Chapter Text
Erik leans close to the window of his second taxi of the evening and requests the driver take him to a restaurant. Erik has two prerequisites; that it's open and that it serves more than fried food and carbs.
He should have known that his favourite restaurant from his time on the shoot proper would be closed but he's cranky from the extra hours on set and clearly not thinking straight.
As he's closing the door on the rain he briefly considers asking the cabbie to take him back to his hotel; he could have a nice, relaxing wank and sleep until he has to leave for his flight tomorrow. It's at this moment, though, that his stomach chooses to disagree with him. The wank will have to wait.
The journey is mercifully short and Erik readily tells the driver to keep the change as he hands over the fare and his thanks for the recommendation before darting through the rain to the restaurant door.
His first impression is favourable as the hostess smiles widely and if she recognises Erik she's either too polite, too well-trained or both to say anything. There might be the briefest hint of recognition in her eyes but it goes no further. Erik breathes a sigh of relief. Quite aside from feeling vaguely horny and his general crankiness, he's too hungry to be the charming Hollywood star that Emma insists he should be while out in public. It's testament to the frequency of her lectures that Erik can practically hear the admonishment as he thinks it.
"A table for one, please."
The hostess smiles, inclining her head as she turns and Erik follows, leading him to a booth towards the rear of the restaurant in the only section that appears to still be open. Erik supposes it makes sense at 11pm to not have the entire place up and running. In fact, Erik observes as he ponders his menu, there only appears to be only one other patron, sitting at a table a reasonable distance from Erik's. A man not much different in age to Erik, by the looks of it.
"Good evening, my friend. Care to join me?"
Erik is startled into looking up from agonising over the steak or the fish, the hostess having departed, presumably to fill his drinks order.
He looks up and over to where the voice is now coming from; at the wavy brown hair, wide red-lipped smile and startling blue eyes of his fellow diner. The man has taken a few steps towards Erik, so as to not raise his voice. It allows Erik to take in the man's strong legs and compact torso, the delicious way his open shirt collar reveals the milky white skin of his chest.
Woah. The man is, well, stunning.
Erik reengages his brain in time to hear the man continue.
"I mean, if you'd like the company, that is? No offence taken if you'd rather not, though."
The man smiles again, slightly quirking an eyebrow, as if to reinforce the casual nochalance of his offer. Impossibly, it makes him look even more gorgeous. Erik's cock, denied its usual early-evening outlet, can't help but take an interest.
Erik is slightly stunned, if he's honest. Usually people are too star struck (for want of a better phrase) to approach him like a normal human being, or turn into crazy fans who simply holler and squeal at him. Erik is, by equal turns, bemused and horrified by those reactions. He's just a person, goddammit. No special powers, nothing extraordinary about him.
Hence all the wanking. It's ridiculous that people think actors get laid all the time. They simply can't meet anyone who can see past the fame.
It's the sheer simplicity of the question, the contrast that it strikes, that makes this man's invitation more startling than perhaps it should be. And it's his face that makes it more appealing, too. Erik suspects the rest if the man, beneath the dark jeans, shirt and navy jumper, is equally appealing. More so.
Erik is not what you'd call a people person (another of Emma's phrases) and the usual reaction of the general populous removes the need to be. Yet this man, those eyes, eyes that have swept up through long lashes to glance at him a couple of times since the question was posed, cause Erik to respond without hesitation.
"Yes, thank you, that would be....great."
Erik lays down his menu, wills his cock into some sort of submission and departs his booth, walking round to wear the man is standing.
"Charles Xavier, very pleased to meet you," the man states, as he extends his hand for Erik to shake.
Erik does a double take, glancing up from where their hands are joined to meet the man's eyes again. He notes the smattering of freckles across the man's nose, a weakness of his. Ugh.
"Oh goodness. Really?! Oh, well, of course yes, yes you are.... You would know who you are..."
Charles Xavier. Professor Charles Xavier, to be precise. Erik follows his work, tries to keep up with the latest developments in genetics, the subject that he knows the Professor teaches.
It had been Erik's first passion. His natural sciences teacher had done what he could to nurture Erik's aptitude, setting aside the limitations of the curriculum; lending journals, giving tutorials during lunch hours, suggesting exhibits at the local scientific institute, sending links via email to websites of potential interest. He'd encouraged Erik to think about university, attempted to motivate Erik beyond the ingrained defense mechanism of a foster child who knows they have no chance of funding three years of study, quite aside from earning a place.
Professor Xavier is chuckling, blue eyes shining as he raises that same eyebrow, this time in a smirk.
"Shouldn't it be me who's star-struck?"
