles.

This man is a disease. This man is a plague.

This man is a cancer that needs exorcising. A demon that needs exorcising.

This man tied Detective Inspector Charles Xavier to the alter in a Cambridgeshire village church. This man used a knife to cut Charles’ torso into religious iconography.

Erik rises up with this growl kept hidden behind his teeth, and there are sirens at his ears.

He whips his head in the direction of the noise. The sounds of car doors slamming.

Police.

Help is on the way. Help is on the way.

The killer gurgles on clots of dark black blood, and one slides down his face. Erik watches the slow drag of it. The trail it makes.

You can swallow about a pint of blood before you’re sick.

“I see your pigs have arrived,” the killer says. His voice is a crackle. A rasp.

Erik still has his fist clenched. His jaw grinds.

He wants to kill this man. God knows he wants to kill this man. He wants to snap this man’s bones and relish in his cries. But he knows.

He knows that he can’t.

The killer says, “Can’t even take me out on your own. An old man. You have to call the cops. You sodomising freaks,” he says-- spits, “Always too weak.”

Erik feels his fingers crack as he grabs the killer’s hair with his left hand.

He grabs it with his right hand, both hands, and he lifts the killer’s head with this blank look on his face before slamming it down and against the floor. The green carpet.

One thud.

Erik stares at what he’s done.

At what he’s created.

He crumbles. “You shouldn’t have-- you shouldn’t have touched him.”

He breathes, chest heaving, and he stumbles away from the killer’s body.

The man is still breathing.

Erik fumbles backwards, feet and a palm flat on the carpet, and he rests against the wooden panelling of the wall.

He shuts his eyes and tips his head back.

His mind is a mess. He’s catching his breath.

His hands are shaking. They’re smudged with blood. Dirty smears of vivid crimson and rusted flakes.

He hears the heavy footfalls of boots and the yelling of voices, and he cries out for help.

He never asks for help, but now, he’s screaming for it.

“Help,” he says. His voice catches midway, and there are armed police officers barrelling down the hallway.

Four of them, and they’ve got helmets and bulky Kevlar vests and heavy black guns. Pistols and assault rifles.

They crowd around the killer. They shine torch lights from the barrels of their guns.

A uniformed and unarmed officer runs over to Erik, an auburn haired woman with a sweet face, and she crouches down beside him.

“Can you hear me?” she asks. Erik nods his head. Charles. “Are you injured?”

Erik shakes his head. “No,” he says.

He tries to stand, but he stumbles. The police officer sets a hand on his shoulder.

“I think you should stay sat down,” she says. She keeps her voice low. Maybe so as not to spook him. Like he’s an animal.

He looks over to the officers and the killer. They handcuff his limp wrists together.

Erik says, “No.”

He uses the wall for support, and he winces as the pain from his hands echo up his arms. His knuckles will be mottled purple-red, come tomorrow morning.

“Sir,” the police officer says. “You may be in shock,” she says. She’s staring at his hands. “Please stay where you are until the ambulance arrives.”

Ambulance. Charles.

“Charles,” he says. The police officer tilts her head, stood in front of him. She’s young. Maybe twenty five. This is probably the most exciting thing she’s ever seen as a uniformed police officer in Cambridgeshire.

Erik says, “In the main hall.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “My partner. Charles. He’s-- he’s hurt. Please. Help him.”

Help him because I can’t.

“Okay,” the police officer says. She squeezes his shoulder. “I’ll take another officer with me. You sit back down and make sure to stay still.”

She leaves, and Erik is crying. His hands hurt.

The paramedics arrive, all dressed in their reflective green uniforms, and the killer is carried away on a stretcher. Surrounded by policemen and guns.

Erik pulls his knees up against his chest and rests his head against them.

He wants to sleep for the next ten years of his life.

A paramedic is tapping at his arm, saying, “Sir?”

Erik isn’t a sir.

He demands to be in the same ambulance as Charles. He doesn’t care about his motorcycle. He’ll leave it there.

He shouts and he yells, and he waves around his bloody hands.

They tell him to calm down, keep calling him sir, and the paramedic with blonde hair rolls her eyes and tells him to get in and keep his mouth shut.

He clambers into the back of the ambulance, and he’s on his knees at Charles’ side.

“Charles,” he says. He doesn’t look at the cuts. They’re there, at the corner of his eye, but he’s looking at Charles’ face.

The paramedic says, “Please sit in the seat.”

Erik stays where he is.

Charles’ eyes are closed. Erik drops his forehead against the sheets of the stretcher.

Charles.

Erik did this.

“The sooner you sit in the seat, the sooner we can get your partner to the hospital.”

Erik does as he’s told.

His legs are jittering and he’s staring at the cold metal of the side of the ambulance.

The paramedic says, “You’re in shock. And your hands are a mess.” Erik doesn’t look at her. “You’ll need to be seen once we get to the hospital.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Erik says. The fingers of his right hand are curled into the sheets by Charles’ hair.

“You’re going to have to,” the paramedic says. Erik doesn’t turn his head, but he glares at her. “You won’t be allowed into resus with him.”

Teeth biting together, Erik says, “This is my fault. I’m not leaving him.”

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” the paramedic says. “And there’s almost a lethal amount of heroin in his system.”

Erik looks at the floor. His skin feels itchy.

He rubs at his index finger with his thumb, and blood flakes off and onto the pale blue sheets.

Erik says, “He’s going to be okay. Tell me he’s going to be okay.”

The paramedic says, “There’s no serious threat to his life. He’ll need to be stitched up, and he’ll need to be kept under observation for his reaction to the drug and the detox, and his mental state will need to be monitored. Different people react in different ways to traumatic experiences.”

At the hospital, they threaten to call security on him if he keeps bursting into the resus room.

There are two patients in there, Charles and some guy who’d been in an RTC, and the clinical lead in a purple pencil skirt yells at him to get the fuck out before they hold him down and sedate him with a large amount of ketamine.

He ends up in cubicles, staring daggers at the nurse who’s cleaning his hands.

Her hair is chestnut-red, like Erik’s when he was a boy, and the bridge of her nose is dusted with freckles.

Erik says, “When can I see him.”

The nurse looks up from where she’s wiping away the blood with a damp cloth, and she says, “I’m not sure. Do you need any painkillers?”

He’s trying not to flinch whenever the cloth brushes over a knuckle, raw and crusting and starting to scab over, and he says, “No.”

It’s shit all nothing, compared to what Charles has been through.

His right hand is wrapped with gauze and a soft bandage, and the nurse says, “I just need to go check on when we can get you into x-ray for your other hand. Do you want anything while you wait? Tea? Coffee? Water?”

Erik shakes his head.

The nurse goes to leave, and Erik asks, “Can I use my phone in here?”

“Not in cubicles,” she says. She bites her lip, folders held in the crook of her arm. “You can in the waiting room. But-- be quick. And don’t go anywhere else.”

Erik huffs. “Thanks,” he says.

He calls Emma.

He has to tuck the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

“Hello, arse-jockey,” Emma says. Her voice is curt. “I would say that it’s going to be nice to hear your voice after all this time, but frankly, that would be lying.”

Erik ignores her.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” he says. Across from him, there’s a little boy with a toy soldier shoved up his nose. Erik says, “Bad news is, I’m in the hospital.”

“What?”

Erik rolls his shoulder. “Good news is, I believe I’ve just made two hundred grand.”

There’s a long pause. For a second, Erik wonders if she’s disconnected.

“Please tell me you haven’t killed anyone.”

Erik would laugh.

“No,” he says. He doesn’t tell her that he almost did.

She hums. “I suppose I should ask why you’re in the hospital, first. You dying?”

Erik huffs. “No,” he says. “I’m fine. Just-- a little bruised.” He scrunches up his eyes. “I’m here for someone else.”

“Someone else,” Emma says. “That either means your mother, or you’re fucking someone. What did you do, suck his dick off?”

Erik scowls. The boy opposite is babbling about his toy soldiers. His mother is telling him that no soldier should ever have to go on a mission up his nose.

Erik says, “Don’t. He’s--“

His voice chokes.

He can’t sit up straight. He bends over and uses his bandaged hand to hold his phone.

“I really fucked up, Emma.”

Erik goes for his x-ray, has two broken metacarpals and three fractured phalanxes, and he’s bandaged and splintered by the time someone comes and finds him-- tells him that he can see Charles soon. That they’ve contacted Charles’ parents and Charles’ cousin. That they couldn’t get a hold of Charles’ sister. That Charles isn’t awake yet, but he’s stable.

He’s sat at Charles’ bedside when Charles’ cousin comes running in.

He’s resting his head against the flat mattress, the smell of hospital detergent at his nose, and he’s close to falling asleep. The clock on the wall says two-thirty am.

Charles has had almost two hundred stitches sewn into his torso, and he’s covered up by a gown and feather light blankets. Erik has his right hand on top of Charles’. Every ten minutes or so, he’ll stand up and kiss Charles’ forehead, telling him he’s sorry. He’s so sorry.

Charles’ cousin knocks apart both doors, blinds shuttering with the force, and she’s all big eyes and leaf green duffle coat.

Erik startles, sitting up, and the girl stares at him.

She’s at the other side of Charles’ bed, and they’re staring at each other across Charles’ body.

She looks down at Charles. Erik squeezes Charles’ hand.

“Is he okay?” the girl asks. Her accent is American. Her eyes are wet, and she doesn’t look much like Charles, but she’s still beautiful. She’s got a dainty little face and hair the same dark brown as Charles, and mile a minute, she says, “The hospital said he was going to be okay. Did they tell you that? Did they tell you that he was going to be okay?”

Erik looks at her and nods. It feels like someone’s tugging at his heartstrings.

“He’s-- he’s been through a lot,” Erik says. “But-- he’ll be okay.”

He’ll be scarred for life, all because Erik shouted at him and left him alone.

Charles’ cousin wipes at her face. She cards her fingers through Charles’ hair, smoothing it away from his forehead, but it falls back into place.

“You must be Erik,” she says. She smiles, weakly. “I’m Moira. He’s told me a lot about you.”

Erik sinks into his seat.

He looks down at his hands, white with bandages, and he doesn’t have the time to answer before he’s being sick-- before he’s throwing up, barely missing his jeans and his boots.

His throat burns with it, and the awful smell has him retching.

“Oh, Jesus,” Moira says. Erik’s chest is heaving, and there’s spit and sick dripping down his chin. It’s all over the laminate blue floor.

He coughs, the pale mustard colour of vomit a grim puddle in front of him, and he says, “Sorry. Sorry, I--”

“It’s alright,” Moira says. “I’ll go-- I’ll go get a nurse, or something. You gonna be okay?”

Erik nods. Jesus.

He’s dry heaving, and his bruised throat feels raw as sandpaper.

He’s thinking about the feeling of pounding flesh beneath his fist-- he’s thinking about tenderising meat, and he’s gagging and puking again, just in time for a nurse in mint green scrubs to come running in.

The nurse -- some guy with hairy arms and veiny wrists -- pushes him up by his shoulder and holds a cardboard bowl under his chin.

“You’re alright, mate,” the nurse says. The badge hanging from his scrubs says, Benjamin.

Another nurse trails in through the doors, and Moira is back at Charles’ side, watching Erik with worried eyes.

“Zoe, call someone to get this cleaned up,” Benjamin the Nurse says. He’s patting Erik’s back, and Erik would complain, if he had the heart.

He gets asked if he’s okay, and his eyes are dizzy.

At least the sick goes into the bowl, this time.

