Archive of Our Own

It was a truth universally acknowledged that college student equalled broke .

No matter what Raven said – when you had survived on watered down soup and ramen to avoid holding sharpened down Prismacolor pencils with tweezers, it wasn’t so much exaggerating as it was actual truth. Especially counting in the fact that he worked six days a week to simply afford the luxury of eating, Erik gave himself the freedom to claim that statement true.

Late Friday nights the studios were guaranteed to be unoccupied. Between shifts and classes, it was also the only time Erik managed to book them. No one else but occasionally Ororo, another undergrad specializing in Sculpture, would ever sacrifice that much sleep for something as studio time. However, for Erik, getting studio time was essential for progress. Studios were spacier than the dorm rooms and, most importantly, entirely devoid of people. Here, there was no one to burst into the room looking for Charles, no annoying singing or eating or whatever else noisy pastimes college students could come up with.

It was a small bit of peace to sit here, in the darkness, just working away.

From Shaw’s class, he had five ten minute sketches, and the two half hour ones that needed some serious touching up. His high school art teacher, Ms. MacTaggert, always said his technique was immaculate, while gently but unsubtly herding him towards college. In Professor Shaw’s hands, it was a trait which had saved his life multiple times and as long as he could work on his speed, he’d survive this year too. He was still a far way from it, though, and until he could produce a good, well-rounded sketch in less than 45 minutes, the midnight sessions would stay a routine.

Too early, dawn reared its ugly head outside the panorama windows, cutting into his eyes. By his feet, the coffee thermos was empty, but the sketches looked like they should. After brushing away the eraser bits, Erik carefully stored them in his portfolio and left the studio complex altogether. Campus was quiet this early in the morning. With the air still crisp and the sun red on the horizon, it was so different from the days, when people hurried back and forth, crossing your path and generally being in the way. It was better like this. Serene and quiet; The only real downside was that he had to sit through History of Art in Central  Asia on three hours of sleep.

In their building, the elevator was broken for the nth time and as he came up the stairs, he almost run into Jean from across the hall.  She was in running gear and gave him a bright smile and a bad conscience as she sprinted past and out into the early November morning. Erik remained standing on the landing for a minute, letting blood come back to his fingers and face. Fishing his keys out of his pocket he stepped into the dark room.

As any dorm room, it was cramped, but it wasn’t as awfully messy as it could’ve been. On the contrary, it was clean for two twenty-something boys –  Erik’s side immaculately so, and Charles’ could have been worse. A cardigan haphazardly  thrown over the back of a chair, a pile of folded laundry on the dresser and the desk was an absolute hazard of papers, books and mugs alike – but Erik could live with that.

Charles’ bed was empty; covers still pulled tight. The note on the whiteboard over it had a short note, spelling “ out with Emma and Tony; back by ten ” in Charles’ messy, future-doctor handwriting. Without thinking, Erik leaned forward and wiped it clean; leaving his palm black with marker dust.

Putting away the supplies by his easel, Erik stripped down to undershirt and boxers and slipped under his cold sheets. He set his alarm for three hours and was asleep within five minutes; exhaustion taking the better of him.

He didn’t hear Charles sneaking in an hour later.

The alarm went off way too early; right in the middle of that horror film-esque limbo between dream and wakefulness. His eyes didn’t fully cooperate, crusted shut as they were, until he was halfway into his jeans. Despite nearly stubbing his toe on the dresser, by the time he turned to Charles’ side of the room his brain was all too awake.

Charles was in bed, the sun barely missing his eyes where he lied sprawled out on his front, drooling onto his pillow. He still had his shoes on, and his limbs covered the entire bed. Erik remembered reading somewhere that people who slept in that position – the Starfish – were people who were open about themselves and their emotions. Erik slept like a soldier –  on his back with arms tucked against his sides.

His book bag was in its usual place by the door, so he shoved a hat over his ears and made the fifteen minute walk across campus to the Soc Sci building, blowing on his hands. In just a scant few hours, the campus had filled up with people, and where he could have walked unimpeded before, he now had to dodge several people too busy to step aside.

Raven was booting up her MacBook as he stumbled into the lecture hall. She looked up as his bag thumped down, squinting at him with equally swollen eyes.

“Shit, man. You look like death warmed over.”

Unapologetic in a charming way as well as a chatty drunk prone to life lessons and unsolicited relationship advice was the Raven he’d gotten to know during fresher’s week. With her wild red hair, blue skin and bracelets, he immediately knew that this was someone that he could trust, somewhat.

One of the first bits of advice he got, as they were sitting on the roof of the library with a bottle of stingingly cheap vodka Raven had gotten from her boyfriend Azazel, was that whatever he did, he should stay away from Emma Frost and Tony Stark.

“Because, as much as you might hate to hear it, you don’t look like a guy who would enjoy a one night stand.”

She’d paused to put the bottle to her lips, taking a big gulp, hissing and gagging slightly. “Holy fuck that’s strong. Anyway, they rank pleasure over feelings, if I am to put it all PC. They are rich campus sluts and you should guard yourself, pretty boy.”

Now, as he pulled out his notebook from a side pocket, Erik shrugged. “Night reservation.”

“Again? I know it’s exam season, but dude, you’re seriously going to kill yourself. Here.”  Sticking her hand into her pocket Raven held out an intricate metal casing filled with what looked like pralines.

Popping one into his mouth, crushing the chocolate casing with his molars Erik swallowed the espresso inside. “Thanks.”

Raven just grinned darkly. “Say that again when I have to drive you to the ER with heart palpitations.”

“Says the enabler,” he muttered under his breath, and got a vicious pinch in the ribs for it, just as Dr. Shapandar came walking down the aisle.

The lecture kept a high tempo and if he weren’t so used to furious note taking, Erik’s hand would be cramping by the end of it. There was still a tension build-up though and he once again cursed himself for not being able to use a laptop, or at least a portable keyboard to type the words into his phone.

He nearly dropped off in the last fifteen minutes, but Raven’s well-aimed elbow to the forming bruise remedied that. Afterwards, she asked him if he wanted to eat lunch with her in the cafeteria. Erik declined. She pursed her lips, clearly two seconds from telling him ‘ but it’s my treat! ’, before she thought better of it and left him to his own devices.

Something which, in some ways, was a lot better than free food.

Back in the dorms, their door was open, as were most of the rooms’ by this hour. Two doors down, Sean could be heard practicing the saxophone –  finally getting hang of the piece he’d been butchering for the last three weeks –  while their next door neighbors, Kitty and Betsy, were having an impromptu dance party, going by the rhythmic bass vibrating through the wall.

Inside, Charles sat cross-legged on his bed, reading glasses perched on his nose and his textbooks strewn all around. His head snapped up as soon as Erik put his bag on the floor with a thump.

“Morning.” He was in a sweater and his oldest pair of jeans. A slightly too tight and threadbare pair that a part of Erik wished he’d just throw away already.

“Morning,” Erik offered, peeling off his hat and coat; shoulders coated in a fine layer of frost.

“I went out and got coffee earlier. Thought you might want one when you got back,” Charles cocked his head towards his hazardous desk, where his USB heat coaster balanced precariously on a lopsided paper heap.

Erik stared at it for a moment.

“I promise, it’s not poisoned. Neither with sugar, milk nor hot water. Just plain black.”

It was moments like this that Erik couldn’t stand. He wanted to protest. But, when Charles seemed so hopeful, waving a white flag for a war which he didn’t know the cause to, it was impossible. Utterly impossible to do anything but force a smile and comply.