Erik has been staring. Like a guppy fish. How dignified. It's just that the man in front of him is gorgeous. And he's Professor Charles Xavier. He's having trouble processing that somehow the two go together. Professor Xavier, his intellectual idol, is not supposed to be this attractive. Or young. How did he not know that about the man whose work he followed so closely?
"Do you... know who I am?"
Charles appears to ponder this as they seat themselves on opposite sides of Charles' table, seemingly giving Erik's question genuine thought. Erik doesn't miss the appraising once-over he's given by the man before he takes his seat.
"Did I know your name prior to you introducing yourself? Yes. Do I know what you do for a living? Yes. Do I know who you are? No my friend, no I really do not."
Charles winks at him then, he actually winks.
Erik blinks, taken aback by both the sincerity of the answer and the fact that Charles Xavier just winked at him. He's used to new acquaintances' casual assumptions of intimacy. The way they act like they know Erik (all the more baffling because he steadfastly only talks about his projects in the interviews Emma insists he undertake). This response, however, is quite the opposite. It doesn't claim to know Erik or react to his public image. It's genuine and flirtatious. His cock jumps again.
Charles' response is unexpected. But it's welcome. And, oh good heavens, it's dangerous. Erik shouldn't feel this way about someone he's just met. Verdammt.
"Fame seems all too often to be considered interchangeable with celebrity nowadays. People can almost reasonably claim to know celebrities, splashing as they do their personal lives all over the Internet. I get the impression that while you may be famous, Mr Lehnsherr, you certainly aren't a celebrity."
He flashes Erik a kilowatt smile. Oh and if Erik didn't just melt slightly. What was this man doing to him?!
He's charming, without being smarmy, his Received Pronunciation accent and obvious intellect combining with his smile, the way he runs his tongue over his lips and those eyes to present a package that is almost too good to be true.
Intelligent and flirtatious. Sexy.
Dangerous....
"Thank you, Professor Xavier. I'll take that compliment. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Erik flashes a confident smile at this; one worlds apart from the wide-mouthed grin he sports on red carpets. He hopes he's not betraying the roiling lust that's threatening to break through his trousers at any second. The way he thinks about an altogether different type of pleasure...
Erik sees Charles raise that eyebrow again, is that amusement or something else in his eyes? Maybe Erik's not being as subtle as he'd hoped....
Charles smiles now. Well, beams. His whole face lights up like Erik's just made his day.
"The pleasure is mine, I assure you. It's not every day I meet someone who knows my name!"
"Well, I, er..."
Study you sounds wrong on many levels. Keep up with your work sounds both too casual and too pompous. Read your articles all the time because you're so CLEVER would just sound insane... Would like to crawl under the table and do obscene things to you is probably a little forward. And besides the point.
"I wanted to study Genetics. Back before. Before.... I admire your work, Professor Xavier"
Charles is either too polite or too insightful of Erik's inner wranglings to do anything other than increase the width of his smile. He glances down at Erik's torso, at where Erik knows his roll-neck is stretched just this side of too tight over his chest. Erik barely suppresses a smirk.
"Well that's something I now know about you. I promise I won't tell...And it's Charles, please, just Charles."
Both of Charles' eyebrows are raised this time. It looks cheeky.
Erik laughs. It's either that or sink to his knees and start on those obscene things...
"Yes, yes of course. Well Charles..."
Erik weighs the name on his tongue, considers how to pull himself together for long enough to have dinner with this man.
"I'm Erik. And I don't know about you but I'm ordering the sole..."
He smiles at Charles, beginning to relax. Yes, he can do this. Act like a grown up. Not drool all over the table...
They proceed to order. Charles asks him about his views on a recent article he's read and it turns out Erik's read it too.
Erik shares some of his thoughts on Charles' work, desperately trying to not come across as too ignorant. It takes quite a bit of concentration to not get distracted by that tantalising 'v' of skin at Charles' collar, exposed as it is but Erik manages it. He's amazed that he can string two coherent sentences together, to be honest.
Charles listens attentively, his eyes fixed on Erik. He firmly rebuffs Erik's self-chastisement, insisting that what he's saying has merit.
Erik feels energised, by the conversation, by the attention, the interest Charles shows in what he has to say. It's almost enough to make him forget that this man also interests him for other reasons. But not quite.
Charles moves on to speak about his love of theatre, a subject that at times in the past has made Erik uncomfortable. Charles makes him feel like his profession has merit, that it's not simply something that anyone could do.
(Erik still feels the sting of that comment, uttered by an ex-boyfriend when Erik broke off their mediocre relationship. It was upon his departure from Germany to take on his first role. You'll come crawling back, you'll see. It's not like you're going to make it big... In all honesty, he was still striving to prove Sebastian wrong.)
Erik marvels at how easy conversing with Charles is. He doesn't think it's just the low buzz of arousal that has continued to thrill through his body that has made the night so good.
