Shitpost-factory

Charles loves Edwin’s little lopsided grin and the flash of his teeth because it means he’s truly relaxed.

He loves the sharp arch of Edwin’s eyebrows and the way Edwin slants his eyes at him in fond exasperation.

He loves getting Edwin to scoff at him, cares gone until all he can focus on is holding in the undignified snort Charles is about to coax out.

He loves how each time he darts to touch Edwin with his fingertips, to just barely graze him, he gets a different little bit of him, there and gone again.

There and gone, the slope of one shoulder. A patch of Edwin’s bare arm, a little shock of warmth like nothing else Charles ever feels anymore. The wool of his blue slipover, which Charles can’t really know the texture of, but it looks soft and worn-in and cherished. Charles lets his imagination run away with him sometimes, thinks about curling his fingers in that soft-looking fabric and tugging Edwin flush against him, close, close, closer, as close as Edwin would allow.

How close would he allow?

He has to know, doesn’t he, at this point? He has to, he has to, he has to. Edwin’s not much for boxing, Charles is well aware. But he doesn’t get better no matter how often they spar, though he ought to be at least as good as Charles, by now. Charles has to wonder: is this more than just indulgence, to him?

Because Edwin is patient, so patient and only a bit incredulous, as each time Charles has got a new story, a new and ever-flimsier excuse. The mad driller, the brassed-off poltergeist, the reanimated pugilist.

C’mon, Edwin, he says, every time, in the end. And somehow, that always seems to do it.

Edwin stands there in his boxing gloves time and again, still as a stone at first and then pulled into reluctant, tentative, elegant movement by Charles’ glancing touch. He lets Charles have this, brilliant, generous friend that he is. Lets Charles circle him, goad him, skirt the shape of him, lets Charles look at him, look and look and look and—

It would be worse, Charles thinks, without the gloves. More pretty pieces of Edwin to spin Charles in circles round. Still, sometimes he imagines unlacing the gloves. He’d let them fall to the floor. He’d catch hold of Edwin and never let him go, catch the impact of Edwin’s bare hands against his own—each of his half-hearted strikes landing because Charles wants them to.

Sometimes Charles thinks Edwin might let him do more than other times, when they’re like this. And he doesn’t want for much. Just to kiss him once would be enough. To press their mouths together and take into himself Edwin’s surprised gasp, his sardonic laugh, his muffled noise of assent.

It crashes through him, the want, sometimes, like waves against a shore, so strong this is the only way to dull it. He wants so badly he jitters, and darts from foot to foot, and can only take in Edwin in fragments—each one settling inside him to form an echo of an ache called—

Love.

I think it’s going well

marvel headquarters, early 2000s

guy 1: who do u think we should cast as wolverine

guy 2: idk probably a huge, jacked man

i need to press that man like a flower. get in the book boy

And I just realized the X-men was his entire world.

And damn it hurts. A lot.