“Yeah.” Erik took a sip. It was the good kind too; the kind that went straight to your head, burned brightly all the way down your throat. The sort of coffee he’d tasted maybe twice in his life. “Thank you.”

“You looked like you needed it,” Charles said, and Erik knew it was just his mind playing tricks, but he sounded almost fond. “How was class?”

Had they been like others – or if Erik had been – they would be way past this stage now. The awkward conversations. The awkward ‘ thank you ’s. Sometimes, it made him want to break something past the point of repair, but he had better control of his fickle emotions these days.

He answered nonetheless. “Like usual.”

“Do you want to have lunch later? It’s on me.”

His back towards Charles, Erik wrinkled his nose. He’d planned on simply eating noodles in bed (again) while doing some reading, but something about doing it in the face of a real, actual dinner, made his stomach drop.

“No,” he said.

“Oh. If you’re certain.”

Charles sounded slightly deflated, and damn it .  Why did it always come to this? Erik took another sip of the coffee – and damn it if it wasn’t it good coffee, “I still have leftovers. Bring it back to the kitchen, and we’ll eat.”

“Now?” Charles said, eyebrows climbing up. “It’s half past ten, Erik.”

“I can wait.”

“Two hours? I just need to read through this first.” Charles held up one of his chemistry tomes; sealing of a portion with two fingers. Probably around two hundred pages.

Erik shrugged. “Sounds good.”

Charles nodded at that, smiling one of his smiles. One of the more private ones, but still one that would get him in anywhere he wanted. And Erik hated how it still made a warm tingle open in his stomach, bittersweet like poking a bruise.

Ducking his head, Charles went back to his scribbling. There was an eyelash stuck on his cheek and Erik was struck by this urge to lean forward and brush it away, but held himself back.

Clearing his throat – there was a soreness there he should be careful about – Erik picked up his sketchbook. This late into the semester it was almost full to the brim, so closing off an area in the upper corner, he continued to practice hand poses. The fact that he practiced on Charles’ hands – the sturdiness, the gentle way he held his pen, his frayed cuticles and bitten nails and flat knuckles – was simply because they were the only ones in vicinity.

Easy as that.

The rasping of their pencils against paper contributed to the ambient noises and conversations filtering in from the hallway, creating a comfortable near-silence. One that Erik wished could just gone forever. Pathetic as it might be, it was an opportunity to once in awhile look up from his sketchbook and take yet another mental snapshot of Charles’ wrists, neck, freckles or hunched shoulders and pretend that they were not only sharing a room, but a life.

If he could just blame Charles for it – and he should, he fucking should – he would. But instead, he kept doing it, no matter how pathetic it was.

Maybe an hour later and he was just finishing up the little practice sketch, when Charles broke the silence. The winter sun glinted off the edge of his glasses. “Erik, are you doing anything on Saturday?”

An innocent enough question, but still something warmed in the pit of his stomach. Erik folded his sketchbook around his fingers. “No. Why?”

“Well,” Charles started, scratching his nose. “It’s Emma’s birthday – ”

The warmth turned cold. Erik didn’t bare his teeth, but it was too near a thing. “What does that have to do with me?” he asked, trying not to let something seep into his voice, even though his thoughts must be blaring with all that awfulness.

If he felt it, Charles didn’t show it. “She and Tony are quite curious about meeting you properly and I want – ”

Erik bristled. Always those two. It was like the world revolved around them and they constantly tried to suck Erik into their orbit like a satellite to be used only when they needed it. As if showing just how much they owned him, and how Charles would never keep him. Not for longer than a night; until something better came along.

“They want to see the exotic poor roommate, is that it?”

Charles opened his mouth. “I never said that,” he protested, blotches of red high on his cheeks. “Erik, I want to take you because – I simply want you to meet my childhood friends.“

It was out before he could stop it; spilling out from behind his teeth like crude oil. “No can do. I have a shift at work. Because, newsflash, Xavier, some of us actually have to work to earn our keep.”

All the sounds from the hallway suddenly filtered in; effectively clogging the air. Even though he just closed it, Erik flicked his book open again and continued sketching; his hands moving almost on autopilot, although his lines got thicker and harsher as he filled in an old landscape sketch even though it would only destroy it.

On the other side of the room, Charles sighed. “Fine. Be like that then.” The bedsprings squeaked as he stood up, put everything in his backpack. “I’m going out.”

“Fine,” Erik said to his back, even though every part of his being wanted to shout at Charles to stay.

Unsurprisingly, Charles didn’t answer, but neither did he slam the door behind him. Not like Erik knew he would’ve, had the positions been reversed. But no, of course Mr. Xavier never slammed doors or lost control; had never had the need to vent frustrations, because there was none to be found in his life.

Tossing his sketchbook down, Erik watched it bounce once before it fell onto the floor. It opened on one of the sketches from earlier this year, right before summer break. They’d been outside, in front of the library, and Charles had followed Erik out where he was supposed to practice structures. Instead, he’d fallen for that urge to immortalize Charles in some way, to keep him close, and yet not fully and in the end, he’d filled the page with everything but buildings.

Because here was the thing: Erik didn’t hate Charles. It was a common enough misconception, spread broad and wide, and to Erik’s defense, it wasn’t for lack of trying. He had tried. Endlessly, until realizing that it was never going to go away. It might seem like a lot of effort for something that would theoretically make things harder, but that was the whole thing; hating Charles would actually make things so much easier.

Because, if Erik could just hate him for being messy; hate him for being nice to everyone; his rich friends; for never having to be pitied by the hard science students; for inadvertently buying new ear phones every week, while Erik sat in the corner, winding metal wire around his stubbed pencils because he couldn’t afford to sharpen them anymore –

If he could just do that, then it wouldn’t hurt so much to wake up to Charles sneaking inside in the early morning hours, dishevelled and in rumpled clothes; reeking of smoke and someone else’s skin. If he could just do that, then –  

Then Erik would finally be able to hate himself a little less.

This thing with Charles was something that left his flanks all open. A huge tear in his armor that could be fatal for the right person with the right weapon, and Erik didn’t like that feeling one bit. Bodily harm, he could stand. If there was anything Erik knew it was that he could defend himself against any physical blow, being able to manipulate one of the fundamental forces of the earth and all.

It was the other kind. The kind that Charles Xavier was the embodiment of.

The kind that really hurt.

Most people, when asked why they’d chosen to go for an art degree, said it was something they loved. Something that made them happy, and if you only get one life, why not do something you enjoy? Some did it simply because they could; an act of rebellion paid with a fat trust fund. Some had put in more thought or it was their passion since art was too important to culture and society not to be upheld. One just needed to open a history book to see the traces of art in war’s wake and riot’s beginnings, from the French Revolution to the latest of the L’Homme Nouveaux recruit campaigns.

In the end it wasn’t really what had made Erik major in it at all. With his background – a poor mutant kid from Pittsburgh –  going to college majoring in Fine Arts wasn’t something you did. No matter what funding you got, you steered clear. If you were lucky enough to go to college at all, you studied something that would land you a profession good enough to pay off a part of your loans and support your family when everything inevitably went to shit.

To say it had been an easy choice was to stretch the truth to its breaking point. The simple answer was that it had been and still was a physical self-preservation thing.

