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It was difficult to imagine, sometimes, where Erik would be without Charles. He’d hardly known the man for six months and yet he trusted him intrinsically, with all his heart. They were friends, certainly. Partners in crime – well, they were getting there, he mused. But lovers?
They couldn’t exactly pretend they weren’t sharing a bed nowadays. They also couldn’t hide the fact that for one, going without the other’s touch in one form or another might as well be classified as intolerable. They sat too close together, their fingers brushed too often, their gazes were held just a little too long and a little too fondly.
Erik, much as he hated to admit it, was actually rather glad for the mutant-seeking road trip he and Charles embarked on. It was a lovely shift from the usual, and for once there weren’t as many voices or prying glances. Most hours of the day, it was just Charles, talking in the passenger’s seat, and Erik listening but not listening at all.
He wasn’t sure if he liked the other mutants yet. At least he knew – or thought he knew – they were all fighting for the same cause. Erik couldn’t help but harbor an instinctive distrust of others, yet that was just the thing – Charles was so different from all the rest. He was easy to be around, and he understood more than anyone else could ever hope to.
Charles didn’t regard Erik with pity. There was merely compassion and a fire behind those blue eyes; one that burned solely to help Erik. They were equals.
Neither of them ever really spoke of their relationship. It was accepted quietly but not silently, and treated as a careful, cautious thing. Even Erik, who only knew how to fight and destroy, wanted desperately not to ruin what little they had.
As they settled into a hotel room that night, Charles asked,
“How long are you going to stay with me?”
The question caught Erik off guard. He turned to face Charles, hair in his eyes and sitting on the edge of the bed. “As long as you’ll have me. I know I’m not exactly easy company.”
Charles tilted his head in that way he had. He reddened slightly, especially the tips of his ears. Erik smiled softly at that detail; the small things that made him all the more deeply enamored. “I just – it sounds selfish, but I don’t want you to leave me. I don’t think I could bear it.”
This struck a chord of panic in Erik’s chest with the realization that he wouldn’t be able to bear it if Charles left him, either. He’d never quite felt that way about anyone else before, and it was a foreign feeling, constricting strangely in his chest. “I won’t be leaving you anytime soon, Charles,” Erik murmured, joining the telepath where he sat. “Perhaps not ever.”
“I love you.” Charles lifted his gaze. His voice was soft, nearly inaudible. Scared, to a degree. Erik met those ocean-blue eyes, evenly and steadily, and he meant what he said.
“I’ll never leave. I’m too in love with you.”