They say he has to be taken for an MRI scan, just in case, and Erik bristles at the thought of leaving Charles again.

“He’ll be fine,” Moira says. She folds her lips inwards and doesn’t meet Erik’s eyes. “You just-- you go make sure you’re okay. I’m here with him. He won’t be alone.”

Erik stands and looks at her, a while.

She’s fiddling with her fingers, sat on one of the hard plastic chairs, and Erik sighs.

She’s better for Charles than he is, anyways.

“Okay, Mister Lehnsherr,” Benjamin the Nurse says. He’s got a hospital gown in his hands, and Erik stares at it. The nurse smiles. “We’re going to need you to put this on for the scan, and for you to remove any jewellery.”

It’s too early in the morning for this.

Erik is tired and haggard and probably seriously emotionally unstable, but he nods and takes the gown.

Benjamin leaves him in a cubicle to get changed, hands and fingers uncooperative as he unlaces his boots and undoes his jeans, and the nurse tells Erik that they’ll keep his clothes and belongings safe for him.

Walking to the scanner, the nurse asks him, “Did you hit your head at all during the-- er, the confrontation?”

Erik sniggers a weak laugh. Confrontation.

“I don’t know,” Erik says. Did he? He grinds his teeth as he tries to think back over it all, all punches and baseball bat and blood, and he stops walking. He gags.

“Whoa, okay,” Benjamin the Nurse says. He has a hand on Erik’s arm, and he says, “You need another bowl?”

Erik swallows and shakes his head. His mouth tastes like shit.

When he gets back to the room, back to Charles, he’s carrying a see-through bag of his clothes and his wallet and his mobile phone, and Charles is awake.

Erik stands in the doorway, holding it open with his shoulder.

Charles is awake.

Erik is frozen in place.

His gown matches Charles’, and Charles lifts his head and looks at him. He smiles.

“Charles,” Erik says.

The floor is clean, and Erik drops the bag.

Moira is on Charles’ right, clear tear tracks down her pink cheeks, and Erik jogs over to Charles’ left.

Charles is grinning at him, his lips a dark red against his white skin, and he reaches out a hand. Erik gives him his right-- bandaged but not splintered.

Erik’s heart feels like it’s going at a million beats a minute.

He’s on his knees at Charles’ bedside, and his forehead is pressing into the mattress. Like he’s praying.

“Erik,” Charles says. “Erik, get up and look at me. Please. I want to see you.”

Erik huffs a breath. He stands, and Charles stretches out his other hand. Erik looks to Moira, who’s looking at her lap.

“Here,” Charles says. Erik’s eyes are stinging, and Charles says, “Come here. Now.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Erik says.

Charles’ mouth twists in a sly smirk. “My lips are fine,” he says.

Moira coughs. She says, “I’m going to go get some coffee.”

She leaves, and Erik bends over Charles to kiss him.

“I’m sorry,” Erik says. Charles’ hands hold his face, and he cranes his neck up for another kiss. “I’m so sorry, Charles.”

“Shut up,” Charles says. He strokes through Erik’s hair, and he says, “Shut up. I’m fine. I’m fine, you fucking idiot.”

Erik stays by Charles’ bed for three days.

He takes the police interrogations. He takes Emma shouting at him through the speaker of his phone. He takes Moira’s embarrassing questions about his relationship with Charles, and he takes the doctors glaring at him every time they step foot in Charles’ room.

When Detective Mills turns up at the windows, his greying beard behind the blinds, Erik stands.

Charles is asleep, had dozed off after his evening meal, and Erik gives him a last look before he walks out to Mills.

He shuts the door, quietly, and he turns to Mills-- spits, says, “What the fuck do you want?”

Mills looks down at the ground.

Erik snarls, says, “What are you doing here? You have no right to be here.” He can’t clench his fists. “Tell me what you want, or fuck off.”

Mills shuffles on his feet, and he says, “Is he--”

He stops, and he scratches a hand through his hair. Erik leans against the wall.

“Is he alright?” Mills asks. He nods his head towards Charles’ room, and Erik breathes through his teeth.

“He’s alive,” Erik says. “Maybe if you’d let him back on your case, he wouldn’t be in there.”

It’s not fair, but he says it anyway.

It’s his fault, really, but he says it anyway.

He stands straight, and he’s pointing a bandaged finger inches from Mills’ face.

“Maybe if you and your pig friends had listened to him while you had the chance, he wouldn’t have cuts in the shape of a cross on his fucking torso. Now,” he says, eyes glaring. “You tell me what the fuck you’re doing here, or you can fuck off and bring back some fucking flowers, next time.”

Mills looks agitated, and a nurse walking down the corridor glances towards them.

Mills says, “I came to see if Xavier was alright. And to tell the two of you that-- we’ve charged the suspect, this Sebastian Shaw American guy, with the twelve murders. But he says that there are two more-- two more bodies.”

Erik swallows.

Mills coughs. “You, er, you fucked up his face, pretty badly. He’s still under medical care. But he says-- he says that he’ll only talk to you and Xavier. That he’ll only tell you and Xavier where the bodies are.”

Erik frowns. “Why? What does he-- what the fuck does he want with me and Charles? No.” He shakes his head. No. “No. No fucking way.”

That man is getting no where near Charles Xavier ever again.

“I understand, Lehnsherr,” Mills says.

Erik snarls, stepping close enough to touch toes with Mills, and he says “No you don’t.” He didn’t see. He didn’t see Charles tied to an alter. “You don’t understand. You never fucking will.”

Mills tilts his jaw up, stands his ground, but his eyes show his unease.

“Two more people are dead,” he says. His eyes are a dark brown. “We need to find their bodies and finally put them at rest.”

Erik huffs. “Or,” he says, “You need to find them before it gets out to the press.”

He knows how it works.

“If the press finds out that there are two bodies that you haven’t found, you and your oinking officers will be a bigger laughing stock than you are now. Difficult, I know--”

Mills shoves him against the wall, forearm up against his neck, and he growls, says, “You shut your fucking mouth. This is bigger than you, Lehnsherr.” He spits, says, “This is bigger than Xavier. This is the most prolific fucking serial killer of the last fucking fifty years. And guess what?” he says, raising his eyebrows. “If you and Xavier don’t talk to this fucking maniac, you’ll have the second hand blood of two innocent people on your hands. You really want that?”

Erik pushes him away, leaving Mills stumbling backwards across the laminate, and Erik hisses, pain throbbing up from his hands, still sore.

He looks up, and he says, “Fuck off. Get-- get the fuck out, Mills.”

Chest heaving, he glares.

He wants nothing more to do with this.

He wants this out of his life.

It’s over.

“I’ll be back,” Mills says. “I’ll be back to talk to Xavier. Not to you. You’re nothing but a shitty journalist.”

Erik says, “Don’t you mean a German libelist?”

He’s smiling, all smarmy and all teeth, and Mills smiles back, tight.

“I’ll be back to talk to Xavier. Give him my best.”

He walks away, and Erik lets out a puff of breath; sliding back against the wall.

When he turns back into the room, Charles is awake.

He’s got an eyebrow raised. Erik smiles at him. A nice smile.

He settles at Charles’ side, and Charles asks, “And just where have you been? To take a shower, I hope.”

Erik huffs a laugh, shaking his head. He relaxes.

“No,” he says. “I just-- went to the toilet.” Charles hums. Erik says, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Charles says. “Just as I was fine the last time you asked me that, about an hour ago. And the hour before that. And the hour before that. And the--”

“Alright, I get it,” Erik says.

He runs his hand up Charles’ arm, gentle, cotton soft against skin, and he stops where there’s a small plaster above the crease of Charles’ elbow. He rubs his thumb over it.

He knows it’s not Mills’ fault. He could blame Mills and the rest of the Met, if he really wanted, but he knows it’s his fault.

“You know,” Charles says, “Heroin doesn’t feel nearly as nice as I expected it to.”

Erik hiccups a laugh, wracked and wet and caught in the back of his throat, and it quickly turns into a sob. He’s a wreck. A mess.

“Hey,” Charles says. He grabs Erik’s arm, pulling his hand away from his face. Erik looks at the bed sheets. He sniffs, nose running down and above his mouth. “Erik, I didn’t-- it’s okay, Erik. Please don’t be upset. I said, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Erik sits down. Charles holds onto his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” Erik says. He looks at his boots, mud still flaking off the heels. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry--”

Charles shakes him. “Shut up,” Charles says. “I mean it,” he says. Erik looks at him. His bright eyes and his freckles and his red mouth and his curved nose. His face is stern. “Don’t you dare blame yourself. You hear me? I certainly don’t blame you.”

Erik doesn’t deserve Charles.

Erik swallows. He swipes at his nose with his bandages.

Charles says, “Come here.”

He edges over in the bed, and his face scrunches a little. He pats the sheets. Erik looks at him.

“Come on,” Charles says. “Get in.”

Erik frowns. “But-- there’s not enough room.”

“There is if you’re prepared to be close. And I, for one, am willing to make that sacrifice.”

Charles is grinning, and Erik can’t turn him down.

“Okay,” Erik says. “Give me a minute to take off my shoes.”

“And your jacket,” Charles says.

Erik huffs a watery laugh.

The sheets are pushed down to Charles’ waist, and Erik lifts them as he climbs onto the bed, the metal frame of it creaking. He pauses. “Is this designed to take the weight of two people?” he asks.

Charles shrugs. “I suppose we’ll see.”

He leans forward so Erik can settle half-way behind him, arm around his shoulders, and he rests his head back beside Erik’s.

“There,” he says. He grins, turning his head to the side. “All good.”

Erik kisses Charles’ temple, and he closes his eyes, resting there.

The next day, Mills turns up. Again. When Charles is awake.

The next day, Mills turns up, again, when Charles is awake, with flowers.

Erik sits up in the bed, scowling at the man through the blinds, and he says, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Charles hums, looking up at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Erik says. He clambers down from the bed, says, “Excuse me a minute.”

Charles reaches out and grabs his arm, says, “Where are you going?”

He’s frowning, and Erik hesitates. His shoulders slump.

“Mills is outside,” he says. Charles raises an eyebrow.

“Mills? Why?”

“Fucked if I know,” Erik says. “Do I have permission to tell him to fuck off?”

Charles purses his lips. “No,” he says. “He obviously wants something. And if it’s about the case, I want to know.”

Erik sighs. “He came yesterday,” he says.

Charles’ eyebrows furrow. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Erik chews the inside of his lip. He can’t lie.

“Because of what this case did to you,” he says. The nurse came and took the bandages from his right hand, earlier, and he runs it through his hair. It’s all mottled purple, and Charles is looking at him, expectant. “I didn’t-- I just, I didn’t want anything else to do with this case,” he says. “You’ll-- I guess you might get it more, if you hear what Mills has to say.”

Charles huffs. His fingers play with the railing of his bed. The doctors say that he might be discharged, today. Moira is looking after the house and the dog when she’s not at work. Erik wonders where Charles’ parents are.

“Let him in,” Charles says. “And no being rude. I don’t have any handcuffs with me, unfortunately, so if you misbehave, I’ll have to think of another way of punishing you.”

Mills tells Charles everything.

Erik sits in the plastic seat, looking at the floor with a hard face.

He knows that Charles will want to do it. Talk to the murderer.

“We’ve already charged Shaw with the twelve murders,” Mills says. “The doctors say that he is still unfit for trial, they’re currently working on getting him plastic surgery so he can breathe out of his nose again, or something, but his court day probably won’t come for a month or so, anyways. Lawyers will have to get their shit together.”

Charles says, “Wait-- what? Why can’t the guy breathe out of his nose?”