At around fifteen, Erik’s mutation had flared up with a surge. Severe headaches, nosebleeds and blackouts had out of the blue become a daily chore, causing pain to everyone, including himself. Phones, television screens, vehicles and then the very force from the earth itself was enough to knock him on his ass and throw up like a pregnant woman every morning. Several weeks had also been spent in bed, just trying to survive; his mother watching over him when he was too weak to move.  

Still, they had postponed it for as long as possible, until the situation turned unsustainable. So, an excruciating drive to Boston, several undignified tests and a three day stay in the Mutant Investigation and Diagnostic Center later, Erik was sent home with an invoice, a diagnosis as an Omega level mutant and a bottle of blockers for emergencies.

In its wake, he dealt with a confusing mix of shame, rage and pride for about a year – skipping classes and fighting with his mother for the first time in his life. In the end, he chose the pride for his mutation and the low-level rage against institutions. Channeling the frustration, he joined the local LHN chapter and then he’d have to take art for credits in high school and found that it was the only thing that could distract him long enough to bring up a shield. Not digital stuff, but the simple movement of pencil and color on canvas was enough to make the buzz die down to a low thrum in the back of his mind, rather than the full on rage of white noise it had been before.

What he hadn’t counted on, was the sheer amount of hours he’d had to spend writing to get to the point where he’d actually got to do art rather than read tomes and discuss it in ten-page essays.

They were writing up an essay for the the Asian Art History Class, and the library was full with people in different stages of focus and/or panic. Erik was past the point of stressed and had entered the dissociative grey area where stress didn’t matter. Combined with his shift at work, he had gotten three hours of sleep, which might have been a contributing factor to that blissful state of calm. Raven, on the other hand, was dragging along two all-nighters, and had sneaked in a bag of candy ropes which she was making her way through, chewing loudly.

“So he brought you coffee, and now you’re telling me you haven’t seen him since, what, Wednesday?”

“No,” Erik flipped to another page in the tome. Advantage of art books; most of it was just reference images. “Maybe he finally learned my hours or something, but he’s gone.”

“Have you called the campus police? Because if it’s an abduction, you gotta – “

“He’s slept in his bed.” Erik jotted down the date he’d wanted to double check, not looking at Raven. ”I just don’t see him – he’s probably hiding at Emma’s.”

“I’d pegged you for someone to find that liberating, with all the times you’ve complained to me about him. I know I take the chance to walk around naked when Irene’s out doing whatever the hell she’s doing. Hell, let it breeze, man.”

Looking over the edge of his reading glasses, Erik said, “You walk around naked when she’s there too.”

To that, Raven shrugged and sucked in the rest of her candy rope with a slurp; ignoring the sharp hush from a student further down the table. “Point taken. She doesn’t mind though, and Az is used to it. But seriously, I don’t get why you’re so hung up on it? You’re not the first and not the last with the hot roommate problem, Lehnsherr.” Sending the student a grin, Raven flipped her off and turned back to Erik. “Why even care?”

It was a fair point. When he didn’t reply, a slow smirk spread across her lips. “Or, is it that you’re actually starting to melt, eh? You’re worried about him?”

Sending her a sharp glare, Erik clicked his teeth. “No. I just don’t want his bad habits traced back to me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Bad habits . Such as what? Drugs? Hookers? It’s not alcohol, because we both know how your underage ass like to engage in that.”

Clenching his jaw tighter, Erik jotted down a few names who might come handy in the discussion. Raven’s eyebrow persisted. “Have you ever thought about just, you know, asking him, like a normal person?”

Dismissing the colorful images of contemporary Tibetan art, Erik gave her a surly stare.

“Fine. But don’t come say you tried if he actually disappears and the FBI comes questioning you about his weird hours when a corpse show up under the bleachers.”

Not dignifying the statement with an answer, he closed the book, having jotted down the dates and names he’d forgotten from the last lecture. “He can take care of himself.”

“If you say so,” she said, punching the backspace on her laptop a few times.

In fact, Charles could probably pay himself out of any situation. Or, if it really came to it, mindbend himself out of it. Charles would not like it, and it would be a last resort sort of thing, but Erik wasn’t worried. Not about Charles’ physical health, at least.

Picking the thick book from the table, Erik pushed his chair back, standing up. Tearing her eyes from the screen, Raven squinted at him. “What? You’re finished?”

“No. I’ll finish it there ,” Erik told her, slinging his backpack over a shoulder and stalked away towards the desktops on the other end of the floor.

She didn’t follow, so he sat down on the too low chair, logged in, opened Word and got to work.

He was barely two paragraphs in when the headache started to spread like a crown around his head. The background buzz of talking students helped somewhat, but if it hadn’t been for the requirement to hand in typed assignments, Erik would’ve handed them by written by hand. Now, he just transferred  the words he’d written up the night before, on the bus home from his shift, into the computer and tried to keep his thoughts on anything but the building pressure behind his eyes.

This exam season was one of the worst yet. Apart from the essay he was finishing ( Tibetan Art through the Ages) and the practical one on Friday, there was the sketch project. Thirty progress sketches of a freely chosen object or person in different compositions, light and angles. It was similar to one Erik’d done in high school in smaller scale, where he’d chosen trees. MacTaggert had been impressed, and he’d used a few of them in his portfolio.

This time, well. Charles had simply been around a lot.

Last night, when he’d come home, Charles had once again been nowhere to be seen. Ever since Erik had snapped at him almost three days ago, there had been no sight of Charles Xavier at all. And as Raven had said, it was certainly an opportunity to take some time for himself to sketch. Maybe even mastrubate – the natural remedy for anything from sleep deprivation to magnetic headaches – which he hadn’t been able to do since he came to college.

It was the perfect opportunity, yet, he hadn’t. For some reason, the few hours he spent in their shared room, was not the same. Work got done at about the same spee (sketches 27-28), but it was with the same damn detachment that had snuck into his art process lately. One that unfortunately, Charles helped against, cliché as it was to have a muse these days. Because it wasn’t that Erik denied that it was nice to have Charles around.  

It was just that he wished it wasn’t.

The transferring of the essay took longer than he’d planned, so by the time he printed it out, it was nearing six. Raven had come by once to tell him she was finishing in her room – code for her talking and Irene phrasing her words into comprehension on paper – and after that, the library had slowly but surely emptied out. Erik was pretty certain he was the last one to leave.

It had since long turned ink black outside; the campus lit up by nothing but yellow squares from windows. Once again, it was calm and serene, and he only bumped into one harried student during the mile long walk to the dorms. Outside, it was cold enough that his fingers were positively frozen when he finally arrived, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Fridays meant that he could get about six hours between classes and his alarm going off at two for his booked studio. But as he came up the landing, their door was wide open, despite the fact that Erik never left it so.

“ – move out next year,” came a voice Erik had never heard before, light and cool. “Sooner rather than later. It is Kurt we’re talking about, after all.”

“You think I could do that? Without losing the fund?”

The tone in Charles’ voice made Erik stop ten steps from the door, breathing.

“Yes, sugar. All it takes is some timing – and that either you or him is halfway around the world when we do. We need to cultivate what we’ve got here, after all.”

His knuckles tightened around the strap of his backpack as Charles’ chuckled as the low-level rage flared in his chest. Clenching his jaw, he grabbed the strap a little harder, his knuckles going white, and went around the corner.

“So, if you get it done by the end of the week, we should be – oh, hello there.”

