Work Text:
“Erik,” Raven’s knuckles rapped on the doorframe to Erik’s office, lips pulling back into an amused smirk when Erik glanced up from his sketchbook. “Emma’s calling a meeting, c’mon.”
“What?” Erik grunted, sitting back and wincing when his upper back cracked loudly. He set his pencil down, stretching his fingers and hands to work out the aches in them. “We just took on a project last week, we can’t be doing another one already.”
Raven shrugged submissively, “Not my division, I just make things look pretty. I think its just a team meeting anyway.”
Erik forced down the flare of irritation that was rolling inside of him, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to be able to ride the sudden inspiration for his design now that Emma had so gloriously decided to interrupt it. Gathering his sketchbook and pencils, as well as a kneadable eraser and ruler, Erik followed Raven towards the conference room.
Alex and Hank were already there, with Azazel in the corner and Emma sitting at the head of the table and looking over a sheaf of paper. Raven and Erik took their seats silently, watching Emma glance up and raise an eyebrow on the smothered grin she received from Raven.
Erik set out his sketchbook as Emma stood, and instantly started to talk about employee performance. He tuned her out for a good minute, struggling to grasp his previous spark of inspiration when he heard her say his name.
“Say what?” Erik picked his head up, taking note of how everyone was now staring at him with varied looks of amusement. Emma sighed grievously, hand on her hip.
“You’re unhappiness is showing through your work, Erik. We need you to step up and put a little more emotion into what you produce.”
Erik gripped his pencil tightly, pinching his eraser between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. “Excuse me?” He grounded out, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise.
Raven placed a hand gently on Erik’s wrist, but he jerked his arm back. Just because Charles had been deployed in Afghanistan for the past two-and-a-half years, did not mean that she needed to replace her brother as a source of comfort. Emma tilted her head, giving him one of her customary blank looks and tapping her chin thoughtfully with one perfectly manicured finger.
“Perhaps you need some motivation. We can’t have our team falling apart because of one weak point, can we?” Emma mused, smirking cruelly at Erik. Her eyes flickered up to look beyond Erik for a moment, grin widening to almost wicked as Erik pushed himself out of his chair.
“Look here, bitch,” Erik snarled, releasing his pencil before he snapped it on accident. “I don’t need any godamn motivation from you. I’m as happy as can fucking be, given the circumstances. I do the work and we get paid, there’s no issue here but you and -”
“What circumstances would those be?”
Erik felt his heart stop, ears ringing loudly in his head as if stunned by the sound of Charles’ voice from somewhere behind him. Raven’s fingers were grabbing at his hand, catching his kneadable eraser before he dropped it as Erik whipped around so quickly he nearly lost his balance.
Charles grinned at him, sliding his military-issue duffel bag from his shoulder and making his fatigues swish loudly at the action. His back was rigid, hair shorter than Erik could recall, and body filled out with twice as much musculature than it had possessed three years prior.
Erik only remembered to breathe when Charles’ smile grew wider at the shocked expression on his boyfriend’s face, and was across the room before anyone else had a chance to blink. Charles threw his arms up before they’d even touched, finding their home around Erik’s neck as he was dragged forcefully into Erik’s chest. He brought his legs up, hooking them behind Erik’s back and clinging to him.
Erik crushed Charles’ body to his own, face pressed tightly into Charles’ shoulder as a sound of disbelief escaped him. He clutched to the back of Charles’ head, his other hand tight around his boyfriend’s back as tremors began to wrack his body. Charles was here, Charles was home, in his arms, safe and warm and smelling like an airport, but he was /here/.
Erik tried to say these things, but his voice was muffled and he couldn’t remember how to breathe right, nor did he want to let go of Charles enough to bother making sense. Charles’ legs were like a clamp around his hips, breaths shaky and uneven into Erik’s neck.
“Y’r’here,” Erik sobbed eventually, sniffling loudly as his eyes burned with tears. Charles whimpered, and Erik began to rock their bodies back and forth gently as another sob escaped him. Erik could hear Raven sniffling and Hank and Alex talking quietly to one another, congratulating Emma on making Charles’ visit a complete surprise by being a total bitch, (‘Thank you, boys, it wasn’t much effort at all.’) but he didn’t care.
“Ohgod, Charles,” Erik choked, held so tight that Charles was nearly crushing the air out of him. “Charles, Charles - Charles, I-”
“I know, I’m here,” Charles said softly, giving a loud sniff and shaking violently in Erik’s arms. “I’m here, its okay.” As Charles spoke, Erik’s legs began to weaken and he lowered them both to the ground while leaning against the wall for support. Charles, now seated in Erik’s lap, pulled away just enough to stare at Erik with a watery smile and cheeks splotchy from his tears. His mouth trembled, his right hand shaking as it came up to cup Erik’s jaw. Erik sniffled, turning and placing a slow, strong kiss into the heel of Charles’ palm.
“You’re here,” Erik said into Charles’ hand. Charles breathed out a sudden, weak laugh and the hand that Erik had behind Charles’ head gave a slow pull. Charles went with the movement, lips wet and salty when they pressed against Erik’s own.
Erik clung to him, mouth parting, pressing and begging to be closer all at once. Charles kissed him again and again, and Erik drowned in it until he felt raw and exposed, oblivious and unaware as to when his coworkers had left the room. Charles made a soft gasping noise into Erik’s lips, mussing his hair up the way his fingers dug desperately against Erik’s scalp.
“I missed you,” Erik said against Charles’ mouth, “I thought you had another year, but you’re here,” he mumbled breathlessly between kisses. Charles began to pet Erik’s face gently, slowing down the urgency of the moment before he finally drew back to rest their foreheads together.
“You’re here,” Erik repeated numbly. Charles laughed, grinning as another tear dripped from the edge of his eye, hitting his cheek and sliding down his jaw.
“- and here is where I’ll stay.”