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“C'mon Erik, we need to move faster!” Charles' voice was a loud shout that was strained with tension. His hands were tightly woven together in his lap where he was sitting in the passenger seat as they ambled along the busy, New York streets, packed tightly with cars that were barely moving.
His stress was bleeding out through the entire car and was making Erik anxious, fingers tightening and loosening against the steering wheel in carefully timed intervals. He was already feeling a fair bit of pressure, he certainly didn't need Charles' stress layered on top of his own.
“What do you want me to do, Charles, move the damn cars out of the way?” Erik snapped, swerving around a driver who was too busy looking out their window to focus on the road. He considered flipping them off as they went past but kept his fingers around the wheel even as he gritted his teeth.
“Well at least then you'd actually be doing something!” Charles told him with a haughty tone as he crossed his arms and looked out the window. Erik heard him huff and nearly shouted at him to be quiet, but bit his tongue and kept the words in and absolutely did not say aloud any of the nasty thoughts that were circling through his head.
“Please, Charles, just let me drive. I am doing the absolute best that I can,” Erik told him in the calmest voice he was able to muster given the circumstances.
It wasn't his fault that traffic in New York had only gotten worse since the last time they'd been in the city. They were too used to driving along the quieter streets around Westchester when they went driving at all, and Erik hadn't realized traffic would be this backed up when they left. Of course, they’d only left when Raven had called them, which was apparently another thing Erik was at fault for. Apparently, he should have known and gotten them into the car sooner.
“I swear to God Erik, if I miss the birth of my first niece or nephew because you hadn't wanted to get out of bed I'm divorcing you!” Charles snapped. Erik locked his jaw stronger, squeezed the wheel tighter, and focused on breathing deeply through his nose so he didn't crush them in the car in his anger.
He said nothing in answer. Instead, he focused on driving and not the way Charles was still fuming beside him. He had nothing to say to that, no response that was accurately depicted the way a throw-away sentence had struck his chest and was leaving him feeling gutted. His chest was aching in a way that felt foreign even if it once would have been a familiar feeling for him. He hated it, hated the way it was twisting his belly with nausea and making him feel sick.
“I'm sorry, Erik, I didn't mean that.” Charles' voice was tinged with regret. It still grated on his nerves, especially when the apology felt flat. Erik would have never even been able to utter such words, not when Charles was the very most important thing in his life and the one person Erik loved most.
Just because Erik wasn't freaking out and throwing off waves of anxiety didn't mean he wasn't trying his damnedest to get them to the hospital on time. He didn't want to miss Irene giving birth any more than Charles did, and he certainly didn't enjoy the insinuation that he wasn't just as invested as his husband. It wasn't easy to focus on the road and tune Charles out, but he did his best. He was sitting within a metal box surrounded by other metal boxes, and he didn't need anything to make him angrier. In fact, a show of rage was the absolute last thing they needed.
Just as Erik thought that Charles was done trying to get his attention by staring at him intently and moving his hands about, he felt his husband's mind brush against the very edges of his consciousness. Charles' mind was familiar after the years they'd been together, and the way his thoughts slowly caressed Erik's mind had always felt like pure bliss. Now, that familiar bliss was tinged with a touch of sadness, sorrow that he wasn't sure belonged to him or Charles but made his chest ache either way.
Erik, please, I am so sorry. I love you with every fibre of my being and I couldn't even imagine a life without you. Are you my husband, but you are also my best friend, and you are the most important person in my life, Charles thoughts were tinged with certainty, overlaid with the love he held for Erik. He let it wash over him and reassure his frayed nerves as he focused on the way Charles cared for him and how he could feel that over the link Charles had opened between their minds.
The words still bothered him, but with a link into Charles’ mind, he could see just how flippant they were. They truly hadn’t meant anything at all. Charles was terrified he couldn’t be there for his sister and sister-in-law, his worry made even worse by the way he and Raven were only starting to get close again. Their familial bond was strained, but they were slowly becoming closer with one another, and that wasn’t something Charles wanted to jeopardize by being late.
It helped to see the way Charles was feeling for himself, and Erik took a few deep breaths that were tinged with Charles’ heavy, endless love for him. Charles reached out, his hand shaking, and Erik let his husband twine their fingers together. A moment later, Erik viciously thought fuck it and lifted their car into the air. He ignored the shouts and screams of people in the street as he moved the car forward, focusing instead on Charles' breathless laughter and the absolute joy that was now rushing along the link between their minds.