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It’s 1:30 AM and Erik is exhausted. He shifts around listlessly in his seat attempting to find a more comfortable position and failing. Considering the amount of time people spend trapped in airports, the horrible seats installed for waiting seem unnecessarily cruel. The lumpy monstrosity is not only dirty but also hell on his back.
He glances up to the gate’s desk, but nothing has changed. The screen still flashes “Delayed - Departure now 5:45.” At least his gate and the surrounding ones are fairly empty. The only thing worse than being stuck here would be being stuck with tons of people around. Loud, annoying, stupid people.
“Excuse me.” The voice startles Erik enough that he nearly jumps. He puts on his grumpiest face — good enough to silence even his fussy Jewish mother — and faces the person who has disturbed his irritated but blissfully isolated silence.
The man doesn’t even hesitate.“This is the flight for New York, yes? 4686?” The man looks tired. There are dark circles under his blue eyes and his hair is mussed, falling into his face and standing up slightly in the back.
“Yes,” Erik answers gruffly, “It’s been delayed until morning.”
The man’s shoulders fall. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Erik has nothing else to say so he looks away, dismissing the conversation.
He nearly startles again when the man takes the seat next to him. Erik looks around pointedly. There is no one else at this gate and a veritable plethora of open seats.
The man smiles. “You don’t mind if I sit here, do you? Looks like we’ll be waiting until morning and surely it would be more fun to wait together.”
Erik simply stares.
“I’m so glad someone else was here,” the man barrels on in his British accent. “I hate sitting alone in airports at night.” He settles more fully into his seat, moving his suitcase out of the way to the side. “My name is Charles Xavier.”
Erik keeps staring but goes for the more foreboding look he has been told can chill ice. Charles’ smile doesn’t waver in the slightest.
“Oh, you can’t tell me your name?” he says, but instead of looking put out, his blue eyes begin to sparkle and he leans towards Erik. “Do you work for the government? Some sort of agent? CIA perhaps?”
“What? No. What?” Erik feels like a deer skidding on ice.
“You don’t want to tell me your name.” Charles frowns, the eye sparkle fading. “I’m bothering you. I’m so sorry, Raven always tells me I do this, but I just really assume that I am so lovely that everyone wants to talk to me.”
Erik, for some unfathomable reason, feels bad. “Erik,” he says without thinking. “Erik Lehnsherr.”
Charles smiles and Erik feels something in his chest loosen. “Why are you heading to New York?”
Erik doesn’t know why, but he starts talking. He tells Charles about the business trip he was sent on, about the annoying client he met with, about the flight delay message he hadn’t noticed on his phone until he’d already arrived at the airport. He tells Charles that New York is home, and he can’t wait to get there. Charles smiles at him the whole time. He looks like the type who is always smiling, and Erik thinks bizarrely, that smiles suit Charles very well.
Charles holds nothing back in return. He tells Erik New York is also home for him and that he was here for a conference where he presented on cutting-edge genetics research, and Erik realizes that not only does Charles possess the greatest pair of blue eyes he has ever seen, he is also most probably a genius.
Charles blushes fetchingly when Erik asks after his research. “I tend to go straight into lecture mode when I talk about it. I don’t mean to, it’s just such a passion of mine.”
Erik wouldn’t mind listening to a lecture if it came from Charles, so he simply nods, waiting for Charles to continue.
“Well, I study mutation,” he says, no longer looking at Erik, hands moving through the air as he talks. “I’m fascinated by it and mutants in general. The variations. The presentation. Is there any limit to the powers that can appear? Just think about what it means for the future of mankind.”
Erik has always been proud to be a mutant, but at that moment, he is intensely glad he is one. Charles is still talking, but Erik can’t help himself; he tugs on Charles’ watch. Charles’ eyes shoot wide and his talking stills.
“Are you doing that?” he asks, eyes lighting up as Erik tugs again.
“Yes.” And Erik pulls change from his own pockets, floating up a nickel and quarter in front of Charles’ nose. For a moment, Erik starts to wonder just what the hell he is doing sitting here in this airport performing what amounts to small magic tricks in front of a stranger, but then Charles plucks the nickel from the air with delight painted across his features, and Erik has to resist the urge to summon more change to show off further.