On the bed beside Charles sat no other than Emma Frost. With white brand jeans and diamonds in her ears she looked misplaced as ever in their cramped dorm room. She quieted as he came into view, and her pale eyes raked over him in an obvious onceover. Erik stared right back, clenching his jaw.

“Erik,” Charles’ face opened in a smile. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

Not answering, Erik dropped his bag by the door. “I have a reservation later. What is she doing here?”

She smiled. “Just visiting.”

Erik narrowed his eyes as Emma smiled, crossing her legs and tipping her toes up. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and her socks were as pristine as her skin.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” she said, still smiling in that way that made something cold trickle down Erik’s spine. “Charles has spoken quite highly of you.”

Erik’s spine stiffened. “He’s not mentioned you,” he spit, unloading notebooks from his bag onto the bed with stiff movements. “So you can’t be that important.”

“Erik,” Charles cut in, a vein in his voice now; a warning.

“Is that so?” Emma sounded amused, and Erik tugged off his hat lest he did something reckless. Smiling a shimmering smile, Emma turned to Charles. “No worries, sugar. I was just leaving, after all.”

“Emma, don’t make him – “

“It’s alright. Lehnsherr here needs to mark his territory, and as a lady, I can respect that,” she said, sticking her feet into a pair of ankle boots and pushed up from the bed. In the heels, she was nearly as tall as Erik. “Give me a call, would you?” she said, tapping her temple.

Also standing, Charles nodded. “Yes, of course.”

Emma put on her peacoat with a flourish, she nodded once at Erik, her mouth crooked into a knowing smirk before she stepped out the door and disappeared down the hall; Erik looked after her until she was truly out of sight.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Erik pulled his head back into the room at Charles’ sharp tone. “I’m not doing anything.”

Immediately, Charles’ features hardened even further – turning him into something very far from his usual exuberant and soft demeanor. Erik had only seen it once before, when the demonstration rally in town had gotten hosed down by the police and Sean and Alex had come back with bruises. Thankfully, that time it had only been bruises, all thanks to Erik and  Armando being able to pull them out before it got ugly.

Charles’ eyes were almost glassy, and sharp enough that you didn’t doubt for one second that he was one of the few Omega level telepaths in this generation.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

Bristling, Erik pulled at the zipper of his jacket. Hand-me down as it was, it always jammed at the worst times. “I came back to sleep, Charles. Excuse me for not being all friendly.”

Behind his back, Charles sighed. “Stop it. You’ve never had a problem with me bringing people over before.”

Because they had been people like Hank, or Sean or Armando. Because Erik knew them too; they were mutants and Alex and his brother worked the same shifts at the grocery store as Erik. They weren’t a blonde telepath in Abercombie and Fitch that looked at Erik like he was something that had gotten stuck under her shoe.

Erik pulled his sweater over his head. “Never this late.”

“Nonsense,” Charles interrupted. “You were incredibly rude to her. What happened?”

“I got three hours of sleep yesterday, Charles. Maybe that has an impact on my temper, but who knows?”

“Honestly, Erik, I won’t stand you being this nasty every time I try to talk to you – or anyone else, for that matter. If you’re going to be like this, you need to prioritize differently.”

Erik had never had a problem with nakedness in his life. His physique had always been on the spectrum of the conventionally attractive, so it was one of the few things he’d never had to battle shame against – one of the few advantages of going a few days without food so that Edie could save up enough to buy in bulk and keep them fed for a few months.

But now, as he stood there, he couldn’t pull off his shirt and jeans and just go to bed to spite Charles.

Physically, perhaps, but the block in his mind, the instinctual one telling him not to get too vulnerable in the face of a predator, stopped him. Instead, he turned around to look Charles straight in the eye.

“Stop pretending like you care.”

Squaring his jaw, Charles looked straight at him with something Erik couldn’t even begin to decipher. “I’m not pretending – you need sleep to function properly, and you are displaying obvious symptoms of sleep deprivation. I’m honestly worried.”

“Have it occurred to you that just perhaps I don’t have time to sleep?” Erik said flatly, just barely keeping back the tirade threatening to spill.

“You don’t have time to sleep?” Charles voice was incredulous. “ Make time to sleep then, Erik! You can’t just stumble in here at at six pm, looking like death warmed over, and demand that I shall fine-tune my sleep patterns after yours. Especially since it’s not what this is really about and I don’t appreciate you trying to make this about something else.”

“Really?” Erik scoffed. “What do you think this is about then? Tell me, Charles.”

Swallowing visibly, Charles pursed his lips. “That you have a problem with Emma. And that’s fine, but you can either keep it under wraps or tell it to my face.”

Gritting his teeth, Erik turned his back to Charles again. “I don’t have a problem with her.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “Don’t lie, Erik.”

Lying to a telepath was one of the stupidest things you could do. It was almost offending that Charles thought that lowly of him, but surprising. “Get out of my head.”

“I wasn’t – “

“Shut up, Charles.”

Bristling again, Charles took a step closer. “Godammit Erik, it was just Emma! You have nothing to worry about – she wasn’t going to steal anything.”

“I said get out of my head!” Erik hissed, going against his twisting stomach and pulled his shirt off; letting the cold air from the window slightly ajar brush over his skin, raising goosebumps. “Can you respect that? I put up with all of your mess, so if you could respect that, I’d be eternally grateful.” Charles sighed – a deep sound that Erik purposely ignored. “If we’re done, I need to get some prioritized sleep now,” he added, and held up his earplugs resting on his dresser.

Charles shook his head and threw out his hands. “We’re not – Fine. Sleep, then.”

Erik pulled off his jeans so that he could crawl into bed. As soon as he was under his scratchy sheets, he turned his back to the room and tried to ignore the horrible feeling of cold creeping up his spine and go to sleep.

He didn’t succeed until Charles had turned the light off and gone to bed as well.

It hadn’t always been like this, though.

They had been informed, sometime during the spring his freshman year that they were dedicating dorms for mutants only to try and reduce the conflicts. Erik’d signed up right away. It was a bit further from campus, but the building was newly renovated,  and so there was no time for reconsideration. Together with Alex and Armando from the same floor, he’d packed his stuff into boxes and they’d moved out as soon as they got the chance.

He’d gotten a room with an assigned roommate on the fifth floor. Fifth floor was also top floor, and with an elevator that seemed to have given up for an unforeseeable future, there was really nothing that could’ve prevented Charles’ first impression of Erik from being a panting, sweaty, annoyed mess in the rattiest of all t-shirts.

Charles had been kneeling on is bed, in his too tight jeans, putting up a string of fairy lights with thumbtacks, when Erik had stumbled into the room, arms loaded with boxes and a string of cables hovering in the air.

Erik had fumbled before he’d put the box on the floor, electronics tossed on the bed.

“Hello,” Charles’d said, smiling widely, wiping his hands on his jeans before he reached it out to Erik. “Welcome. You must be Erik, right? Charles Xavier.”

“Erik Lehnsherr,” he’d said, taking Charles’ slightly colder hand in his. “You a fresher?”

At that, Charles had laughed; one of those deep belly ones that made you feel all warm inside and Erik forgot about the droplets of sweat running down his back and slipping into his underwear. “No, no! I’m a junior. Just came back from a year at Oxford.”

“You from there?”

“Nope – Westchester, born and bred. You?”

“Pittsburgh. What did you do in Oxford?”

Pointing towards a poster over his already made bed, Charles grinned. “Biology, focus on genetics. What about you? I don’t take you for the hard science type? Politics, maybe? Engineering?”