Mills looks to Erik.

Erik hadn’t told Charles.

When Charles had asked about his hands, he’d said that it didn’t matter.

Erik looks at Mills with widened eyes, shaking his head, and Charles shifts himself up to look over at him.

“Really?” Charles says. Erik offers a smile. Charles huffs, exasperated. “I can’t believe you. Actually, I can. What did you do, exactly?”

Erik swallows the lump at the back of his throat. “I hit him.”

“You hit him,” Charles says. “Brilliant. I’ll be having words with you later,” he says. Erik looks back down at the floor, and Charles looks back to Mills. “Sorry, Mills. Do go on.”

Mills coughs. Erik wants to whack him with the orange hospital gift shop chrysanthemums he’d brought.

“Well, what I was getting at is that we have a while where we can do this,” Mills says. “So, erm, we can wait until you’re recovered. The guy isn’t going anywhere.”

“Well,” Charles says. “Lucky for us, I may be getting discharged today. So we might not have to wait too long.”

Erik frowns. “What, you’re thinking of walking out of this hospital and straight into a room with a fucking psycho?”

Charles ignores him. He says, “I’ll probably take a few days to reacquaint myself with everyday life outside of a bed, but no more than three.”

This is why Erik didn’t tell him that Mills had turned up last night.

Erik doesn’t want Charles anywhere near a murderer. Anywhere near Sebastian Shaw.

Charles is discharged at six-oh-three pm.

Erik helps him into his clothes, and there’s a tug at his gut when he’s buttoning up Charles’ shirt.

Moira picks them up at the hospital entrance, in fancy business suit and glasses and Charles’ Alfa, and Charles is leaning against Erik’s side for support.

Erik gets the backseat with the dog whose tail makes a thumping noise against the leather and who won’t stop licking at Erik’s face, and Erik closes his eyes and listens to Charles and Moira talking about nothing in particular. It’s nice.

“I can’t believe you agreed to this,” Erik says.

They’re back at Charles’ house, sat on the sofa and watching Pointless the next day, and Charles says, “I didn’t agree to anything.”

Some of the stitches in his torso have started to dissolve.

When Erik calls them stitches, Charles tells him they’re sutures.

Erik folds his arms across his chest. His fingers and his metacarpals will take a few more weeks to heal, properly.

“Yes you did,” Erik says. “You told Mills that you’d go down to the station--”

“Exactly,” Charles says. “I told Mills I’d go to the station. Not that I’d be talking to the murderer.” He sighs, muting the TV, and he pivots to face Erik. “Do you really think that I’m so desperate to see that man again? After what he did?”

Erik looks at him. “I just-- I thought you’d want closure. Or something.”

Charles cups Erik’s face between his palms. “I do,” he says. “Erik, there’s this massive part of me that wants to go down there and have that man tell me everything. What made him do the things he did. I want to go down there and see the man crumble and beg, but it isn’t going to happen. That’s never going to happen.”

Erik leans forwards and pecks at Charles’ lips, unsure of what else to do. Charles smiles.

He says, “And there’s also this part of me that’s scared. That’s-- that’s fucking terrified.” He breathes. “I-- when I opened the door and he lunged at me, Erik, I-- I could barely breathe, I was so scared.”

Erik doesn’t want to think about it. About that man attacking Charles. About that man doing awful things to Charles.

He wraps his arms around Charles and holds on, face pushed into his hair.

They’d had a proper shower, earlier, and Charles’ hair is soft and shiny and smells of fruit.

“Don’t,” Erik says. “Don’t think about it. He’s gone. They’ve got him,” he says.

That night, when Charles tells Erik to fuck him, Erik hesitates.

They’re just messing about in Charles’ bed, all wet kisses and open mouths, and Charles is pulling at Erik’s night shirt-- this baggy black t-shirt with holes at the hems, and Charles is pawing at it, saying, “Off. Get-- get this off and fuck me.”

Erik doesn’t know how to say no, so he occupies Charles’ mouth a while longer.

“Erik,” Charles says. His fingers tear a bigger hole in Erik’s t-shirt, and his voice is mumbled against Erik’s lips. “Stop kissing me and fuck me. I couldn’t even masturbate in that hospital bed.”

Erik ignores him and goes in to kiss him again, but Charles shoves at his chest.

Charles eyes him.

They’re both panting, lying side by side, and Charles says, “I’m not going to break. Please. I need this.”

Erik blinks. Charles is wearing his pyjamas, tartan red, and his dick is pressing up against Erik’s leg.

“No,” Erik says. Charles scowls. Erik moves his good hand down to press against Charles’ cock, and Charles whines. “Not yet. Not-- not today.”

He gets his hand into Charles’ pyjama bottoms, and he smears his palm and fingers through the pre-come gathered at the tip of Charles’ cock before he makes a fist around it, making Charles groan against his mouth; forehead resting against Erik’s brow.

“Why not?” Charles says, fingers curling at the cotton of Erik’s t-shirt. “Please.”

Erik’s thumb plays around with Charles’ foreskin, sliding up to tease the slit, and Charles’ hips jerk forwards.

“Your cuts still haven’t healed,” Erik says. He scrunches his eyes shut. Don’t. Don’t think about the bat. “I’m not risking tearing your stitches just because you want a good seeing to.”

Charles bites at Erik’s top lip.

In response, Erik uncurls his fist. He trails feather-light strokes up the underside of Charles’ dick, and he runs a finger in circles around the opening at the tip.

Pre-come is wet and warm at Erik’s skin, and Charles lets go of Erik’s lip to start gasping-- to start begging.

“Okay,” Charles says. “Just-- just do something. Stop teasing.”

Erik hums, kissing the side of Charles’ jaw as he fists at Charles’ cock.

His grip is tight, and Charles’ breath is hot against Erik’s face.

Charles comes over Erik’s hand, his hips bucking up and into it, and he’s moaning into Erik’s mouth, saying, “Erik. Erik-- I’m going to come. Erik. I’m almost there. Ah. Ah, Erik-- I’m coming. I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Erik catches all he can with his palm and his fingers, but come spills over and smudges stains into Charles’ pyjamas.

“God,” Charles says.

He’s panting, breathless, and Erik pulls his hand out to lap at it.

Charles stares at him. Erik looks at him as he does it.

“Alright,” Charles says. “That’s it. Let me at your cock.”

He convinces Erik to let him suck his dick, but, to be fair, Erik doesn’t take a lot of convincing.

Two days later, they’re at a police station in central London.

Erik is restless, knee bouncing, and Charles rests a hand on it. Erik looks to him.

“Calm down,” Charles says. “Nothing’s even happened yet.”

Erik huffs. “Yet.”

They’re sat in some cushy room, the office of the resident Captain, and they’re waiting for Shaw’s lawyer.

They’re there with Telford and Mills, the two of them leaning against a bookshelf or a desk, and Erik wants to be anywhere but here.

“I want to leave,” Erik says.

Charles shrugs. “Then leave.”

Erik frowns. “I meant with you.”

Charles hums. He’s wearing a suit. They both are.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to wait,” he says.

Erik is about to retort, but the door opens.

They all turn to look, and in walks this greasy looking man in a three piece suit.

He’s short and he’s got thinning hair and this smarmy look on his face, and Erik bristles when he says, “As you all know, I’m here to represent Mister Sebastian Shaw. I trust we all understand the seriousness of such a case.”

Charles digs his nails into Erik’s leg. Erik slumps into the sofa cushion.

The man has a northern accent, dampened by years in London, and he says, “We are all on the same page, I assume?”

Telford is the one to speak up, Detective Chief Inspector with a beer gut, saying, “Yes. What we understand so far is that there are two more murder victims.” He’s all professional, saying, “That your client, Shaw, will only talk to Xavier and Lehnsherr here about said murder victims. Correct?”

There’s this tension in the room, could cut it with a knife, and Charles is pressing closer to Erik’s side, sat on the edge of his seat.

Greasy lawyer man says, “Correct. There or thereabouts.” He sits down in an armchair, one leg folding over the other, and his trousers hitch up to show his black and grey socks. He looks over at Erik and Charles as he’s saying, “To relay, the client says there are two more bodies-- two more victims, hidden away. He will take Detective Inspector Xavier and Mister Lehnsherr to these bodies, but only Detective Inspector Xavier and Mister Lehnsherr.”

“Wait,” Telford says. He holds up a hand, shaking his head. “He will take Xavier and Lehnsherr? When did that become the deal?”

Erik looks to Charles, who glances back.

Erik mouths, “No.”

Charles mouths, “Shut the fuck up,” and Erik frowns.

The lawyer says, “My client says that the remaining two bodies are extremely difficult to locate. It would not be possible without him there. He says that he will direct Detective Inspector Xavier and Mister Lehnsherr to them. No one else.”

Erik goes to ask why, what does this psycho want with them, but he’s biting his tongue.

Charles says, “I don’t understand.” Erik looks at him. “I mean-- why us? Why not Telford and Mills? Why not anyone else?” he says, “Why us?”

The lawyer hums. His nose is shiny with oil and dotted with blackheads, and he says, “He says he admires you. Xavier,” he says, “He says he admires your passion. Your determination to stick with this case even when your superiors kicked you off it. And Lehnsherr,” he says. His upper lip twitches, quick, but Erik catches it. “He says he admires your-- animal tendencies.”

Erik scowls. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Charles elbows him, subtle enough for no one else to notice, and Erik elbows him back.

The lawyer shrugs. “I assume it means your ability to smash a man’s face in without a moment of pause.”

Erik stands up, ready to shout in this slimy little weasel’s face, but Charles pulls him back down again.

Telford and Mills are watching him, wary. Erik grits his teeth.

Lawyer man doesn’t bat an eyelash, says, “The client claims that if Detective Inspector Xavier and Mister Lehnsherr do not accept this offer, these two bodies will never be found.”

Erik tries to find it in himself not to care, but he can’t.

Telford says, “We’ve already got him for the other twelve murders. Why should I put these two men at risk for this?”

Charles sets his hand on Erik’s arm and squeezes. Erik almost feels bad for that time he came so close to physically assaulting Detective Chief Inspector Telford. Almost.

The lawyer says, “My client also says that if you do not accept this offer, he will plead insanity across the board. Meaning, if he even manages to be found guilty, he will get off with lesser charges.”

Charles sits up.

“No,” he says. “You can’t do that.” He looks at Telford and Mills. “He can’t-- he can’t do that.”

“Please,” the lawyer says. “We all know that with the extreme nature of these crimes, I could get him off with such a plea.”

Charles points a finger at him, “No,” he says. He shakes his head. “No, you can-- you can fuck off.”

Telford glares at him, a warning, and Erik rests one hand on Charles’ shoulder and the other on his thigh, shaking him slightly. “Don’t,” he says, whispering at Charles’ ear.

The lawyer doesn’t care. His face is blank, and he says, “Oh, one more thing. If the two of you don’t agree to his terms, he won’t give the confessions for the other twelve murders. You’ll have to rely on forensics and other evidence, which we all know you are lacking in.”

There’s no forensics because Sebastian Shaw slices off his fingertips with a razor blade.

Charles goes to say something, but Erik beats him to it. Erik does it for him.

“How can you sit there and say this shit?” he says. He stands up, walking over the squeaky laminate flooring, and he jabs his finger at the lawyer, says, “How can you sit there all hoity-toity in your fancy fucking suit and defend that piece of shit? Do you know what that man has done?”

Telford says, “Watch yourself, Lehnsherr,” but Erik isn’t listening.

