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Charles dabbed at the sweat beading along his brow with a patterned handkerchief, pressing the fabric to the back of his neck to soak up the moisture that was beading along his shirt's collar. He took a deep breath but the air was just as warm as it'd been a moment ago and it caught in his lungs. There was no relief, nothing to quell the overwhelming heat as the sun blasted down on him and warmed his skin far more than was comfortable.
All around them stretched out miles of gleaming sand that seemed to glow under the harsh, beaming sun. The air was dry, sucking the moisture right out of Charles' skin and leaving him feeling wrung out and exhausted, zapping away all of his energy. It had to be worse for Erik with the way he'd been hovering Charles' chair inches above the sand for the last hour to keep Charles from getting helplessly stuck.
Goodness gracious, this was not what Charles had imagined when he pictured a trip to the desert.
“This is nice,” Charles commented, doing his best to sound genuine even if not a single fibre of his being believed the words.
“This is hell,” Erik spat, and Charles sighed while dropping his head in defeated-agreement. Yes, his husband was right, this was hell.
Charles didn't want to relent right away, but after another moment of struggling to breathe through the dry, unrelenting heat, he allowed, “You might be right,” despite having been the one that said a recruitment trip to the desert would be a fun way to celebrate their anniversary while killing two birds with one stone.
As it turned out, a recruitment trip to the desert was not a fun way to celebrate their anniversary.
“I'm sorry, my love,” Charles told him, casting his mind out and keeping a measure of his focus on Erik so the emptiness wouldn't make him feel too crazy. It was always hard being somewhere so isolated, and if Charles had come out here alone and had not been able to feel a single other mind he definitely wouldn't have held up as well as he was Erik by his side. “We can take a trip to Paris soon, alright?”
Erik moved over and lent down enough to buss a sweet kiss to the top of Charles' scalding head, taking the hat from atop his own hair and laying it over Charles' bare skin. “We better. This is not what I had in mind when you booked our travel plans.”
Charles chuckled, smiling fondly as he pressed the sensation of them sharing a sweet kiss into Erik's mind before he focused back on the task out hand. Somewhere out there was a young, scared mutant they needed to find so they could finally go home.