“No.” Erik’d said, a faint bitter taste around his molars. “I’m Fine Arts. Traditional. Sophmore.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for that, but that’s splendid! Important,” he said, smiling and one eyebrow raised. “So will you be one of those sneaking into the room at odd hours due to projects, I presume? You art people are notorious for your polyphasic sleeping habits, you know.”

“Hopefully not. I like my sleep schedule as it is. You?” Erik said, opening his box of clothes. Compatibility among roommates was of more importance than people liked to let on. But Erik had never been one for subtlety.

At that, Charles scratched his neck. “Weekdays it’s fairly regular. Have a habit of staying up late during weekends, but who doesn’t,” he said, shrugging.

Not looking up from his re-folding, Erik pointed out, “I don’t. I have work in the mornings.”

“You’re on scholarship?” he asked, and when Erik nodded, said, “I’ll promise I’ll be quiet, then?”

“Yeah. I’d appreciate that.”

“I can make myself invisible too, if you’d like,” Charles added, and when Erik looked up, he was smirking slightly.

Grinning back, Erik had replied, “Is that so?”

“Well, not really,” Charles had shrugged, easy and loose. “But I sure can make sure you don’t wake up when I come in. If you let me, that is.”

Erik frowned. “Let you? I don’t care if you turn invisible. Kind of the reason I moved.”

For a moment that Charles’ smile had turned a bit dim, as if he’d dreaded his own words. But it was gone as soon as it had appeared. “No,” he’d said, rubbing his hands on his jeans again. “I’m a telepath. So I’d need your permission before, you know, doing any tampering.”

“To make yourself invisible to me?”

“I’d be tinkering with your brain, and I don’t like doing things without consent. Just, to have that settled.”

Seeing that he obviously wasn’t active, Erik shrugged. “You can read it. It’s fine – we’re in mutant friendly housing for a reason.”

“Oh,” Charles’d said, looking down for a short moment before he smiled all the way up to his eyes; the corners crinkling. “That’s splendid. Thank you, Erik.”

“As long as you don’t make me think I’m a chicken or something when I eat your noodles on accident.”

Charles had laughed against at that; warm and kind. “I would not be that immature, even without the threat of arrest.”

“Good to know.” Erik had answered, feeling slightly warm in side; a banked fire of contentment. He did feel Charles’ eyes on him as he went back to his unpacking, but it was already then pleasant enough that he let it be.

He didn’t see Charles for a good week after that. His bed was slept in, but no matter what hour of the day, Erik was always alone. Dr. Shapandar’s written exam came and went, and he could spend a few days developing some basic ideas for the practical one coming up on Friday. Charles’ absence meant that he had the room to himself, but his ideas were stale and re-worked; lifeless, much to Erik’s growing frustration.

The morning of the exam, Erik woke up to the sun cutting into his eyes. Sitting up slowly, he leant back on his hands and took a deep breath. He might be awake, but it was such a long time since that had been a thing to look forward to.

Unsurprisingly, Charles was missing again – at this point, Erik had simply accepted that Charles was avoiding him –  so Erik paid no heed to being noisy as he pulled his jeans over his hips. Popped the button closed, pulled his belt on the inner hole for them to not slip right back down. There was probably something to be worried about there, just as the growing soreness in his throat, but there was simply no time. He collected a hoodie and a pair of fingerless gloves in case the studio got cold before going off to brush his teeth. With only three hours of rest in his bones, he picked up his coffee thermos along with his supplies by the end of the bed.

Just as he was about to leave, something caught his eye. On the top of his desk, there was a non-distinct paper bag. Picking it up, there was a note taped on the other side.

Good luck with your exam today. – C.X

Rubbing his face, stubble scratching his hands, Erik picked the bag up. A part of him wanted to be furious; anger bubbling up under his skin, itching and twisting as the paper crunched in his hands.  And yet – food was food. He picked it up and put it in his back together with his thermos and went on his way.

The art exam lasted for ten hours, and the administration had at least been merciful enough to give the students an early start and an early finish, without it being excruciating. Start at nine and closing at six was better than most got, if Ororo’s tales from her time at a SoCal uni were true, so Erik was smart enough to be grateful. Having a slightly retarded time also made it so that most students were either asleep still or already sitting in their lecture halls, and the campus was blissfully empty. Clouds hung low, threatening with a smaller snowstorm later, but it made the air crisp and clear to breathe.

Entering the Institution for Art and Humanities, Erik’s hands were still a bit cramped from the walk – to the point where he almost dropped his ID when he handed it over to the controllers outside the hall. Once inside, he set up his station in the far end of the hall, in the spot by the big panoramic windows. The light may shift during the course of the exam, but it was better than to not have any natural light at all.

With five minutes to spare, Rave showed up and dumped her bag by her easel – the ends of her brushes poking out under the flap.

“ Hi, handsome,” she said, blowing him a kiss as she tossed her jacket under her chair. “Ready to do this?”

“Define ready,” Erik said, putting his jars of water in a neat line on the floor. An organized painter was an efficient painter after all.

“ Well-rested, well-fed – in some cases, even well-fucked – and not running on caffeine and luck, I’d say.”

“ Then no.”

Raven looked at him at that, her easy demeanor falling away to actual concern. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

She went quiet for a bit as Professor Shaw entered the hall like he was walking into a courtroom instead of a hall filled with – well, mostly – innocent students. “You know what? I’ll take you out to food afterwards.”

Feeling that age-old anger well up, Erik turned to her, “Raven – “

“No buts. You deserve it. Get a grip, you paranoid moron,” she said, patting his knee once, before she leant back into her own seat lest Shaw caught her and threw her out for cheating.

“You are the worst,” Erik said flatly as Shaw went over the same instructions about cellphones and all the rules that would get their result invalidated and themselves thrown out on their ear.

“Nah. You love me, Lehnsherr, don’t deny it,” came the reply.

Afterwards – his hands in particular – felt as if it had taken a beating. His shoulders ached and he was sure he’d finally pushed his wrist into the territory of carpal tunnel syndrome once and for all. His head, however, was the clearest it had been; the white world greeting him and Raven as they exited the Art building with their classmates idly chatting around them; crafting exam parties and weekend plans.

The air hadn’t felt this good in his lungs in ages. The relief was almost enough to make him smile.

“So,” Raven said as they walked down trampled up aisle over campus, “since this is my treat, Lehnsherr, where do you want to go? What is your Jewish stomach craving?”

“I’m not observing, Raven,” Erik reminded her, but didn’t tell her to let his arm go when she stuck it in his.

“I had to ask though – can’t just assume those things!” She bumped her shoulder into his and then pointed to the left. “There’s a pretty neat diner just around the corner here, unless you want something else. Thai, maybe?”

“Diner’s fine.”

At that, Raven smiled at him – white teeth stark against her skin.

It was not late enough for the worst hordes of students with empty fridges to trickle in, giving them easy seats in a corner booth with a window. Raven did quick work of spreading out her coat and bag on her seat to make sure no one would sit down beside her.

“How did you do today?” she asked once she’d settled in.

Shrugging, Erik picked up the menu the waiter had left behind.  “Fine. I don’t think he’ll fail me. Finished with about half an hour to spare, and had time to look it over.”

“That’s as good as it gets, I suppose,” Raven nodded and closed her menu.“If he fails me, it’s because he doesn’t agree with me, but I know I didn’t do a bad job.”