He doesn’t want anything more to do with this case and he doesn’t want Charles anywhere near a Mister Sebastian Shaw.

The lawyer doesn’t care. He’s not even looking.

Erik says, “No. Fuck this. Fuck you.” He puts his hands up, backing away. “I’m not negotiating with a serial killer and his brown-nosing, money-grabbing lawyer. Go fuck yourself.”

Charles reaches for him, says, “Erik,” but he walks out.

He can’t do this.

He can’t sit there with that apathetic and lying and uncaring sack of human shit.

A few days ago, Erik had found Charles covered in blood on an alter.

Now he’s being asked to be in the same room as the man who did it. In the same vehicle.

He lets out a breath and runs a hand through his hair, sliding down the wall.

It’s over. They’ve got the murderer. Erik doesn’t have to have anymore to do with this. Charles doesn’t have to have anymore to do with this. Charles should be at home. Recovering.

Erik can hear them talking.

He hears Charles, saying, “I’m sorry. You can’t blame him, it’s been-- it’s been a difficult time, alright? Give the man a break.”

“Go see him,” Telford says. He doesn’t sound too happy. Erik stretches his legs out in front of him, looking down the crease of his suit trousers to the shine of his shoes. “We need to get this sorted.”

Charles comes out, and he sits beside Erik.

“We’re not doing this,” Erik says.

Charles huffs, and Erik catches him wincing as he settles himself down on the floor.

Charles says, “I’m not sure we have a choice.”

Erik says, “We do. And we’re not doing it.”

“I think you’re forgetting that I also have an opinion.”

Erik turns to him. “You’re not actually considering this,” he says. Charles raises an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re not actually considering this.”

Charles rolls his eyes.

“I’m not letting this slide,” he says. “I’m not-- I’m not letting that bastard walk away from this. Not after the things he’s done. Not after how long I’ve been trailing after him for.”

Erik tips his head back against the wall.

“He could have killed you,” he says.

“I know,” Charles says. “He didn’t.”

Erik shuts his eyes.

“Erik,” Charles says. “Erik, if we don’t do this, he’ll likely go free. Do you understand that?”

Erik shakes his head. “They can’t do this. They can do something.” He looks at Charles, says, “What they’re doing is-- that’s blackmail. He’s the murderer, he-- he can’t get away now. They can do something.”

Charles looks back at him, big sad eyes, and he says, “They can’t. The only thing they can get him for is-- is my assault and GBH. He’ll get a few years, maybe, and then he walks. You’ve been lucky that you haven’t been charged for his assault and GBH.”

This is a joke.

This whole case has been a joke since the start.

“Just come back in the room with me,” Charles says. “Hear out the plan for how it’ll happen. I don’t know. Just-- please,” he says. “Both of us need to do this. We can end it. We can end him. For good. Then we can-- I don’t know, you can fuck me over the dining room table. Like you said you would.”

Erik breathes a laugh. It’s desperate, edging into hysteria, and he says, “I fucking hate the police.”

Back in the room, Erik glares at the lawyer, and he sits down next to Charles.

Animal tendencies.

He’d love to tear apart some self-satisfied little lawyer’s face.

Telford says, “A recent update from the doctor treating Sebastian Shaw tells us that he will be discharged in the upcoming week.” He says, “Something about waiting for scan results. Bleeding on the brain.”

Charles gives Erik a look. Animal tendencies.

“That means that we have a week to establish how this is going to happen,” Telford says. “And a week for Mister Lehnsherr to agree to it.”

They all look at Erik. Charles with wide eyes and Telford and Mills with flat mouths and slimy little lawyer man with this disgusted twist playing at his features. Like Erik is dirt. A flaw in the plan. A flaw in the earth.

Erik says, “Give me a gun and a confined space with that man, and you’re just asking for trouble.”

Charles coughs as he digs his elbow into Erik’s side, harder than before, and Erik winces and glares at him.

Charles says, “He’s joking.”

Telford and Mills look wary, and Charles says, “He’s joking.”

Telford raises an eyebrow, arms folded on top of his beer gut, but he lets it slide. “It’ll be you two and Shaw in an unmarked police car,” he says. “One of you will drive. Shaw will give you the directions to find the two bodies.”

Lying in bed, Erik says, “I don’t want to do this.”

At the station, Telford had tried to sell it the best he could.

Erik had sat there, jaw aching, and Telford had said that Shaw would be unarmed. Both Charles and Erik would be wired. Charles would have a pistol. Erik wouldn’t. They’d have earpieces to communicate with police, and the car would be followed by a police helicopter. It would be safe. It would be simple, and it would get Mister Sebastian Shaw locked away for life.

Charles says, “I know you don’t.”

He always wears his pyjama shirt to bed, now.

He says he’s not ashamed of the cuts. He says he just knows that it hurts Erik to see them.

He kisses where Erik’s collarbones meet, at the dip in the middle, and his tongue is warm where he licks into the hollow.

Erik has his hands down by his sides.

He says, “What if something bad happens?”

Charles laps at Erik’s skin, slow drags, and he stops to say, “It won’t. They’re-- they’re sorting everything out. Nothing bad can happen.”

Erik has to ignore the warm feeling of Charles’ body hovering over his. The warm feeling and the itchy friction of Charles’ pyjama covered crotch rubbing up against Erik’s bare cock.

Erik says, “Are you alright?”

Charles stops licking, and he props himself up with his hands either side of Erik’s head. “What?”

Erik swallows. He remembers what the paramedic had said. Different people react in different ways to traumatic experiences.

Charles is unashamed in his sexuality. Sex is his natural reaction to everything from anger and stress to happiness and glee, and, Erik assumes, physical and psychological trauma.

He says, “Are you alright?”

Charles raises an eyebrow. He grinds his hips down and into Erik’s, as if to make a point.

Erik stifles his groan, and he says, “You-- stop it.” He pants, Charles sitting on his pelvis. His cock is pressed into the crease of Charles’ arse, and the flannel of Charles’ pyjamas is rough against his skin. “Charles.”

“I can’t believe you’re trying to have a conversation right now,” Charles says. Erik scowls. “Is it really that hard for you to just lay there and let me make use of your cock? I mean, it’s big enough and hard enough, I might as well shove it up my arse.”

Erik glares at him. This isn’t the time.

“You were in hospital a few days ago,” Erik says. “You were drugged and cut up on a fucking alter, a few days ago--”

“Shut up,” Charles says. He grabs Erik’s cheeks in a hand, fingers and thumb squeezing them together, harsh. Erik still manages to frown. “Shut up, Erik. I’m fine. I’m-- I’ve never been better. We’re so close to the end of this thing I can fucking taste it, so just shut the fuck up and let me ride you.”

Erik bites his lip, and Charles lets go of his face.

He gets up off of Erik and the bed to tug off his pyjama bottoms and to unbutton his pyjama top, and Erik sinks into the mattress.

They’re so fucked. They’re so fucked, and Emma sends him an email, the next day.

Dear Mr Maybe-not-so-bad-but-still-an-asshole,
Guess what was put into our bank account this morning? £200k. From a Charles Francis Xavier. Tell your boyfriend he’s welcome at our place for instant coffee, any time. Also, marry him as soon as possible. Have his children, move into his house, suck his dick, etcetera. You won’t do better than this one, sugar. Hold on tight and don’t let go. Get down on one knee. Get down on both knees. A ring on his finger, a ring on his cock-- whatever.
I guess I’ll be seeing you soon. Back at work. Wonderful. Maybe leave Kurt Marko alone this time, yeah?

Charles is making lunch in the kitchen when Erik sneaks up behind him-- arms wrapping around his waist to lift his feet up and off the ground.

Charles makes a small noise, almost a squeal, and he kicks his legs out, hands grabbing at Erik’s forearms.

“Put me down,” Charles says. He’s laughing, and Erik sets him down just to spin him around and lift him again, this time settling him on the granite countertop.

Erik sets his hands on Charles’ thighs and kisses him, says, “Thank you. Thank you,” he says, mouthing down Charles’ neck.

Charles huffs, tugging gently at Erik’s jaw to get him to look up.

“For what?” he asks, sifting the length of Erik’s hair through his fingers; standing it up and away from his scalp. He hums. “You keep saying you need a haircut, but I like it like this.”

Erik rolls his eyes. “Thank you,” he says. “Emma emailed me. Told me that two hundred grand was put into Anomie’s bank account this morning.”

Charles frowns. “I didn’t do that,” he says, but the smirk in his eyes gives him away.

“Shut up,” Erik says, leaning upwards to kiss him again. His mouth is soft and warm, and they’re both smiling into it.

They have bad days, but they have good days, too.

It’s a Thursday, a week later, when Erik is stood shaving his chest in a police station locker room.

It’s a Thursday, a week later, when Erik is having wires taped between his pectorals and is throwing begging glances at Charles, the two of them all suited up with bulletproof vests, just in case.

He’s awash with nerves.

The hairs on the backs of his arms are all stood up, under his shirt and under his jacket, and he’s shivering, but not with the nearly-winter wind.

Charles says, “We’re finishing this. Nothing’s going to happen. It’s almost over.”

Erik nods. He’s not sure he believes it, but he nods.

Telford meets them outside of the building, Mills beside him, and he says, “There are a number of plain-clothed officers in everyday cars waiting to follow you. We’ll have eyes and ears on you the whole time.”

Charles is holding Erik’s hand. It would be sweet, if Erik’s bones weren’t still healing.

Telford says, “Once you get out onto a motorway, a chopper will be following you. Armed backup will be on hand at all times.” He says, “This cannot go wrong. Shaw is unarmed and is yet to even be given the all clear from the hospital.”

It should say something about him that that has pride seeping through Erik’s emotions. The killer deserved much worse.

Mister Sebastian Shaw deserves hell, if there is one.

Mills says, “Xavier, you’ve been given a Browning?”

Charles nods. “In my shoulder holster,” he says. The wind blows his hair across his face, and there’s a scratch of ginger-red stubble over his cheeks. If he’d shaved this morning, he could pass for fifteen years old.

“Alright,” Telford says. He nods. “Good. You both ready for this? Lehnsherr?”

Erik gives him a blank look, eyebrow raised. “Go fuck yourself,” he says. Telford huffs a laugh, and Charles squeezes Erik’s hand.

They’d talked about it, last night. Charles says that they’ll go on a holiday, after this. Relax. Fuck. Drink a shit load of alcohol. The whole nine yards.

Charles says, “I’m driving. Erik’s hands are still sore.”

They get in the car where the backseat is separated from the front with metal cross-links, and Erik’s stomach is doing back flips.

Charles leans across the gearstick and the handbrake for a kiss, one hand on Erik’s thigh and the other cupping Erik’s face.

“Almost over,” he says. Erik gives him a weak smile. “We can do this. Just-- two more bodies. Then it’s just us and a bed and two big packs of condoms and lube.”

Erik manages a laugh.

When Sebastian Shaw is put in the backseat, handcuffs clinking against each other and grey jumpsuit drowning his frame, Erik keeps his head forward. His jaw aches with clenching. They’d told him to stay emotionless. Cold as ice. No animal tendencies. Don’t even look at the man.

In his ear, Erik can hear other police officers talking to each other. He can hear Telford.

“Shaw is in the vehicle. As soon as Xavier sets off, officer in the Fiat 500 will pull out of their parking space to follow.”

Erik can see the Fiat from here. That new pistachio green summer model.

He’s breathing heavy through his nose, and he shuts his eyes as Charles pulls off the handbrake.

Erik’s right hand curls into a fist when Shaw says, “You need to head out of London as if you’re going towards Oxford.”

