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The smell of trees descended up them as they got further away from the ocean and the city that sat on it.
It wasn’t much with how fast they were going, but enough to tell Charles that they were free of the confinements of the crowded streets.
Charles gripped around Erik’s waist as Erik revved the engine of the motorcycle. He continued to race forward, bouncing between lanes to pass up the cars.
It wasn’t the first time they’d taken the chance to leave the city behind. A chance to get away from everything, the stress, the work, the real world, sometimes taking a step back was the best thing for everyone.
After sitting for hours Charles began to feel the numbness creep up his back, only hoping that they might stop soon. When Erik slowed down and took a turn off the main highway, Charles couldn’t hold back the sigh of relief.
“Was it too much for you?” Erik teased, pulling off his helmet once they’d stopped.
“It was a tad long, nothing more,” Charles replied defending himself.
“It’s worth it though, you must admit.”
Erik was right it was a gorgeous area; It seemed a bit touristy for their normal escapes, but Charles couldn’t care less when they started to explore the area.
There was a large pond with a house right on it’s edge, but Erik lead them away from where the crowds of people were waiting to go inside and look around the obviously famous house.
Continuing away from the tourist attraction they started walking a trail. It seemed heavily traversed, but not any less worth their time. The trail was long and rocky, but that was often the way with any trails on the east coast. The trees held bright almost fluorescent green leaves that Charles was in awe of; after the countless days staring at the sickly grey of businesses with only the yellow of taxis to brighten up the streets, green was a nice change of pace.
When Charles’ foot slipped out from under him, Erik was quick to grab ahold of his waist until he was steady on his own feet again.
“Might want to notice where your feet are, and not spent the whole time staring at the trees.” Charles blushed that Erik had noticed his odd fascination with them. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen them before, but they reminded him of other times...like when he was a child.
Continuing through the trail, they finally made it to a ridge overlooking the river. They were just in time to watch as the sun set over the horizon. Charles had to admit that he ended up spending more time watching Erik instead.
Erik’s face was lit up with so much joy that Charles couldn’t pull his eyes away.
“Charles?” Erik questioned as Charles stepped closer to him and pulled himself up to meet Erik’s eyes.
“I’ve wanted to do this for too long,” Charles whispered as he closed the distance between them and let their lips touch.
When the dream faded away Charles woke to the grunt of Erik rolling away from him, dragging most of the blankets along with him.
He gave a little chuckle before leaving a kiss on Erik’s temple. Charles remembered that trip well, it had been when everything was right with the world…well almost. The kiss hadn’t happened, but everything else was in perfect detail. Charles wondered if that was the moment he’d fallen in love with his best friend.
Of course he hadn’t known it at the time, or for many years after, but now they had made it.
One broken engagement and a little over a year later.
Charles had convinced himself he was in love with Lilandra, but when the moment came and Erik was no longer at his side, it all hit him.
Dropping everything and running away from the wedding -quite literally- he jumped on the first plane out to San Francisco and told Erik how he felt.
Without really knowing how Erik would respond, Charles was betting everything. Luck must have been on his side as he heard Erik admit he'd felt the same way for quite some time.
It took a while to smooth things over with Lilandra, but Charles had even managed to repair their relationship well enough.
Now here he lay with the man he loved, a solid metal band on each of their ring fingers indicating their coupling.
Charles thumbed at the piece of metal having a hard time not comparing it to the engagement band he wore with Lilandra. It was stupid really, but she’d wanted it to show commitment, and he hadn’t quite gotten that feeling until he swapped rings with Erik at their ceremony.
“What are you up to?” Erik grumbled, turning back towards Charles who had been staring at his husband.
“Nothing… just had a memory of one of our trips back in New York."
“Hmm…” Erik voiced his thinking, “The trip to Hyde Park?"
Charles narrowed his eyes, “How’d you know?"
Erik gave him a sleepy grin. “What can I say, it’s when I fell in love with you."
“Not possible,” Charles said pulling a pillow to smack at Erik’s face.
“What! It’s the truth!” Erik defended himself from the hits until he was able to grab Charles’ wrists and send the pillow flying to the floor. “I took you there, and all i remember is turning from the sunset to see you staring at me. It may not be when I fell in love with you, but I can say it’s when I realized that I was."
“My dream had one extra moment to it,” Charles replied biting his lip.
“Ohh and what would that be?"
“That we kissed."
Erik inched closer to Charles’ face, “What type of kiss?"
Charles followed suit, until their noses were almost touching, “I can’t remember."
“Let me help you."
They closed the gap, letting their mouths touch with purpose. Starting as simple pecks, and slowly lengthening until they were wrapped up in each other wholly.