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It hasn't been easy, not any of it. Hell, Erik can't think of a single span of his life that's been easy, the restless undercurrent of Nazism starting up before he was five years old, throwing him into the turmoil he's lived in ever since. Men like Erik aren't granted easy lives. Mutant, Jew, militant, queer. He was always destined to be The Other.
Charles is the only person who's ever made him feel that he belonged. He'd thought it might be disastrous, coming back to join Charles properly like this, rather than just snatching moments with him in this hotel or that bar, kissing in Erik's car like the teenagers they hadn't been for decades. They've never lost touch over the years, of course, but their interactions had always been sporadic, and Erik hadn't been sure how he and Charles would settle in to a life lived fully together.
He's been pleasantly surprised, in many ways. The fact that this pleasant surprise has come during a mutant Holocaust is only further evidence of Erik's lifelong bad luck.
"Don't be silly," Charles says. His hand finds Erik's shoulder, cups his jaw. Erik could berate him for reading his mind, but the warmth of Charles's hand is comforting, and he finds he hasn't the strength to object any more. "Bad luck would be facing this alone, don't you think?"
Always the optimist, Charles. Erik adores it almost as much as he despairs of it. The youngsters are all huddled together in the next room, Kitty with Logan suspended between her hands; Bobby watching, judging. Erik thinks he can understand how the boy feels, at least a little. Kitty's struggling, energy draining out of her faster than she can replenish it, and if it were Charles...
"Erik." Charles's hand shifts, his thumb stroking over Erik's lower lip, and God, even after all these years, Erik's eyelids still flutter at that signal, his mouth parting, pliant. "Kitty's strong. She can do this."
But can we do this? Erik thinks, but doesn't say. Can we really put the world to rights, when there's so little of it left?
Charles leans in, and his breath is warm against Erik's temple, his eyelashes downcast on his cheeks. Even after all this time, he's still so beautiful. Erik would launch a thousand ships for him in a heartbeat. Erik would leap into the centre of a burning star for Charles, and the realisation frightens him; not the fact of it so much, but the recognition of all their wasted years, all the time he could have spent in Charles's life, in Charles's arms...squandered.
"Oh, my dear." Charles's fingers card through his hair, and Erik lets himself lift his head, nuzzle Charles's face. "Never squandered, never that. We all had our battles to fight."
When they kiss, now, it is soft, almost bittersweet. There'll be an end to it soon enough, after all. But Charles's mouth is warm, his hand firm on Erik's jaw. Erik lets himself sink into it, into the lapping eddies of joy in Charles's mind, the surge of love like old gold, all the more precious for its age.
When Storm comes in, Erik lifts his head, clears his throat, and something like embarrassment flickers through him, but Charles only smiles, and his left hand is still firmly clasped in Erik's.
"Everything all right?"
Storm glances between them, and Erik realises, with slow disbelief, that she isn't surprised at all -- that it's almost as if she's always known.
"Yes," she says, slowly. "For now...yes."