His voice sets Erik on edge.

It’s more nasal than he remembers. Plastic surgery on the nose.

The clock on the car’s dash says one-thirty-two. Erik is hoping they’ll get to wherever the fuck it is they’re going before it gets dark.

In the mirror, he catches sight of the Fiat. The plain-clothed officer is a blonde woman of around Erik’s age. She looks as if she’s just a normal woman in her normal car, on her way to maybe pick up her normal kids from their normal school.

He can’t believe they’re doing this. He wonders if this is normal practice for the Metropolitan Police.

Charles’ fingers are tapping against the steering wheel, and he coughs. He says, “So. Where exactly is it that we’re going?”

Erik looks at him.

All Shaw says is, “You’ll see.”

Erik sees Charles’ hands grab and flex around the wheel. Erik is wishing for someone to crash into the back of the car at high speed. Kill the bastard. Leave Charles and him fine, but kill Sebastian Shaw.

Through his teeth, Erik says, “Or you could just tell us.”

There’s a hum from the backseat. Erik’s shoulders are tense and hunched up, close to his neck. He can’t relax until this is over.

“Erik Lehnsherr,” Shaw says. “Aren’t you going to look at me?” he asks. “Admire your work?”

Erik digs his nails into his thigh. They’re driving through Shepherd’s Bush, and the Fiat is still behind them.

He says, “What makes you think I’d want to look at your ugly fucking face?”

Emotionless. Cold as ice. Right. Charles glances at him.

There’s a snort of laughter. Erik prays that this is a short car journey.

“I can see your hand is still bandaged,” Shaw says. Erik puts his hand down by his side. There’s a grin in Shaw’s voice when he says, “At least it wasn’t your right hand. I’d hate to deprive you of your sin of masturbation.”

Erik frowns. He wants to turn around and spit in the man’s face.

He doesn’t-- he stays facing the road and the back of the red Ford Focus in front of them.

He says, “One, I don’t have to masturbate when I have Charles here to satisfy me. And two,” he says, “Is everything a fucking sin to you?”

Charles’ mouth is open, eyebrows pulled together, and Telford is at his ear. “Careful.”

Shaw’s voice isn’t smarmy anymore-- is dripping with disgust as he says, “Homosexuality certainly is.”

Erik doesn’t need to see his face to know the man is affronted. He can hear it. He enjoys it. The corner of his mouth tugs up in a smirk.

Erik says, “Why?”

He’ll take beating the man in any way he can.

They’re going at forty miles per hour, and Shaw starts, says, “If a man lies with a man, as with a woman--”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that,” Erik says. Charles shifts into second gear, and Erik says, “But technically, a man can’t lie with another man as he lies with a woman, anyway.” He’s always thought this. “Because a man lies with a woman by putting his dick in her vagina. But a man lies with another man by putting his dick in the other man’s arse. Or, in reverse, taking the other man’s dick in the arse. So, really, that’s a moot point.”

Telford’s voice crackles through Erik’s earpiece, says, “Lehnsherr, this isn’t fucking necessary.”

Charles’ knuckles are white with how hard he’s holding the steering wheel. Erik feels as if he’s going to be punished for this, later.

Shaw says, “You’re sick.”

Erik huffs. “No,” he says. “I like cock. You like murdering people. I’m pretty sure most people would agree that you’re the sick one here.”

“The two of you are sick and deserve the fiery pits of Hell,” Shaw says.

Erik folds his arms across his stomach. “Tell it to your God,” he says.

Shaw says, “God knows of your sin. He will punish you better than I will.”

Charles speaks up, now.

“I’m fairly sure God won’t give a damn if I like it up the arse or not,” he says. Erik looks out the window and grins. “Although, I’m fairly sure that He will give a damn about you murdering innocent people in His name.”

The handcuffs rattle against the chain-links as Shaw surges forward, and when Erik turns around, it’s instinct.

Animal tendencies.

“You sit the fuck back,” he says. He growls, staring at the purple and yellow of fading bruises on tanned and wrinkled skin, and his voice rises to a shout as he says, “Sit back. Fucking-- sit the fuck back. Don’t make me punch your face through your shoulders and out through your fucking arse.”

Telford shouts, says, “Lehnsherr. Keep your fucking mouth shut if all you’re going to do is antagonise this mad son of a bitch.”

Erik grits his teeth.

Shaw spits, says, “Innocent people.”

Erik glares at him. The killer’s got the two fading black eyes of a giant panda, and he’s missing teeth. There are the starts of scars at his lips. His nose is slightly bent. His whole face looks crooked and beat in. An old leather couch with cigarette burns and nail rips.

The man says, “Those were not innocent people. Those were men and women of sodomy and sin.”

Charles’ hand strokes along the wheel. His eyes flick to the mirror, and he says, “So. Sucking dick is a sin to you, but murder isn’t?”

As Shaw settles back in his seat, Erik does the same. He doesn’t want to look at that face anymore. Beaten and broken. Corrupt and ugly.

Erik bounces his fist up and down off his thigh, and he looks out of the windscreen.

Shaw says, “The murder of sinners is not a sin. It is God’s work.”

God’s work.

Erik keeps his eyes forward as he says, “Do you actually believe that?”

“Yes,” Shaw says. “You need to be in the left hand lane. Take the third exit at the upcoming roundabout.”

Charles indicates into the outside lane, and Erik can’t wait for this to be over. For this chapter to end.

Charles says, “Who decided that you get to carry out God’s work, as you so call it.”

“God has chosen me,” Shaw says, and Erik looks to the roof of the car, shaking his head.

He breathes heavy through his nose, and to Charles, he says, “You think he was touched up by a priest when he was a kid?”

It’s Telford who says, “For fuck’s sake.”

Shaw’s voice is a low rumble as he says, “Every murder gets me closer.”

Erik huffs. “Closer to what? Prison?”

“God,” Shaw says. It’s a bark and a hiss, and he says, “Every dead sinner gets me closer to God. The link between us grows as each body of filth falls to Hell.”

Erik throws Charles a look. He needs a whole bottle of whisky for this. A whole two bottles.

“You’re fucking insane,” he says.

He can’t wait to get back to Charles’ house and back to Charles’ bed, because this morning, Charles had promised a night full of fucking in every room-- including those in the annexe. Including the garage and the empty stables at the bottom of the garden.

“No,” Shaw says. “I’m not insane,” he says. “However, I suppose it may be easier for you to label me as mentally ill, seeing as you are too stupid and ignorant to understand the situation.”

Erik frowns. “Fuck you,” he says. “I understand the situation fine. You’re a fucking head case chasing after a ghost in the clouds who thinks that murder is acceptable if he tells people that God made him do it.”

“Stop antagonising the bastard,” Telford says into Erik’s ear. “Keep him relaxed. If you get him angry, he won’t do what we want.”

“God didn’t make me do it,” Shaw says. “I did it myself. I did it for Him. I knew He’d appreciate less sinners on His Earth. His creation.”

Erik rests a temple against the window. He doesn’t want to talk to this sick bastard any more. He’s had enough games.

If he really wanted to, Erik could reach over and into Charles’ holster, and he could point the gun between the metal links and shoot Sebastian Shaw in the face. But he doesn’t want to do that. He wants Sebastian Shaw to rot in prison for the rest of his life, without his God, and he wants Sebastian Shaw to suffer.

Telford says, “Shaw keeps looking at the car behind. At the roundabout ahead, the officer in the Fiat will take the first exit so as not to arise suspicion. The plain-clothed officer in the silver Mercedes A-Class will tail Xavier and Lehnsherr instead.”

Charles drums his fingers on the wheel. There’s an unfamiliar ring on the third finger of his right hand, and it catches Erik’s eye, the light of the sun reflecting against the silver band.

Erik moves a hand to tap at Charles’ leg. Charles looks at him, quickly, before he checks back to the road.

The traffic slows them down to barely twenty, and Erik mouths, “New ring?”

Charles’ eyebrows furrow. He mouths back, says, “This isn’t exactly the time.”

Erik looks up to the rear-view mirror, and Shaw has his chin tilted up and his eyes closed, as if he were meditating. At least he’s not talking.

Erik mouths, “He’s not looking.”

Charles rolls his eyes. He’s got bags under them, and he taps the ring against the wheel as he mouths, “My father’s. For good luck.”

Erik reaches over to grab for Charles’ hand, at the opposite side of the wheel. It has Charles driving one-handed, but they’re not going fast, anyways.

Erik runs his fingers over Charles’ knuckles, smoothing over the metal of the ring where it’s cool-- a contrast to Charles’ warm skin, and it’s calming, playing with Charles’ hand. Erik sighs, closing his eyes, and he’s trying to forget that there’s a mass murderer in the backseat.

He can’t, because Shaw says, “You can’t hold hands in Hell.”

Erik’s eyes snap open, and he turns, snarling. He jabs a finger through the diamond gaps in the links, and he says, “You fucking watch us. We’ll be holding hands with Satan himself while God punishes you for being a dumb sack of shit.”

Telford mutters through the ear piece. “Can we arrest Lehnsherr for anything? Running his mouth while completing serious police business? Is being a fucking idiot a good enough reason?”

Charles snorts, at that, and Erik throws him a glare before turning back to Shaw.

“Keep your toothless mouth shut,” Erik says. “All that should be coming out of that Jesus arse-licking mouth is directions.”

He turns back around, and he folds his arms. Almost over. Almost done.

They’re still on the A40, passing Wembley, and Erik huffs through his nose, slumping in his seat.

It’s almost ninety minutes, to get to where Shaw is taking them.

There’s no more talking, only directions and the odd insult and Charles telling Erik to shut the fuck up, and Shaw says, “We’re almost there.”

Charles looks to Erik, this unsure play to his eyes, and Erik offers him a smile, despite the fight rising in his stomach.

Away from the populations of cities and towns, Charles is being lead out into the countryside.

There are field and fields and hills and cows and sheep, and Erik grows antsy with every mile.

“Here,” Shaw says. His voice is unwelcome at Erik’s ear. It has him on edge. “There’s an air turbine field that is signed from here on out. You must follow the signs. That is where we are heading.”

“Got it,” Telford says. “Washington, take the chopper to the air turbines. Stay at a high altitude.”

Charles turns up on the road leading to the metal windmills, and Erik is bouncing his knee, restless and nervous and ready to jump out of the moving vehicle.

The tarmac turns to loose gravel, and the sky is turning to light grey.

There are maybe fifteen air turbines, none of them spinning, and there’s a view out over the valley of green grass and bare winter trees. It’s beautiful and it’s eerie, and the ground is frosted with white.

Shaw tells Charles that he can park at the side of the second air turbine they come to.

Charles stops and pulls on the handbrake, and he lets out a breath.

Erik wants to squeeze his hand or his leg or kiss his forehead or his hair, but he doesn’t want to do that with Shaw watching.

“We can walk from here,” Shaw says.

“Alright,” Charles says. He unbuckles his seatbelt. He nods to Erik. “Out.”

“Washington, stay out of this unless I call you in,” Telford says. Washington is the officer with a high power assault rifle sat in the helicopter. “We have cars who can reach the scene in under five minutes should something not go to plan.”

Erik wonders what the plan is. He sure as hell wasn’t told about any plan.

Charles gets out of the car, and Erik follows him.

Opening the back door, Charles pulls the Browning from his holster.

He doesn’t look right, holding a gun.

Charles is small and sweet with red lips and pink cheeks, and he’s pointing the pistol at Shaw as he says, “Out of the car. Slowly. Slowly.”