Making a noncommittal noise, Erik closed his too when the waitress came by and took their orders before she walked off to another table. Raven leaned forward over the table – something that should’ve ticked Erik off hadn’t his brain been all but out, “So.”

“So, what?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she said, slightly offended. “What is the problem with your roommate this time? What is his deal that make you into a half-zombie even on exam day?”

“There is no problem,” Erik forced out after nearly a minute of Raven’s piercing stare eroding his defenses. “End of story.”

“Erik, didn’t anyone tell you in kindergarten that you need to communicate for relationships to work? Because otherwise, you’ve got yourself to blame.”

“You’re awful, Raven.”

“Right back at you, babe.”

The food arrived then – a steak for Raven and waffles for Erik – and they ate in silence for a moment. It was an experience to finally have something of substance after nearly a month on nothing but noodles, apples and coffee, so he tried to savour it the best he could. It also seemed like a good tactic for not talking – or at least it was until it became clear that Raven honestly wouldn’t let him leave the restaurant until he had told her about everything that had happened.

“Honestly. What did he do that fucked you over?”

“Nothing,” Erik muttered. “He’s patronizing. Thinks I’m some kind of super human just because he is. I want to be out of our room as much as possible.”

“But you are a mutant, aren’t you?” Raven said, smirking into her milkshake.

Giving her a stare that would’ve killed her on spot, Erik dug into his waffles again, refusing to answer as he stuffed his mouth full.

Raven kicked his shin. Hard. “Hey. You have to elaborate if you want me to help you, man.”

Erik kicked back and stuck his fork into his waffle so hard it hit the plate beneath. “I don’t need your or anyone’s help.”

“You have my number on speed dial in case you need me to drive you to the ER, Lehnsherr. Hearing gossip about your relationship troubles with your obviously hot roommate is my pay,” she said, grinning around the straw. “Out with it.”

The cadence in her voice changed, going from that teasing jerk-around that he’d gotten so used to, into something with a lot more steel. Not that she’d got anything on Edie’s calm orders, but something about it got to him deeper down than he’d ever like to admit, lest he’d give Raven all but an open goal at him in further arguments.

Taking his time, Erik chewed out before he said, “He’s just careless.”

She pulled at her straw slow enough for it to squeak painfully. “With your feelings?”

“With everything. Doesn’t clean, doesn’t keep people out, and keeps– “Cutting the sentence off before he got too far, Erik just shook his head and continued eating. “Forget it.”

“Keeps what?” Raven prodded, her voice still in that odd purgatory between cold and soft that Erik had such a hard time connecting with her face.

“Keeps getting me stuff.” He stared right back at her. “He should know I hate when he does that,” he concluded, taking a sip of his water.

She raised an eyebrow. “Really now? What did I just tell you – ”

“He’s a telepath , alright? And he should know. Even you know I hate that.”

As the words left his mouth, it became clear that in all honesty, that was the root of the problem itself. The fact that Charles still, after all these years, couldn’t grasp how much Erik despised what he did. Or simply putting two and two together like any normal human being.

Raven frowned. “Let me guess; he doesn’t read your mind?”

“Not without permission.”

“Okay. Have you told him he could read it?”

“For emergencies.”

“Right. So have you ever considered that it might be because you’re brain is a very nasty place to be when you’re pissed off?”

“What are you getting at,” Erik said flatly.

“Nothing.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Nothing at all. Just that perhaps he’s got principles, you know? It’s all or nothing, as it usually is with telepaths. And he can’t know when or when not it’s okay to be inside your head.”

“Are you defending him?” Erik said slowly.

“I’m not saying he should be in your head all the time. Just that maybe, you’re relying on him to get things when you never really tell him. That you can’t just think that because he’s a telepath, he’ll get your every mood. Unless he’s an active one, like a certain Miss Frost.”

Having Charles in his mind like that made something cold travel down Erik’s spine. “He’s not active.”

“Right. So when was the last time you outright told him he was being an inconsiderate asshole?”

“Last week ,” Erik bit back.

“Really? Did you listen to him, or did you just shout? Because telepath or not, you can be kind of an asshole when you want to, and you’re impossible to talk to once you’ve got that side on.”

The argument died on his tongue, and Raven raised an eyebrow. Erik stared back. “Don’t say a thing,” he growled.

“I wasn’t going to,” she sing-sang, and only laughed when Erik shoved the last piece of waffle into his mouth, grateful when she let the subject drop to ask him if he was going to the student bar later that night.

They said goodbye an hour later – in the end, Raven took of towards a sorority party -- and walking back to the dorms took longer than it should have. Nearly enough for Erik to turn around to the library or literally anywhere else but the dorm. Ever since the run in with Emma, it seemed like the place was just waiting for another explosion – or in Erik’s case, an emotional meltdown that he didn’t have the time nor the inclination to experience at this moment.

A Friday night after exams meant that the dorms were mostly empty. All the doors were closed, and the only sound Erik could hear was the pacing of their upstairs neighbour, Mortimer and the soft sound of music travelling out from Kitty and Besty’s room. There was, however, a soft light filtered out from their half-open door.

Only Charles ever left it like that. Taking a deep breath, Erik hitched his backpack a little higher and swung the door open –

He stopped in the doorway, the bottom of his stomach plummeting out.

Sketches – the figure drawing sketches, the loose pages of his sketchbook, each and everyone of the hidden ones lay scattered on the floor. Some were face down, some were showing their faces towards the ceiling. All of this perhaps wouldn’t have been so bad, could maybe have been salvageable, if Charles – hair in disarray and bags under his eyes –  hadn’t been crouching in the middle of them, holding one of the better ones in his hands.

Erik dropped his bookbag. Falling to the floor with a thump loud, it made some of the lighter sketches flutter up from the floor. One  – practice sketches from last year hands eyes portraits portraits portraits – slipped under his bed; out of sight, out of mind.

Charles face was completely blank, save for his eyes. “I was just looking for a sharpener,” he finally said, and his voice made Erik’s stomach tighten to the point where the acid burned his throat. “I didn’t know you – you’re always so angry, and every time I’ve spoken to you lately, it’s as if everything I do –”

Erik crossed the floor in three steps, ripping the sketches – half body hair shoulders ambiance – off the floor, scrambling to get them together. A few corners ripped in his haste, but he didn’t care about anything but getting them back into the binder as fast as possible. Nothing. Blood rushed in his ears, so loud it blocked out everything else

“Erik,” Charles said, quietly, while Erik just stuffed them all into his portfolio. A part of him just wanted to bunch them together, rip them to pieces and throw it all in Charles’ face. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

That, off all things, was what finally made Erik snap.

“What do you think?” he hissed, straightening up from his crouch. He was trembling, his body tethering on the edge of fight or flight, vibrating.

“I don’t know,” Charles started, fragile where he was still kneeling on the floor.

“How could you ever like me like that?” Erik snarled, wanting to do as much damage as possible. Tearing and ripping whatever it was that had started to grow to shreds; damage it beyond repair. Scraping the last sketches of the floor like spilled guts, he sealed them in his bag, away from unwanted eyes.

Never looking at Charles, who had drawn in a sharp breath, but then gone utterly and completely still. “What?” he then whispered. “Is that really what you – “

“Quit it, Charles!” Erik nearly shouted, his voice clogging up like oil; staining his teeth black. “You can’t even see me as an equal – treating me like some kind of pet! Think I completely lack integrity?” The tear in his armour had passed right through, sliced a big slash in his stomach, and now he was just ripping his insides out, voice sticking to his ribs. “Why would I tell you. You have no idea about anything.”

