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Erik couldn’t remember the last time he had celebrated anything, or felt the desire to. Almost 20 years since he and his family were removed from their basement home in Germany and sent to Poland, the most he’d ever done to partake in anything remotely celebratory had been a rather poor Christmas when he’d been 20. Since then, he did his best to get either completely drunk or lose track of the dates whenever something remotely resembling a holiday approached.
Still, in those 20 years, perhaps this was the best time to actually celebrate. The successes had finally come rolling in for the younger mutants, and Alex’s triumph today was the latest. Charles had even cracked an ancient bottle of champagne from the cellars, and Erik could still taste the bubbles on his tongue.
He could only imagine how the others were doing now, seeing as Sean had managed to get the bottle away and run into the gardens with Alex, jeering the blonde boy into something he didn’t quite care about. Charles had let them, rolling his eyes, but Erik knew he wasn’t really angry.
He knew a lot about Charles now, it seemed. An awful lot. But, as he continued to the library, there was still something he didn’t know and he wanted to get an answer to. He pushed open the door to the library, looking around; there was no sign of the telepath.
“Charles?”
“In here, my friend!” Charles’ voice lofted from somewhere in the bookcases, and a minute later the wavy haired young man appeared, grinning ear to ear. “Erik, well this is a surprise,” he said, disappearing a minute later. Erik smiled, hands in the pockets of his slacks, and walked over, joining him in the tight row.
“The good kind, I hope,” he said. Charles wagged a finger, a cheeky light in the blue of his eyes and Erik was forced to focus on the gentle curve of Charles’ exposed wrist bone so as to not get completely distracted.
“You’re always a good surprise.” Erik raised an eyebrow, and Charles flushed lightly. “It’s true!” he insisted.
Well, that was potentially an exaggeration, given the one time Erik had walked in on Charles masturbating in their Oklahoma hotel room, but he’d take Charles’ words for what they are. Besides, the event hadn’t been horrifying more than simply embarrassing. They’d both made time for themselves, and Erik had simply shown up in the middle of Charles’ completely by accident.
That was what he’d believed at the time, that it was an accident, something that sometimes happened to friends, that he was sorry and it wouldn’t happen again. What he hadn’t counted on was after Charles had left to get them dinner and he’d taken a shower, to jerk off to the mental image of Charles’ fist around his cock and to come harder than he had in a while.
It wasn’t that Erik had a thing against men, he’d figured himself to be bisexual a long time ago and stopped giving a fuck about it quite soon after (being a mutant, why deny all that who he was?); it was simply the fact that this was with a man who could read his mind and he did genuinely like Charles as a person. He’d kept his thoughts locked away, focusing instead on their mission and Shaw. It hadn’t been hard, given Shaw’s attack on the CIA base shortly after, but he never quite forgot the mental image. If he’d been a lesser man, he might have been content with simply that.
But it wasn’t in Erik’s character to simply drop the desire for Charles’ too red lips and cling to a one night shower dream; he was a hunter, and if he wanted something, then he’d either get it or at least taste it before slinking away. At this point, he didn’t have much to lose: he’d either get something he wanted (maybe needed), or he’d leave as soon as Shaw was handled (maybe leave anyways).
Charles paused in his walk, finger stilling on the spines of some Greek tragedies. “You’re not actually, are you?”
Erik froze, unease and annoyance at himself rising quickly; had Charles caught on to his intentions? “Not what?”
Teeth passed over the red of Charles’ bottom lip, and the shorter man looked up at him. “Leave. After Shaw’s... dealt with.” Charles looked incredibly uncomfortable; despite neither of them speaking about, Shaw’s fate still rested in two very different planes for the both of them. Erik frowned, reaching over and tapping the top of one of the bindings.
“Depends. I may, I may not.” He dropped his hand, deliberately skimming the tips of his fingers over the back of Charles’ hand. He didn’t miss the way Charles’ cheeks rosied slightly. “I don’t make promises where Shaw’s concerned, save when they directly concern him.” Shaw was dying, there was no delicate way of saying it. Charles swallowed, nodding and looking up at him. Erik felt the iron in his blood heat a little; he’d never met anyone with eyes so blue, and he still didn’t know what to make of them.
“I suppose that’s all I can ask for,” he said finally, quiet and soft in his lilting accent. Erik smiled in return, slightly apologetic.
“I don’t make promises I know will likely be broken, Charles.”
It was Charles’ turn to smile, and he patted Erik’s shoulder, the gesture less awkward than it should have been given their height difference. “Then you’ve more stomach than I, my friend.” Charles made to brush past him, but Erik seized the man’s bicep, stopping him and positioning the both of them almost chest to chest in the tight row between the bookshelves.