Shaw steps out, and his ankles are shackled together with chains, too.

Erik comes round to Charles’ side, and he watches Shaw with a blank face and a flat mouth as the chains and handcuffs rustle in the wind.

The breeze blows Erik’s hair across his forehead, and he looks out over the view, asks, “Where are we going?”

Shaw raises his hands, bound together, and he points them out towards the rest of the turbines.

They’re pale white, reaching up towards the sky, and they stretch out along the hill top, long gaps between each one.

Charles puts a hand on Shaw’s shoulder and pushes the man in front. Erik is uneasy with the contact, but Charles shoves the muzzle of the gun at the top of Shaw’s spine and nudges him forwards.

“Lead the way,” Charles says. He sounds gritty and stern, and with Shaw not looking, Erik squeezes at Charles’ bicep, just once, over the material of jacket and shirt. Charles turns his head slightly to twitch his lips up.

Shaw says, “Alright,” and he takes slow steps on the grey gravel.

At the back of his head, there are patches of hair shorn shorter, and there are cuts at his scalp and his skull. His arms are gooseflesh from the cold.

Erik keeps looking around them as they walk, on high alert-- animal tendencies with hackles raised and ears listening for the smallest of sounds, and Shaw stops when they reach a gap between fifth and sixth turbines; a small electrical hut on their left.

“Why have we stopped?” Charles asks. His fingers curl and flex around the gun. His fingernails are bitten down, and the silver ring is bright against the black pistol and pale skin. Erik stands slightly in front of him, left foot in front of Charles’ right. Between Charles and Shaw.

Shaw says, “Lehnsherr.”

Erik glares at him.

Shaw nods behind himself. “I believe you’ll find what you’re looking for behind the turbine after the next. No one comes up here.”

Erik looks to Charles, who’s biting his lip. “Why Erik?”

Shaw says, “Well, you need to keep me at gunpoint, of course.”

Telford says, “Just do it, Lehnsherr. Tell us what you’re doing and seeing at all times.”

“Okay,” Charles says. He nods at Erik, waving the gun in the direction of the turbines. “Go look. Be careful,” he say. He points the muzzle at Shaw. “You. On your knees. Hands locked behind your head.”

Erik looks out to the turbines. He wants to kiss Charles before he goes. He does.

Charles’ mouth parts, and Erik pulls back, says, “I’ll be careful if you be careful. Deal?”

“Deal,” Charles says. He pushes Erik’s arm. “Go.”

Shaw is glaring, bruised eyes full of disgust and distaste, and Erik smirks. “Jealous, are we?”

Shaw spits, and his dirty saliva lands up Erik’s jeans and the backs of his hands.

Erik snarls, teeth bared, and he steps forward to curl a fist into Shaw’s hair, tugging his head back.

His chest heaves. He’s glad Telford hasn’t got eyes on them any closer than the helicopter.

“Erik, don’t,” Charles says. Erik stares down at Shaw’s face, battered and scabbed, and Charles says, “I’ve got this. He’s not worth it, Erik, just go.”

Erik huffs, throwing Shaw’s head back and letting go of his hair. Shaw grins. Erik stabs a finger towards him, says, “You try any games, and you’re dead. You’re dead before you can even start thinking about your God. Understand?”

Shaw looks to the gun Charles is aiming at his face.

Erik gives Charles a last glance before he starts walking towards the turbines, hands shaky with nerves.

He talks to Telford, says, “Alright. The turbine I’m heading for is the second one from here.”

The gaps between the white machines are about fifty yards, forty metres, and Erik passes the first.

“Nothing here,” he says. The metal is shiny with frost, and Erik says, “Should I be expecting the worst?”

He’s not sure he wants to be the one to find two dead bodies. He’s not sure he has the stomach for it.

“Probably for the best,” Telford says. “Don’t worry if you’re sick. None of us will judge you. Happens to the best of us.”

Erik huffs. He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, cold. “Thanks.”

When he’s about ten metres from the second turbine, he stops.

“There’s something on the opposite side of it,” he says.

He squints, and there’s wood sticking out horizontally from the stem of the turbine-- small lengths of it jutting out. His stomach starts turning again.

“It’s wood,” he says. He turns, and Charles is looking over.

Telford says, “Just go and take a look, Lehnsherr. Before it gets dark.”

Erik turns back and breathes. The sooner he does this, the sooner he can go back to Charles and Charles’ house and Charles’ bed.

“Alright, I’m going,” he says. He starts walking, and his face scrunches as he gets this awful smell at his nose.

He coughs, holding his hand up to cup his nostrils.

“It smells fucking disgusting,” he says.

His eyes water with it, and Telford says, “Yeah. That’ll likely be decomposing human flesh and faeces.”

Erik scowls. “Great.” Wonderful.

His steps start getting slower as he gets closer.

“Why couldn’t someone else do this,” he says, mostly to himself.

Telford says, “Get over it. Hurry up.”

“Fuck off,” Erik says. “You come down here and find two dead bodies if you care so much.”

There’s a huff of a laugh. “Do this, and the next time your big journalistic mouth gets you in trouble, I’ll make sure you’re treat well in prison.”

“Thanks.”

He walks around on the right side of the turbine, the white stem propped up on a four foot tall block of cement, and his eyes widen.

“Oh, Jesus-- verdammt Hölle-- scheiße.”

He’s gagging, and Telford is shouting, what, what, what, what the fuck is it, over and over in Erik’s ear, and Erik has to take his hand away-- is puking all over the gravel and the boots in front of him-- warm and heavy vomit drooling down his chin.

The smell gets him the second time, and there’s the dire feeling as his throat constricts and flexes; chunks of yesterday’s meals ending up on the floor.

His back is hunched, and he looks up through his eyelashes.

He’s panting, bile burning in his mouth, and he stares.

Tied to the turbine is a makeshift crucifix.

Nailed to the crucifix is the body of a young woman.

He tells Telford, best he can through a mouthful of custard-thick vomit, but he’s telling him in German.

“Lehnsherr, for fuck’s sake,” Telford says. “English. Speak fucking English.”

Cold tears leak down his cheeks, his nose running wet into his lips, and he says, “God-- it’s-- there’s only one body. He’s-- he’s crucified some girl. Her stomach is cut open, and-- no. No, fucking-- nein.”

He gags again.

This isn’t right. This isn’t right.

This isn’t happening. This is sick.

This can’t be real.

At the bottom of the wooden cross, there’s a tiny little body, all purple and green and decayed. A baby cut out of the girl’s womb. A foetus. Limbs lifeless like a doll.

Bodies.

“Lehnsherr.”

“He’s cut her foetus out of her.”

“Oh, fucking hell. Fucking-- fucking Christ.”

Erik wipes his mouth with a sleeve pulled over the back of his hand. He gags.

The baby-- the foetus-- it’s emaciated and its skin is blue. It’s drifted slightly from the crucifix with exposure to winds.

Erik closes his eyes.

He turns his head to breathe, to look over the hills and the fields, and then he’s turning back to look at the crucifix.

The girl’s body is sunken in. What’s left of her torso is swollen. Her neck and her face are mottled purple like marble; swelled with gas and all puffed up, and her tongue sticks between her lips.

Erik doesn’t want to believe what he’s looking at.

It looks like something from a horror movie. Like a zombie. Like a prop from Dawn of the Dead, and Erik is bending in on himself and throwing up-- stomach acid chafing at his windpipe.

Charles is shouting Erik’s name from where he’s still with Shaw.

Erik looks at what he can see of the girl’s face, head dipped forward, but the decay has gotten to her features. Her eye sockets are hollow. Insects have eaten at her cheeks, and flies surround both bodies. They have Erik’s skin twitching, and he holds his clean sleeve over his nose.

The girl’s hair has started to flake out, and the golden blonde of it is rusty from the elements. The wind brushes through it, and strands fly away with the breeze.

Erik keeps gagging, but he forces himself to swallow it down.

“Gott-- they must have been here a while,” he says. Shaw was taken into custody almost two weeks ago. “Jesus, Telford. Verdammt doch mal.”

There are maggots around the foetus on the floor. Veins run under its skin like worms.

Sick gurgles out past Erik’s lips, smudging into his jacket sleeve, and he spits it to the gravel.

He can hear Shaw laughing.

The girl has been stripped bare apart from the denim jacket that hangs on her shoulders and the boots on her feet-- nails pounded through the leather.

Erik stares.

His mouth goes dry.

The denim jacket is drenched with blood and dirt, but Erik can still see the patches sewn onto its sleeves.

“Telford,” he says.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Charles.

“Lehnsherr,” Telford says. “Tell me what else you’re seeing.”

Erik bites down the old taste of vomit.

Both he and Charles can hear Telford, but not each other.

“It’s his sister.”

He crouches down, his head too dizzy to stand, and he looks at the ground. His left hand fists in his hair, and he takes the cracking of bones.

“Telford,” he says. His voice croaks. He’s shaking his head. “Telford, you can’t say anything to this. You can’t-- Telford. You can’t.”

Telford just says his name. His voice rings through with worry.

“It’s Charles’ sister, Telford. It’s Charles’ pregnant younger sister.”

Charles.

This man has been beating and breaking Charles since the start.

Right to the very end.

Telford is quiet.

It’s a breath of a thing, when he says, “Jesus.”

Erik feels like he’s going to hyperventilate. Pass out.

The smell of decay and detritus and maggots and flies has his stomach churning and convulsing, and the slop and puddle of vomit in front of him is attracting the buzz and the crawl.

“Get back to them. Get back to Xavier,” Telford says.

Charles.

Erik spits.

He has his head ducked between his knees. He doesn’t want to stand.

He closes his eyes, but when he opens them, it’s all still the same.

His hands are shaking, and he hits the heel of his palm against his forehead.

He’s trying to beat everything out of his head. The image of a girl nailed to old and splintered wood. The foetus left on the concrete.

It doesn’t work. It has him thinking about Sebastian Shaw cutting into Raven’s stomach with his knife, and he’s screaming as he’s sick; side of his fist punching into the tiny rocks of the gravel-- cooling vomit and regurgitated food sticking to his skin.

“Lehnsherr,” Telford says. He barks it like a command when he says, “Get out of there. You don’t have to be there any longer than necessary, for Christ’s sake. Get back to Xavier.”

Erik nods his head to no one.

Get back to Xavier.

Get back to Charles.

He struggles to his feet, palms pushing on his thighs for support, and he walks away, backwards, staring at the scene.

The air turbines stretching out, almost the same colour as the sky and the clouds, and the green and brown of fields and tree trunks running the landscape behind it.

The sand of the wooden crucifix. The translucent grey of Raven’s skin. The foetus tossed on the slate coloured concrete like rubbish. The old brown of old blood. The maggots. The flies. The worms.

The destruction of one man.

Erik turns, and he runs, but not for long.

His lungs burn, and he struggles the rest of his way to Charles.

Shaw is laughing.

Charles is shouting at him to shut the fuck up.

Charles looks at Erik. He stares. Sick is streamed down the front of Erik’s shirt where his jacket is open.

“What was it?”

Erik shakes his head.

Charles scowls. Erik looks to Shaw, who’s grinning. Rage flashes through Erik like scalding water.

“Erik,” Charles says. The Browning is held down by his side. “What was it?”

“Bodies,” Erik says. He’s still shaking. He needs to get out of here.

Telford says, “Xavier. Lehnsherr. Get Shaw back in the car and drive away. We know where the bodies are now. Other officers and the forensics team will take care of this.”

“No,” Charles says. “I’m not leaving until I know. Tell me what it was. What it was that made you sick.”

