Work Text:
Erik normally ignores it whenever the orange light blinks at the bottom of his screen, because whichever jack-ass is messaging him on the office messenger is either complaining about a crashed software, an uncooperative keyboard, or an interrupted internet connection; fixing which are not a part of Erik’s fucking job description.
So he goes back to reviewing Alex’s code, cursing and scowling at the inconsistency of it. Whoever is messaging him on the office messenger can rot under his ignorance.
His phone begins to ring ten minutes later, spewing Back in Black into the silent space.
It’s Charles.
‘Why are you ignoring me?’ Charles demands as soon as Erik picks up the call.
‘Ignoring you?’ Erik scowls. A quick glance at the clock tells him it’s just twelve — a solid hour before they generally leave for lunch. Did Erik miss something?
‘On the messenger. I’ve been pinging you for the last fifteen minutes or so.’
Ah. So it’s Charles then.
Erik quickly opens the messenger to a stream of messages under Charles Francis Xavier – Lead Analyst, R&D, Xavier Pharmaceuticals.
SOS!!
Can we talk? I need to talk to you?
Can I call you now? I'd rather not chat about it here.
I would come up to speak to you in person, but I'm in the middle of something, so coming up 30 floors isn't an option.
I really have to talk to you though...
‘Sorry, Charles,’ Erik sighs. ‘I thought it was that jack-ass Sean, complaining about his internet connection. Again.’
Erik expects Charles to recite another paragraph on workplace ethics from that awful brochure Moira had made them go through the other day, but Charles merely brushes off Erik’s comment like he hasn’t even heard it.
‘I need to speak to you about something. It’s a little urgent. Are you busy?’
‘No, no. Tell me,’ Erik says. Alex’s code can wait.
Charles takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, as if bracing for a fight. ‘I need you to pretendtobemyfiancé,’ he says so quickly that Erik wonders whether he’s hearing things.
Erik pulls the phone from his ear to read the name on the screen. Still Charles.
‘What?’ he asks incredulously.
Charles groans on the other end, and when he begins speaking again, his voice sounds strained and tired. ‘I wouldn’t have asked if I knew a better way, okay?’
‘I don’t understand, Charles. Pretend to be your fiancé? Why?’
This isn’t Charles’s brand of humour, and the gravity in his voice suggests anything but mirth.
‘You remember I told you that my mother is coming down next week?’
‘Yes. What does that have to do—’
Charles cuts him short, his breath coming out in short puffs as he says, ‘She knows I was engaged. But I may have forgotten to tell her that it fell apart.’
‘How can you not tell your own mother about it, Charles?’
Because Erik can’t imagine hiding news that big from his Mama. It’s a different story that she’d pull it out of him one way or another, even if he’d tried.
‘What would I say, Erik? Sorry, Mother, but my fiancé broke our engagement just two weeks after he proposed? My love life is fucked up, and magnificently at that?’
Charles’s voice is a mixture of anger and fear. Erik winces. It may have been months ago, but he still remembers how devastated Charles had been after Scott left him. It had taken everything in Erik to hold himself back from punching that asshole’s face black and blue.
‘Look, Charles, I understand not wanting to tell your mother then, but what’s stopping you from telling her now? It isn’t too late—’
‘It is.’
Charles whimpers, and it’s been a while since Erik’s seen this side of him. Swallowing, he continues, ‘Look, I know I’m asking a lot from you. But you just have to pretend to be my fiancé for a week. I’ll tell her that we split as soon as she reaches Westchester. You’ll have to trust me on this. Please, Erik…’
Erik doesn’t know much about Charles’s family, except that his sister is in Paris studying fashion and that his mother visits Genosha every year around mid-January — more likely to get away from Westchester’s biting cold than to see her son, Erik suspects — during which Charles promptly takes a three-day break from work.
Erik knows that Charles has a strained relationship with his mother — because anyone who addresses their mother as Mother certainly does — but he doesn’t know anything more than what Charles willingly lets on.
Charles is eerily quiet on the other end, even his breaths muffled and held. Erik can bet he’s chewing on his bottom lip in an effort not to babble — probably giving Erik the time to process the information — brows crunched and blue eyes wide in anticipation.
Something constricts in Erik’s chest at the thought, and he sighs heavily. ‘Alright, fine. I’ll do it.’
Charles releases a gush of air, a breath he was probably unconsciously holding.
‘Thank you, Erik. Thank you so much. I don’t know how to repay you for this,’ Charles says, sombre and sincere.
‘By taking my side rather than Alex’s. Easy,’ Erik says, just to get a laugh out of him, and grins inwardly when he achieves it.
‘Listen, Charles,’ he continues, ‘I can pretend to be your fiancé, but I can’t pretend to be a heart surgeon—’
Charles is already speaking before Erik has finished.
‘That won’t be necessary. Mother knows my boyfriend proposed to me, but she doesn’t know who he is or what he does. So you needn’t pretend to be someone else. You can be yourself.’
Erik still doesn’t know how to parse or process all of this, but he’ll just have to trust Charles.
‘We can’t pretend to be fiancés and not have a backstory,’ Erik says, because if he’s doing this, might as well do it right.
‘We’ll discuss it over lunch.’
There are sounds of movement in the background — gloves being removed and coats being ruffled, and then: ‘How do you feel about Chinese?’
Erik closes the IDE and locks his screen. He picks up his leather jacket and hooks it over his shoulder. ‘Meet you at the reception.’
‘Oh, and are you free after work? We’d need a ring, and I thought we could go shopping.’
‘What?’ Erik says, almost offended. ‘If I’m proposing to you, I’m not doing it with a shop-bought ring. I can make rings, did you forget that by any chance…’
And they continue to bicker like that until the end of lunch hour, and the end of that day.
Erik may be willing to trust Charles with everything else, but he isn’t trusting him with the rings.
Not when the best designers in town can’t weave metal like him.
_