Charles lips were bloodless and Erik couldn’t hear anything over the rushing blood in his ears. He wanted to take the last sketch out of Charles’ hands, but it was so crumpled it wasn’t worth it.

“Erik, that’s not true,” Charles started, hoarse as he tried smoothing out the crinkles on the sketch of his own face. “I’m not –  I don’t think that; I’d never think that! “

Still not looking at him, Erik snarled, “Don’t you dare make this about you. You know damn well why I never said anything..”

His hands shook as he grabbed his portfolio and bookbag; leaving behind Charles, still as statue on the floor.

Half-running down the stairs, heart pounding a storm in his ears. He’d still got his hat and coat on, so he didn’t stop there. Continued out through the door, out into the winter night and the small snow storm outside. He didn’t know or care where he was going, boots slipping in the loose snow as he ploughed forward, away from that infested room.

Somehow he ended up outside Raven’s door. The hallway was dark at first, but soon enough the motion sensors made the fluorescent lights flicker on. When they did, Erik could feel how his legs were shaking – how his entire body was just trembling with nothing that had to do with cold. He leaned against the wall, breathing in wet breaths through his nose, until he couldn’t remain standing any longer. Sliding down the wall, he pressed his forehead against his knees for a moment, trying to get his breathing under control.

His head was spinning, rushing in time with his pulse.

And then – it could have been anything, but it was the look on Charles’ face that had stuck on the inside of his eyelids, burned onto his retinas, and the one thing that Erik couldn’t take in this moment. Maybe it was the stress, maybe it was all the sleepless nights, work and exam stress. Maybe it was everything all together.

But it was enough to make a too wet breath catch in his throat before he had the chance to force it under control.  

It was close to midnight when he finally heard footsteps coming up the stairs. His body felt hollow, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, rather than just six hours ago. The lights flickered on, and stumbling up the stairs came Raven; cheeks flushed, hair in disarray and heels in hand. Her feet were furry, dusted with snow.

When her eyes fell on him, they were slightly unfocused, but cleared up once she saw who she was.

“Erik? What are you – ?”

The act of lifting his head to look at her was not easy, but he did it anyway. As soon as she saw that, she got quiet. For a moment neither of them said anything; Raven watching, Erik breathing. She broke the moment by looking away and fished her keys out of her pocket.

“Okay, let’s get in. Irene is out somewhere – still getting drunk, I gather. Come on.”

Grabbing his arm, she pulled him onto his feet, shoved him through the door and down on her bed. She manhandled him with ease  and once he didn’t have to rely on his legs anymore, the strings holding him up just cut. It wasn’t a sensation of breaking down as much as it was one of being tapped of the last resources he had.

Across the narrow room, Raven poured something into coffee mugs.

Erik had never been in her dorm before, just as she’d never been in his. It was wider, but not as long.  Her and Irene’s things seemed to merge together; no clear divide between Raven’s and Irene’s side, with how both their walls had posters and flags from the college and the LHN all over. In the corner of her desk, Raven had a few photos of people – Az’s red skin beside her own blue stood out from the background – while Irene’s was spartan, but that was also the only difference.

Not like his and Charles’, where Erik had one photo of him and his mother and his carefully stacked notebooks; Charles’ looking like a bomb had went off on his desk.

“Here you go.”

Erik took the mug Raven held out to him – a Mutant and Proud one from the successful 2009 campaign – and took a sip. Whatever was within burned his throat for a short moment; warmed his fingers and made him forget about his swollen face.

Putting her phone into the charge station, Raven turned to look at him. “I guess that went to hell?”

Looking up from his mug, Erik squinted at her. She grabbed the her chair and straddled it; arms resting on the backrest.

“What did he do – or say – that made me find you crying outside my door. Confess his love and you can’t handle it because you’re emotionally unstable?” There was nothing left inside him to do anything but glare at her, to which she just shrugged, rocking the chair from side to side as she did. She was quiet until he was about to put his mug down. “Drink that up; it’ll do you good.”

Erik took another sip of whatever drink she’d poured. “He didn’t confess anything.” Feeling the haze of drunkenness settle in, he just shook his head and stared into the bottom of the mug. “He found my sketches.”

The motion in his periphery stopped. “What was on them?”

“Not what you think.” Erik rubbed his temples. “Him, of course. Practice sketches, mostly. For – “

“The thirty sketch project?” and when Erik nodded, she made a face. “Ouch. That doesn’t look good.”

Instead of answering, Erik drained the mug of its contents, ignoring the way the room vibrated for a moment before smoothing out. It was as if his skin had been peeled off and everything hit him with a force that stung and bruised at the same time. It was almost the same as when he’d been lying on that bench five years ago and the people drained his blood again and again until the inside of his elbow throbbed and looked like he’d been stabbed with a blue ink pen.

“You need to explain that it’s not, you know – ”

Erik snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Raven pummeled on – drunkenness smoothing away all careful edges. “Did you try to explain it, like at all?”

“I’m not dealing with this right now, Raven,” Erik snarled at her.

“That’s on you, pretty boy. But this is not going away – he’s going to think all the wrong things unless you explain that hey, dude, it’s not like I’m in love with you or anything, because your inconsiderate ass is driving me crazy but you’re also the easiest to draw because you’re usually –  ”

Sighing, Erik buried his face in his hands. “I can’t do that.”

“What?” Raven asked, tilting her head to the side. “It’s the easiest part.”

“I can’t say that to him.”

Raven sighed dramatically, “And why the hell not, Erik? Seriously, you know talking to you is like talking to a child – “

“Because it’s not true!” Erik spit, looking up from his hands.

Raven held her ground on the chair, staring at him with steady yellow eyes. “And there it is.”

Erik didn’t answer. He couldn’t deny it, since it was the point of the whole thing – the kernel of the conflict itself – but still he couldn’t say it out loud. “It’ll never happen.”

“With that attitude, sure won’t. He gets up at the ass crack of dawn for normal people to get coffee for when you get back from your nightmare sessions, he leaves you food for your exams and gets mad at you when you don’t sleep. That doesn’t sound like someone who hates your guts to me – more like a married couple.”

“You don’t get it,” Erik gritted between his teeth. “He does those things because he thinks he’s ‘nice’ . Like I’m some kind of pet that needs to be taken care of, rather than an equal with my own finances.”

Raven narrowed her eyes. “Is that what you think of me too?”

“No. I don’t think anything of you,” Erik said, flatly.

“I’m not kidding. Do you actually think I pity you?”

It was true that she didn’t exude that itching, smothering atmosphere that some people did, but on the other hand, there were traces of it from her too. Not enough to make him stray away from her, because she was, after all, the most like-minded individual he’d managed to find on the entire campus.

The hard punch to his arm came out of nowhere. “What the fuck , Raven!”

She stood up before she dropped down beside him on the bed, bouncing a bit. “To get your head out of your ass,” she said. “Come on, Erik. I’m not your sugar daddy.”

It was an open goal. “Wouldn’t it be sugar mama?”

Raven wrinkled her nose, cuffing him in the back of the head. “Ugh. Don’t be gross.”

Erik pinched her ribs in revenge, and for once, she took it with just a flinch and no retaliation. Instead, she slung a warm, sculpted arm around his shoulders and shook him a bit. “By the way, Charles isn’t your sugar daddy either. Unless there’s something you’re keeping from me.”