Erik looks at him with big eyes. He can’t.

Charles is going to find out.

Erik doesn’t want to be the one to tell him.

“You don’t want to know,” Erik says.

Charles has been through hell.

Charles has been driven to sleepless nights and obsessive behaviour. Charles has been kidnapped and drugged and cut up and raped.

Charles Xavier is not fragile.

But even the toughest of gems has their breaking point.

Charles’ jaw clenches. His fingers move around the pistol.

“Don’t, Erik,” he says. “You know I want to know. You know I need to know.”

Erik shakes his head.

“Fine,” Charles says. He walks over to Erik, leaving Shaw on his knees without his attention, and he holds the gun out to Erik. “Take this. Take this and watch him, and I’ll go look for myself.”

Erik panics.

“No,” he says. He sets his hand on Charles’ shoulder and stands in front of him; blocking his path. “Listen to me, Charles-- you don’t-- you don’t want to see that.”

Sick smears up Charles’ coat.

Charles glares up at Erik with hard eyes. Erik looks back.

It’s Shaw who breaks the silence and the staring contest.

“You know, Xavier,” he says. Erik’s skin crawls. “You don’t look a thing like your sister.”

Erik’s eyes widen.

He brushes past Charles, and he points at Shaw.

“Shut the fuck up,” he says. He snarls it, spittle coming out between his teeth, and he says, “Shut the fuck up, I swear to God.”

Charles is standing there.

“What?”

“Ignore him,” Erik says. He steps back to Charles, hand on his arm. “He’s talking bullshit, Charles.”

“Get out of there,” Telford says.

“Let’s do what Telford says,” Erik says. “Let’s just-- let’s just leave. Let’s go home. Back to your house. It’s over.”

Shaw says, “Although, you do both have quite the mouth on you.” He says, “You do both scream and beg for your lives when a blood-stained knife is pulled out of my pocket.”

Erik moves and wraps his hands around Shaw’s throat.

His fingers and thumb squeeze a hard pressure-- Shaw is coughing, and Erik shakes. Erik throttles.

“I said shut the fuck up,” he says. He shouts, says, “I said shut the fuck up.”

Telford is yelling. It has the ear piece cracking with the volume as he’s saying, “Lehnsherr, we can fucking see what you’re doing. Get your hands off the fucking suspect. Get your hands off the fucking suspect, Lehnsherr.”

Erik lets go.

Charles is standing stock still. Frozen.

Shaw is grinning.

Erik’s chest rises.

Erik’s leg pulls back, and he jerks it, hard-- toe of his boot connecting with Shaw’s bollocks. Hard.

Shaw shouts out a groan, and he topples forward; hands unable to fumble over his head to protect his face from the fall. His chin lands on the gravel. The rocks give him tiny cuts.

Erik breathes. He spits what’s left of the sick at the back of Shaw’s hair.

He looks to Charles.

“Charles,” Erik says.

Shaw is struggling back to his knees.

Charles doesn’t move.

“Charles,” Erik says. “Charles, look at me.”

“Jesus Christ-- we’re sending cars in,” Telford says. “At least three officers will be on the scene in approximately five minutes. Keep your eyes and ears peeled, ladies and gentlemen.”

“I don’t understand,” Charles says. He looks up to Erik. His eyebrows tug together. “Why is he saying those things?”

He knows.

Erik’s stomach sinks. His heart sinks.

Charles knows. Charles doesn’t want to know.

“Charles.”

“No,” Charles says. He’s shaking his head, and the gun trembles in his hand. “No,” he says. “No.”

Erik goes to him. He reaches out, but Charles steps back.

“No,” Charles says. “Tell me he’s lying. Tell me he’s making that up. Tell me. Tell me, Erik.”

He’s begging. He’s desperate.

He’s crying.

He’s breaking.

All Erik can do is say, “Charles.”

Charles keeps shaking his head. “No,” he says. “Erik, please. Please tell me it’s not true. Please. Erik.”

Erik remembers Charles in tweed. Sat in the office at Anomie.

Erik remembers Charles angry and pushing him up against the French doors. Kissing him.

Shaw starts laughing, a loud cackle, and Erik snaps.

He surges to Shaw-- runs the few feet to where he’s back on his knees, hands in front of him, now, and Erik kicks the sole of his boot against the man’s chest.

It winds him, and it sends him backwards, this time.

He’s still laughing. Between gasping for breaths and laying out on the gravel, he’s still laughing.

“Fuck you,” Erik says. “Fuck you. You did this,” he says.

He drops over Shaw’s torso, and he’s back in the church hallway.

“Lehnsherr, don’t you fucking dare.”

It’s a warning.

Erik ignores it.

He grabs Shaw’s face, fingertips pressing eight hard dents in bruised and wrinkle-slippery skin as he leers over the man; forces Shaw to look at him as he snarls, says, “You did this to him. You’ve hurt him for the last time.”

Erik gets in one punch before Telford shouts.

“Lehnsherr. I will arrest you.”

Charles says, “Erik. Get off him.”

Erik whips round to look at Charles.

He’s pointing the gun in his direction.

Erik stares.

“Charles,” he says. He gets to his feet. His breathing slows. “Charles, don’t.”

Charles reaches up his other hand to curl around the Browning.

Erik steps towards him.

He wants Shaw dead, but he doesn’t want that on Charles.

He wants Shaw dead, but he wants the man to die slowly. Alone. In prison. Rotting.

“Charles, give me the gun.”

Charles shakes his head.

Erik feels helpless.

Telford says, “Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is happening down there?”

“Charles, please,” Erik says. He holds his hands out in front of him. His eyes are round, eyebrows pulling down, and the wind is cold against the tear tracks down to his lips and his chin. “I know you want to, Charles, but you can’t.”

It’s nearly over.

If Charles shoots and kills Sebastian Shaw, he’ll likely be put in prison, instead.

“Please,” Erik says.

Charles’ eyes are shimmering blue with tears, and he steps towards Erik.

Erik lets out a breath.

Charles comes towards him, dropping his hands down to his side; gun still curled in one of them.

Erik opens his arms; wants to wrap Charles up against his chest and to hold him and to kiss him, but as Charles reaches him, he shoves Erik out of the way.

Erik shouts-- pushed hard enough to send him to the ground, and he fumbles up on a palm; gravel harsh on his skin.

Charles is pointing the gun. The veins in the backs of his hands twitch.

“No,” Erik says.

The gunshot is a smack and a blast, and it’s loud enough to have Erik’s ears ringing and his body flinching .

“Oh, God-- oh, fucking Christ,” Telford is saying. “He shot him. He fucking shot him. God-- where are the cars? Where are the fucking cars?”

Shaw is screaming.

Erik blinks.

Shaw is screaming. Shaw is alive.

Charles’ chest is heaving.

Shaw is yowling and rolling on the ground, and blood is staining the man’s jumpsuit an almost black.

The arm. Charles shot him in the arm.

“Charles,” Erik says. He scrambles to his feet; boots slipping on the loose gravel, and he stretches an arm out in Charles’ direction. “Charles,” he says. Charles is stock still. There’s the sound of a car engine, loud in the aftermath of a gunshot, and Erik says, “Charles, drop the gun. Please. Charles. Look at me.”

Charles’ head jumps up. His eyes are big. Hurt. Confused. He looks at the Browning in his hand, and he looks to Shaw.

Erik says, “Charles,” because he doesn’t know what else to say.

A silver Ford Mondeo pulls up, and three uniformed officers pile out of it. They’re carrying guns.

One of them, a man with grey stubble and thin lips, says, “Xavier. Drop the weapon.”

Erik snarls, says, “Don’t.” He turns, and he waves his arm at the officers, says, “Leave him.” He points to Shaw, sleeve wet with blood and moans coming from his mouth, and he says, “Get that fucking cunt out of here.”

The officers look to each other.

Over the wires, Telford says, “For fuck’s sake. Two of you, get Shaw up and into the car. Get him to a hospital.” He says, “One of you stay to drive Lehnsherr and Xavier back to the city.”

Shaw wails as he’s helped to his feet, and Charles is stood there, watching. Erik steps towards him.

“Charles, come here,” he says. “Come here,” he says. “We can go home now.”

Charles sags, and he drops to his knees.

The pistol has fallen from his grip, and Erik kicks it away as he runs over, falling to the gravel and pulling Charles against him.

Charles is limp, and his face is pushed up against Erik’s shoulder. Erik’s heart is breaking.

He doesn’t tell Charles that it’s okay. It’s not.

He strokes through Charles’ hair and rubs circles into Charles’ back, and the cry Charles makes into his jacket has Erik holding onto him for dear life.

A police officer, a woman, this time, says, “We need to get you two out of here.”

Erik’s voice is almost a growl. He rests his cheek against Charles’ head as he looks up at the officer-- says, “Give us a fucking minute.”

Charles’ hands fist in Erik’s shirt. It’s covered in sick, but Charles doesn’t seem to mind.

“I’m sorry,” Erik says. The sun is starting to fade away, and he kisses Charles’ hair, says, “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve any of this. Raven didn’t-- she didn’t deserve any of this.”

Charles is leaving a cold wet patch of spit and tears against Erik’s chest.

Erik feels almost blank with emotion. Everything hitting him all at once.

He helps Charles to his feet, and he glares at the officer holding the back door of the Mondeo open for them. Charles keeps his face pressed against Erik’s shoulder.

Back of the car, Erik tucks Charles against him, and he watches the scenery pass by as Charles shakes. As Charles cries and cries and cries. Erik’s fingers hurt with how tight he’s holding onto him.

He closes his eyes, and Charles says, “I love you.”

It’s a mumble against fabric and skin, and his voice is all snotty and choked back, but he nuzzles himself up against Erik’s chest, and he says, “I love you, Erik. I love you.”

Erik starts crying, now.

Everything is a whirlwind, and he bites back the big dirty sob that threatens to break out.

“I love you, too,” he says. He hiccups a broken laugh. “I love you.”

He loves Charles.

He loves Detective Inspector Charles Xavier.

Nearing the two month mark, he loves Charles. Charles loves him. Charles loves Erik Lehnsherr, libelist journalist and law breaking childhood anarchist.

All Charles wants to do is stay in bed.

He won’t leave his bedroom.

He has nightmares. He refuses to answer the phone.

He barely talks. When Erik tries to get up on a morning, Charles will grab at him.

He won’t let go, and Erik never has it in him to walk away.

Erik convinces him to take a bath, a long hot bath with bubbles to relax his muscles, but Charles drags Erik into his en suite, too. He doesn’t want to be alone.

His back against Erik’s front, the two of them splayed out in the big clawfoot bath, Charles says, “I thought about killing myself.”

Erik stops rubbing soap into Charles’ arms.

“When I shot Shaw,” Charles says. “I thought-- I thought about shooting myself.”

His hands play together in the water in front of him, and Erik’s breath is caught in his throat.

It’s all over, now, but it’s all still there.

It’s all over, now, but it’s not. It’s not.

One night, almost two in the morning, Charles sits up in bed.

He nudges at Erik’s shoulder, and he says, “I want to burn it. Everything in the dining room. I want to burn it. Now.”

He’s up and out of the room before Erik can say anything, hazy with sleep, and Erik stares at the empty bed beside him.

They don’t talk about Raven.

Erik wants to. Part of him wants to. He doesn’t want Charles to bottle it all up, because that never ends well for anybody.

They don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s just another day.

Erik rings his mother, because she still loves Christmas, even as a Jew, and she nags for him to bring Charles down to meet her.