“Don’t say that,” he admonished. “I don’t believe your promises will be broken.” Charles said nothing at first, his eyes wide and unblinking, unreadable. The silence stretched, thick but not stifling, an ocean of unsaid things suddenly floating before them.
“No,” said Charles finally, his voice quieter than before, “But I also don’t think you’ll be here to see them either.” Erik didn’t miss the hurt in Charles’ voice, but there was something else there that made him narrow his eyes, something he couldn’t quite identify. Charles blinked, something akin to startlement in his gaze. Erik leaned close, their noses almost touching, but anything else not in the forefront of his mind.
“Just because I may not be here to see them come true doesn’t mean I don’t want them to,” he said fiercely. True, he thought most of Charles’ methods better off in fairy tales or nursery rhymes, but the young telepath wanted nothing more than a good world, a just world for them all, but for them in particular. He would never deny that of him, ever.
At least, he hoped not.
Charles shivered slightly, Erik catching the way his eyes closed slowly and opened quickly, pupils constricting in the light again. But, they didn’t appear to be as small as before. Iron resolve formed solid in his gut, and his grip firmed, trapping Charles there. He wouldn’t get another chance. He didn’t miss the way Charles swallowed, nor the taste of alarm at the very edges of his thoughts. But if Charles REALLY didn’t want this, he’d say, right?
“Erik, please let me go, I should go see where the boys have run off to‒”
Alright, he had, but Erik knew he’d really never get another chance like this, not now.
“No,” he growled out, and before Charles could move, think anything, he crushed his mouth against the younger man’s, any attempt at being gentle or loving completely forgone. Their teeth clicked, for a small moment Erik thought he tasted blood, but the heat, want, need he’d been feeling for so many weeks now made him push away the small hurts, even if they were hurting Charles. He wanted to remember this kiss when he murdered Shaw and probably shut off whatever path he had here in Westchester.
When the kiss hadn’t changed in anything but fierce pressure and heat for several seconds, Erik loosened his grip on Charles’ arm, about to step away when something happened that he hadn’t expected to happen: Charles’ fingers fisting and knotting in his turtleneck, keeping him there. Then a tongue licking at his lips, wanting in, more, and Erik almost broke the kiss again in shock. He had not expected Charles to reciprocate in any way, shape, or form; he hadn’t even known Charles was attracted to men, he flirted with Moira enough. He’d thought him only keen on women‒
Oh.
Well, if the way Charles suddenly canted his hips against Erik’s, and Erik was certain there was a bulge that hadn’t been there less than a minute ago, was a hint, then Charles did not exclusively go for women.
For some reason it made his head spin even more than the kiss had, and he finally, fully, responded to Charles’ tongue, letting the man in and explore him in a most intimate way. Wet and hot and slick, tongues dancing, heat being traded between them, intensity, everything warm and thick and wonderful. Erik had never experienced a kiss like this in his entire life. It was perfect.
“Charles, I think‒what the HELL‒?”
Moira’s voice cut through their kiss, and suddenly Erik’s mouth was empty and filled only with the vague taste of champagne and something earthy and wholly Charles. His mind, however, was not. Flashes of joy, hope, lust, fear, irritation, defiance, and so many other emotions zipped about his brain. They’d been caught, and Charles didn’t seem to be handling it with the most dignity. Erik turned, looking back at the CIA agent, pasting on the most arrogant, gleefully defiant expression he could. She was staring at them, mouth agape and skin turning a rather interesting shade of blotchy red. Whatever she’d been trained for, walking in on an Oxford professor and a criminal busy playing a thorough game of tonsil hockey had probably not been in the instruction books.
“I-we‒” Charles floundered, his projecting becoming stronger as he desperately tried to find a way to explain this away. A smile spread over Erik’s features as he finally let go of Charles and began walking (well, strutting) away, not giving a damn about the look of revulsion and fury Moira was giving him, followed by further disgust when she saw the way the front of his trousers had tented. He flashed her devilish smirk, perfectly content to rub it in her face that Charles, the perfect professor Xavier, had been kissing him and made him hard.
Jesus, Erik, stop, she works for the government‒
I couldn’t give a damn about what she does or who she is right now. And frankly, neither should you.
Although Charles said nothing, Erik felt the telepath’s indignation, guilt, and... stubborn triumph. That kiss had turned from a test to something so very solid. If Erik did leave after Shaw was dead, then at least he’d know what a kiss, a TRUE kiss felt like.
And, as he left to the sound of Charles and Moira heatedly snarling at each other, he was quite sure Charles would too.