“Erik, you’re amazing,” Charles says, the height of sincerity, and Erik feels warm from the praise. He demonstrates a few more tricks to Charles’ glee, finding his own smile harder and harder to repress as a bubbly feeling spreads through him. He recognizes the signs immediately.
“You’re a telepath.”
Charles stills. “I apologize. I do tend to project, especially when I’m this tired.”
“No problem,” Erik says, and Charles' stillness relaxes. “I recognized the feeling. My friend tends to project quite a bit, but usually only when she’s angry at me.” Erik furrows his brow. “It would be nice if she felt warm and fuzzy like you do.”
Charles sputters. “Warm and fuzzy?”
“You’re like a cat,” Erik says, with a smile that displays all his teeth. “A mind cat.”
Charles laughs. “I’ll have you know that makes no sense.”
Erik has to admit that it doesn’t. It’s 3:00 in the morning and he’s stuck in this godforsaken airport and he’s awkwardly trying to flirt and there is nowhere in the world he would rather be.
“I feel the same,” Charles says. Erik doesn’t even mind that that was no doubt plucked from his thoughts. Charles reaches for Erik’s hand and tugs it over to his own lap. He pulls a pen from his shirt pocket and carefully writes a phone number across Erik’s palm. “Call me sometime.”
Erik didn’t know it was possible to smile wider. “I have a phone.” He kicks at his briefcase balanced against his suitcase on the floor. “We could have just exchanged numbers that way like normal twenty-first century people.”
Charles bites his lip, trying to look coy. “I wanted to touch you.”
Erik raises an eyebrow. “Anywhere else you’d rather write your number?”
Charles smirks. “You have no idea.”
“I have a few.”
“Do you?”
“Excuse me,” a new voice cuts in. Erik tears his eyes from Charles to see the interloper and suddenly remembers that he hates people. “The flight to New York is delayed?”
The newcomer is a small middle-aged woman. She must see something she doesn’t like on Erik’s face because she immediately bypasses eye contact with him and looks to Charles. Erik wishes for Charles’ powers for a moment so he can mind whammy her into going away.
Charles tells her it is delayed until 5:45 and she thanks him, going to settle in a seat one row over.
“Mind whammy?” Charles asks, giving Erik a cheeky grin.
“You should use your powers for good.”
Charles just laughs again. Erik loves the sound.
Erik doesn’t know why, but talking to Charles is easy. He has few friends and he has never doubted the reason - he’s not the most friendly of people. But Charles doesn’t seem put off at all. He laughs at Erik’s dry humor, and coaxes out more conversation from Erik so easily that Erik doesn’t even realize it’s after 5AM until he hears the boarding call for flight 4686.
“Oh,” Charles says, checking his own watch. “It’s boarding time.”
Erik impulsively wishes the plane would be delayed again. He would rather stay here talking to Charles.
“While I am entirely flattered,” Charles says as he stands, pushing a hand through his unruly hair that falls right back into his face, “I think we both need to get home.” He grabs his suitcase and pulls it to his side, offering Erik his hand. “It was lovely to meet you, my friend. You have my number, so… call me?” It’s the first time Charles has sounded hesitant in all the hours they’ve been talking.
“Yeah,” Erik says, taking Charles’ hand and shaking it, holding on a bit too long.
Charles smiles again and Erik watches until he is out of sight down the boarding bridge.
Erik shakes his head, trying to right his thoughts. It’s not like Charles just walked out of his life. He just got on a plane. A plane that Erik is also getting on. Right.
Erik hands over his ticket to be scanned and makes his way on board. He's been assigned seat 13B, and he waits for someone to stow their bag overhead before making it to row 13 and hefting his own bag to put it in the compartment. He glances back down and can’t stop the laugh that escapes his mouth.
Charles is sitting in 13A.
“Nice to meet you, seatmate,” Erik says as he settles down into his seat, buckling his seatbelt without using his hands.
“What fantastic powers.” Charles says, tone low and sultry, reaching out to tap the buckle in Erik’s lap, bringing his hand suspiciously close to Erik’s groin.
“Do you always hit on people sitting next to you?” Erik is proud that his voice stays steady.
“If they are devastatingly attractive metalokinetics?” Charles’ lit up eyes meet Erik’s own. “Then yes.”
For the first time in his life, when the cabin attendant says, “Please enjoy your flight,” Erik thinks he just might.