New Year’s Eve, quarter to midnight, Charles pulls Erik up the stairs.

“Let’s make love,” he says, leading the way to his bedroom. “Let’s-- let’s bring in the new year in a good way.”

The day of the joint funeral, Charles is stood in front of the bedroom mirror, fighting with the half-Windsor knot of his tie, and Erik pulls his hands away and fastens it for him.

Charles is looking up at him, big blue eyes and his hair pushed back, and Erik smoothes the tie down Charles’ front. “There,” he says. He offers Charles a watery smile, both of them dressed in their black suits, and Charles reaches up to kiss him.

His hands cup either side of Erik’s face, and it’s sweet and sombre in a way that has Erik fisting wrinkles into Charles’ blazer.

The funeral wake is quiet and traditional, family and friends at a small church near the family home in Oxfordshire, and Charles’ mother is there.

She’s all dyed blonde hair that’s going grey, lipstick too red for a funeral, and when she walks up to Charles, she’s staring at Erik.

“Charles,” she says. Her accent is straight from Downton Abbey. She’s small, shorter than Charles, and her black dress drapes down to her ankles. The necklace around her throat is flash with diamonds and silver, and she reaches a hand out towards Charles before hesitating. She drops it.

“Mother,” Charles says. Erik holds his hand. “Nice of you to be here.”

The woman’s expression falters, but the sad façade is back before anyone can notice.

“I see your husband hasn’t shown his face,” Charles says. His voice is full of spite, and Erik looks at him, wary. “Or your beloved stepson. Too busy with the business, I suppose.”

His mother hums. “Yes,” she says. “Quite.” She nods towards Erik. Charles’ grip tightens around Erik’s hand. “And who is this, Charles? You never told me you had a new young man.”

Erik tries to smile at her, he does, but it comes out as a wry twist of his mouth.

“This is Erik,” Charles says. “I never told you because you never cared. Just like you never cared to turn up at the hospital when I was nearly killed, about a month ago.”

Erik wants to leave.

Charles’ mother purses her lips.

Charles says, “Thanks for turning up. I’m sure she would appreciate it.” He tugs at Erik’s hand. “Come on,” he says. “I want to go speak to Azazel.”

They leave Charles’ mother stood there, alone with her jewellery, and Charles lets out a long breath.

Erik offers Azazel his condolences, and he feels pathetic, telling the grieving twenty-six year old that he’s sorry for his loss. His losses.

He can’t imagine how Azazel is feeling. He doesn’t want to imagine how Azazel is feeling.

When Charles drops a rose on the casket, he’s still holding Erik’s hand.

“You should go back to work,” Charles says.

They’re in bed, Erik curved around Charles’ back, and he sits up on a palm; looking down at the profile of Charles’ face.

It’s mid-January, now.

Charles says, “We should go back to London.” He says, “You should move in with me. Into my apartment. In London.”

He shifts onto his back, and he’s biting his lip.

He’s not wearing his pyjama shirt, and the light has the scar tissue shining a pink translucence.

Erik breathes.

“Okay,” he says. Charles smiles. They’ve been through a lot. They can’t part now. “Okay.”

He leans back down to press their mouths together, and Charles’ arms loop around his shoulders.

Charles’ apartment is in Chelsea, this huge penthouse suite with views that Erik can’t stop looking at, and Charles doesn’t stop grinning as Erik walks around the place. It’s unbelievable.

“I can’t believe you live here,” he says. He’s stood by the closed doors of the balcony, looking out over the Thames. Charles comes behind him and wraps his arms around his waist.

“We live here,” he says. Baron’s feet tap on the floorboards, somewhere, and Charles presses his face between the dip of Erik’s shoulder blades.

Erik hums. It’s never been an easy thing to say, not to anyone, but he tells Charles all the time.

“I love you,” he says.

He tells Charles all the time, despite the feeling he gets in his chest.

Charles leans up on his tiptoes to kiss the back of Erik’s neck. “I love you, too. A lot.”

They’re calling it the case of the century.

The Hugs and Kisses Killer.

The trial of Sebastian Shaw.

It’s all over the news. All over the papers whenever Erik goes to the shop.

Shaw’s mugshot. His guilty plea.

No newspapers mention Erik’s name. Scotland Yard had ensured it.

A lot of them mention Charles’ name. Detective Inspector Charles Xavier, the brave and heroic member of the force who’d kept on Shaw’s trail for years. Whose sister and unborn niece or nephew were victims of Shaw’s evil and unthinkable crimes.

He’s imprisoned for life.

No chance of parole.

He’ll die in prison, the judge says.

At the local shop, two bottles of wine and some bread and some milk and a packet of condoms in his basket, Erik looks at the newspaper stand.

HUGS AND KISSES KILLER: HE’LL DIE BEHIND BARS.

SHAW: ‘I DID IT FOR GOD.’

RELIGIOUS SERIAL KILLER GETS LIFE.

SEBASTIAN SHAW, MOST PROLIFIC SERIAL KILLER OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, IS IMPRISONED FOR LIFE.

IT GOT ME CLOSER TO GOD, SAYS SHAW.

Erik frowns, and he grabs a copy of NME for Charles.

His first day back at work, Charles kisses him goodbye before he goes, and Emma throws a manila file at him.

It hits him square in the chest, dropping down to his desk.

On the top of it, it says, KURT MARKO.

Erik says, “Is this a joke?”

Emma stands there, hands on her hips.

“I think you need to have a word with your boyfriend,” she says. Erik scowls. “Because the email that contained this information came from the same computer he used to transfer the two hundred k to us. I had Sean check it. Charles Francis Xavier.”

Erik blinks. He opens the file.

In it, there are screencaps of emails between Kurt Marko and the names Erik recognises as drugs kingpins. There are Kurt Marko’s secret offshore bank account details. There are the names of LifeTech employees used to distribute drugs and paraphernalia. Erik stares at it all; sheets collected in his hands.

“Charles sent you this?”

Emma nods. “It came from an anonymous email. Here,” she says. She taps at her iPhone, and she holds it out for Erik to take.

Ms Frost and Mr Lehnsherr,
You caught my attention after your recent attack on businessman Kurt Marko. Although that attack did not go too well for you. My condolences.
This email and all attachments are encrypted.
I hope that this time you can get him for the bastard he is.
X.

Erik stares at the screen. “I don’t understand,” he says. He looks up at Emma, handing back the phone. “Sean’s sure it was the same computer?”

“Yep,” Emma says. “Sean knows what he’s doing. Since the mess the last anonymous tipster got us in, we thought it a good idea to find out where any of our information comes from.” She purses her lips. “So you really didn’t know that your boyfriend had dirt on Marko?”

Erik shakes his head. He doesn’t know how Charles has dirt on Kurt Marko.

“Wow,” Emma says. “Well. I hope that conversation goes well for the two of you.”

At the apartment, Erik sets the file down on the coffee table.

Charles is curled up on the couch, seven thirty and watching New Tricks, and he looks at the file. Erik watches for his reaction.

Charles looks up at him. “Is it a good idea going after Kurt Marko again?”

Erik folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Charles frowns. He shuffles to sit up straight, and he says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He mutes the television, and Erik huffs a laugh.

“How do you know Kurt Marko?” he asks. “How do you have that dirt on Kurt Marko?”

Charles’ expression falters.

“I don’t-- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Charles,” Erik says. “They traced the email back to your computer. I know it was you who sent that information.”

Charles swallows.

He sighs. “Alright,” he says. He slumps into the sofa cushions. Erik sits next to him. “Just-- don’t be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?” Erik says. “You’ve practically just handed us Kurt Marko on a silver plate.”

Charles’ lips fold inwards. He looks at his hands.

Erik worries, for a moment.

Charles says, “He’s my stepfather.”

Erik’s eyes go owlish. He stares at the side of Charles’ face, says, “Wait-- what?”

“I should have told you,” Charles says. “I know I should have. I should have told you the moment we met, but then I liked you and then we fucked and then everything all went to hell and I didn’t want to ruin it and--”

He’s babbling, and Erik rests a hand on his arm, says, “Hey.”

Charles stops. He turns his head, and he looks at Erik.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just-- I wanted to help. After everything you’ve done for me, I just--” he breathes. “I wanted to help you, too.”

Erik huffs a laugh, gentle.

He’s never been gentle, not really, and maybe he should be upset that Charles didn’t tell him, but he reaches forward to cup Charles’ face in his hands and kiss him. Against Charles’ mouth, he says, “You have helped me.” He runs his fingers through Charles’ hair. “It’s been a shitty fucking year,” he says. “But I’m glad you asked me to help you.” He is. He swallows his pride and his emotional constipation. “I’m glad I have you. You were worth it.”

Charles grins.

Next month’s Anomie issue has Kurt Marko’s face plastered on the cover.

FEB 2015: KURT MARKO: HEROIN AND HIV, by Erik Lehnsherr.

Marko says that he’ll sue, again.

He says that Erik should have learned from his mistakes and kept his big mouth shut.

He’s fled the country by the time the police catch up with him.

He’s dead, shot himself in the head, by the time the kingpins catch up with him.

Emma says, “I know we don’t have advertisements, but there’s a special one in this month’s issue.” Erik frowns at her. She says, “A full A4 spread. Page three. Don’t worry,” she says. “There’s no topless ladies. I know how they scare your homosexual mind.”

AUG 2015: NEW GOVERNMENT PROMISES BROKEN IN THE FIRST THREE MONTHS, by Ororo Munroe.

Erik flicks to the third page.

ERIK LEHNSHERR, CO-EDITOR OF AND JOURNALIST AT ANOMIE MAGAZINE,
THIS IS ME, CHARLES XAVIER, DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WITH THE METROPOLITAN POLICE, ASKING YOU TO MARRY ME IN A PUBLICALLY EMBARRASSING WAY.
LOVE YOU LOTS,
Charles x

Erik says yes.

He speeds all the way home, and he keeps saying yes between kisses as he bundles Charles up against the back of the sofa.

“You’re an idiot,” he says. Charles grins, and Erik snorts a laugh. “They’ll be mocking me for years, back at HQ. You’re a big sappy idiot.”

They go to Paris, because that’s where people go, when they’re engaged and when they’re in love, according to Charles, and it rains the whole time.

Charles is adamant to show Erik all the sights and the museums and the big green parks, and he can’t speak a word of French, but he puts on his best accent when he asks a newsagent, in English, how do they get back to the hotel? They’re lost.

Erik is almost fluent in French, and when he first speaks it, Charles won’t stop staring at him.

Charles says, “When we get back to the hotel, you’re fucking me. Whilst you speak dirty French to me. Mon amour.”

Because Erik is on their honeymoon, on holiday, in October, Emma has control over that month’s issue of Anomie.

They’re at the house in southern France where Charles fucked a thirty year old when he was seventeen.

It’s beautiful, this big old farmhouse only ten minutes from a secluded beach, and when Erik receives the magazine in the post, he swears he’s going to smack Emma over the nose with it.

They’re a political magazine, not some real-life fifty pence tabloid rag, but Charles won’t stop laughing and grinning about it.

“It’s nice,” he says, taking the magazine from Erik’s hands. “Something to show the grandchildren.”

The front cover is of the two of them. On their wedding day.

They’re both smiling, and Erik is looking at Charles like a lost little lamb.

ANOMIE
OCT 2015: KURT MARKO, GAY MARRIAGE, AND MURDER: OR, HOW OUR CO-EDITOR AND FRIEND ERIK LEHNSHERR FOUND THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE IN A PLUCKY DETECTIVE INSPECTOR.