The conversation turns to the latest production of Waiting For Godot that debuted in London only a fortnight before and Erik tentatively shares that he was in a performance as a 16 year old, playing The Boy in his Gymnasium's interpretation.
Erik continues to be charmed by Charles' enthusiasm and effusiveness. He's more than a little impressed with the man's knowledge of literature and the London stage and he finds himself more than a little pleased that he'll be returning to tread the boards in Othello in a few months' time. He's also more than a little horny.
Charles is quite something. He makes Erik think, really think, intellectually stimulating in a way Erik hasn't experienced since his teens. All this in spite of the fact that Erik is coiled tighter than a spring, imagining taking Charles up to his hotel room, spreading him wide and sinking into him...
He imagines Charles' students must be enthralled during his lectures. And not just because of the arse he studies as Charles saunters to the men's room as their coffees arrive.
Moreover, Charles makes Erik laugh. Deep belly-laughs borne of genuine amusement at anecdotes recounted and observations made by the man. He is utterly enchanting and Erik is enchanted.
The conversation eventually drifts towards its conclusion, having briefly touched on Erik's reasons for being in Oxford - more specifically this restaurant - at 11pm on a Sunday.
"A lot of the filming was at studios in London, but the director decided while editing that some of my lone scenes would be better set on location, hence my return. Because it's just me, they suggested intensive filming over two days. It's just as well, as that's all my schedule allowed... So here I am. To be honest, all I want to do is sleep for about two days straight but I'm due at the airport at 5pm so I guess I'll snatch what I can back at the hotel and try to sleep on the plane...."
How Erik resists the urge to say All I want to do is take you back to my hotel room and ravish you is something that he will probably need to puzzle over at a later date.
"I'm headed over to London - to a conference - myself tomorrow," Charles states, briefly tilting his right wrist to glance at his watch.
"Or today, as it now is! Goodness, my friend, it's terribly late and I fear I have kept you from your sleep far too long to be polite."
Charles flashes Erik an apologetic smile before he gestures to the waitress who appears to have already printed their check, presumably out of a desire to accelerate her own departure.
Erik stares at the man, wondering where the flirtatiousness disappeared to. He seems anxious. Erik berates himself. He hasn't done a very good job of being subtle after all.
Charles glances at the total and pulls some bills from his wallet, depositing them on the small tray before rising to his feet and moving from the table, pulling his long woolen coat over his shirt and jumper and winding a sky blue scarf around his neck. Erik wistfully bids goodbye to that enticing patch of skin and instead rakes his gaze back over Charles. Even with the coat he cuts a striking figure. Erik would quite happily peel it off the man again, preferably somewhere less public.
Before he can reengage his brain from its appraisal of Charles' really very attractive person, Charles is offering his hand again in an all-too-soon echo of their first interaction.
"It's been a genuine pleasure, my friend. And a stimulating one! I'm so pleased to have met you."
Erik takes Charles' hand, grasping it a little too tightly as he shakes it. He wracks his brain for something, anything to say to delay Charles' departure. He finds this man fascinating. He was attracted to his mind before and now he's seen the rest of him he's very definitely attracted to his body.
Charles flashes that smile again.
Shit. Erik thinks. I could fall for this man.
It's just his luck that his brain seems to realise this, despite probably having migrated south some time ago, and won't engage with his mouth. He manages to stutter out,
"Yes, thank you, it was...lovely getting to know you..."
He winces. It's not even close to what he wants to say.
Charles flashes a lightning-bright smile, the broadest of the evening.
"Yes, my friend, it really was."
And with that, he turns to leave, through the door and out into the night.
It's only when Charles has disappeared from view, Erik's gaze following his hunched form across the restaurant's large front window as he fought through the driving rain, that Erik allows himself a moment or two to reflect on what's just happened.
Professor Xavier - Charles - was amazing. And stunning. They'd talked. They'd gotten on with one another. Their conversation had been easy. They'd both flirted - or so he thought - and it had been electrifying.
Erik hadn't experienced anything like it in a very long time. Hell, he didn't think he'd felt like this ever.
He realised with a jolt that he was half-hard. And half in love with Charles Xavier.
Shit.
Clearly Charles hadn't felt the same way. The man had no difficulty leaving the restaurant - and Erik. Had simply walked away.
Erik shakes his head, using the physical action to try to clear his infatuated brain. It doesn't help.
He readies himself to leave. Glancing at the check, he realises that Charles has left enough money to cover both their meals.
His stomach lurches. He feels an almost overwhelming surge of affection for the man who has already walked out of his life.
Shit. Double shit.
He adds to the generous tip that Charles has left, conscious of the late hour and makes his way to his hotel, trying to keep his thoughts from ones of Professor Charles Xavier