“If he is, it’s a shitty bargain for both of us.”

“So re-negotiate the terms,” she said, standing up so that she could pull him off the bed. She planted a messy peck on his cheek. “Now that you’ve got some liquid courage in your veins, go talk to him. Don’t leave until you’ve actually told him what bothers you, instead of this denial thing you’ve had got going on for way too long. If not for your own sake, then for mine. Because as long as you’re here, I can’t call Az so that he can eat me out for a couple hours, like I’d planned to do before you came here.”

“Too much information, Raven.”

“Maybe you should take note.”

Erik’s legs weren’t as unsteady as half an hour ago, but he still felt the alcohol in his veins. Not enough to impact judgement, but enough to lower inhibitions. Perhaps he would be able to do this, after all. In the door he turned around, pulling his hat over his ears again. “Hey, Raven.”

She looked up from checking her phone. “Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, serious for once, as Erik closed the door behind him.

A part of him wished that Charles would have left their room, or at least gone to sleep after he’d stormed out. But if there was yet another thing that divided them, was that Charles had it easier to handle his emotions. Erik knew he was like a pressure-cooker, just waiting for the right time to erupt, while Charles could let small bits seep out before he was calm and collected once again. He never slammed any doors; never stormed out; never snapped, unless Erik had done it first.

So it wasn’t so much as a surprise as it was expected that he hadn’t even gone to sleep when Erik came up the landing, snow gathered in his hair from the walk through the snowstorm outside. Light came out from under the closed door, and swallowing down his dread, Erik opened the door with a twist of his hand.

At first glance, the room looked empty. When not out, Charles was usually found sitting on his bed or sometimes by his desk, but tonight he wasn’t there. It wasn’t until Erik had taken a few steps in that he saw the top of Charles’ unruly hair poking up over the foot of his bed where he was sitting in the floor. There was a cup of tea by his knee, but the thing that caught Erik’s eyes immediately was that he was still holding the bunch of sketches left behind when he stormed out.

Lump in his throat, Erik closed the door behind him with a click.

Charles didn’t look up at the noise, but there was no way he hadn’t noticed, so Erik started to peel of his coat, the silence stifling between them and only growing bigger the longer he kept his mouth shut.

“I didn’t expect you back all night,” Charles broke the silence. “Dawn at the earliest. Were you at the studio?”

“No,” Erik admitted, putting his bag down by his dresser. “Raven threw me out. Her boyfriend was coming over.”

Instead of answering, Charles took a sip of the mug by his knee. Erik stuck his hands in his pockets. Even now, when he’d all but come clean about this, the words had gotten caught somewhere that not even clearing his throat would dislodge.

Charles made a noncommittal noise and paged through to another of the sketches.“You know,” he said, tipping his head back to look at Erik. “I realized it pretty early on, when you’d sit by your easel, all concentrated, that you are a very talented at capturing the world in your work.”

“Talent doesn’t exist. It’s simply a word for persistence to make lazy people feel better about not trying harder.”

“You sound like Professor Shaw.” Charles smiled, a bit sad as he smoothed a thumb over the crinkled paper. It was from one of the many one-minute sketches he’d drawn from memory. This one had a few Charles’ on it; one tying his shoes, another when he was waiting for the bus. It was messy and hasty, but Charles looked at it as if it was precious.

Taking a step closer, Erik studied Charles’ face carefully. When Charles didn’t look away, nor angry, he sank down beside him on the cold floor. Charles radiated heat, but there was still this block that hindered him from leaning into it, although he wanted it badly. A sign the armour was firmly in place. “Perhaps. He’s got some good points.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “You say it as if it’s a good thing.”

“I’m not denying he’s a tyrant,” Erik supplied with a shrug.

“Good enough.” Charles bumped his shoulder – just one, light tap, that somehow was enough to make Erik’s body light up in a sensory awareness he hadn’t felt in a long while. It was also inevitable “You’ve really caught my bad posture here. I’d hoped it wasn’t the prominent, but it is that bad, isn’t it?”

“Yes. You need to stop hunching, or you’ll get permanent back problems when you’re thirty.”

“I’ll get to it,” Charles laughed, so soft and subdued it made something tighten in Erik’s stomach. He looked away for a moment, trying to gather where he should start to unwind this gordian knot between them.

In the end, he simply reached out and took the sketches from Charles’ hands  – just as carefully as Charles held them. “I caught it because,” he started, voice hoarse as if he’d been screaming, “I draw you a lot.”

“That’s true,” Charles voice was sincere and earnest. “They date back a while.”

Erik swallowed. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” Charles said with emphasis; his blue eyes bearing into Erik’s. “God, no. It’s very humbling to see what I look like to you. And have, for a long time too.”

He’d stacked the sketches neatly; in chronological order thanks to the small notes in the corners, and Erik thumbed through them. There was suddenly a lump in his throat, and he put them down on the floor.

“You know,” Charles said quietly. “It was truly an accident. It fell off the dresser when I bumped into it, and I would never have opened it otherwise.”

“I know.”

Erik nearly flinched when Charles put a warm, square hand on his knee. He was now so close Erik could feel his breath on his cheek.“I hope you do realize that I truly care for you , no? Not because of everything.”  

Closing his eyes, Erik let out a shaky breath. “I just know that you could have anyone.” Charles tilted his head, waiting for Erik to continue. It wasn’t easy, but he pressed on. “You learn early not to trust anything good. If it’s good, it’s too good to be true.”

“You are something utterly splendid and hardworking, and I’m so sorry that I made you feel so horrid. I do like you an awful lot, despite what you think.” Charles squeezed his hand. “This is real, Erik. I promise you, it is. I do want you.”

“You promise? You know how I am.”

“Despite all your vices, yes. Besides, you know all of mine,” Charles shot back, smiling, “so you better be ready.”

“I know how to handle you,” Erik retorted. “As long as you stop buying me stuff. I can take care of myself.”

“Fair enough.” Putting his head on his shoulder, Charles sighed;“ How would you like me to show appreciation for you instead? Kiss you, perhaps?”

His breath ghosting over Erik’s neck was enough to make him shiver down to his bones. “Yes.”

Carefully, Charles tilted his head up. He was smiling slightly – a new one that was barely more than a tick at the corner of his mouth. “Do you trust me when I tell you that I want to kiss you – despite everything? That I want more than that with you?”

It was nothing more than a whisper, but still Erik could feel his armour clank to the floor as he leant forward.  “I do.”

“Good,” Charles breathed before he captured Erik’s mouth in kiss.

It started out slow, almost tentative as if they hadn’t been living in each other’s pockets for years, or maybe because of it. Charles was just as soft as Erik had imagined as he tilted his head to get a better angle and when he raked his fingers through Erik’s hair, that lit up feeling from before returned with full force – making him clutch at Charles’ thighs to pull him closer, lest he’d disappear and this would all turn out to be yet another thing that was too good for him, too good to be true.

Right before the air disappeared from Erik’s lungs, Charles pulled away. His mouth looked even redder than before, and Erik tightened the hand that had somehow made its way up to Charles shoulder. Charles continued to rake his fingers through Erik’s hair, almost absentmindedly as he looked into Erik’s eyes, steady and silent.

“So. We are doing this?” Erik whispered, just once more, for confirmation.

At that, Charles smiled brightly. “I do hope so,” he said and kissed Erik again, lightly but with nonetheless heart.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but Erik knew he’d be worth it.