Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4625808.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      X-Men:_First_Class_(2011)_-_Fandom
  Relationship:
      Erik_Lehnsherr/Charles_Xavier
  Character:
      Erik_Lehnsherr, Charles_Xavier, Armando_Muñoz, Alex_Summers, Janos
      Quested, Sean_Cassidy, Scott_Summers, Ororo_Munroe, Moira_MacTaggert,
      Logan_(X-Men)
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Modern_Setting, Alternate_Universe_-_No_Powers,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Boarding_School, this_is_angsty_trash_and_i'm_not
      even_ashamed, Honestly_Charles_What_Are_You_Thinking, Erik_Has_Feelings,
      Charles_Always_Says_the_Absolute_Worst_Thing_He_Could_Possibly_Say,
      Enemies_to_Friends_to_Lovers, Crack, there_are_some_drugs_and_alcohol,
      and_teenage_sex, it's_your_regular_run-of-the-mill_boarding_school
      romance_i_did_not_write_this_with_accuracy_in_mind
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-08-21 Chapters: 8/8 Words: 16599
****** the great mystery of why charles and erik do stupid things ******
by espressohno
Summary
     Mrs. Monroe showed up twenty minutes later, to find Charles sobbing
     into his lap and Erik still throwing up periodically.
     “Mrs. Monroe.” Charles sniffed. He tried to wipe the tears from his
     eyes but more came out when he unintentionally pressed against his
     bruised eye. “I’m so sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I tried
     to stop them, I-”
     Erik groaned.
     “Oh my god do you ever Shut Up, Charles.”
     so this is a (ridiculous) X-Men boarding school au where Charles and
     Erik end up being roommates a few months into Charles' "perfect"
     senior year. and then they hate each other. and then they don't.
Notes
     quick apology to all of you waiting for an update on sunshine. this
     has actually been in the works for about as long, i was just waiting
     until it was finished to post.
     not at all beta'd. excuse any little mistakes.
     i hope you have as much fun reading as i did writing!
***** Chapter 1 *****
december
 
This year was supposed to be the best year of Charles Xavier’s teenage life; a
final hurrah before he went off to Oxford (if he was accepted, which he would
be), and a farewell to stepfathers and stepbrothers and summers in Westchester.
Charles had everything planned out, from his senior class prank to how he would
arrange his dorm room.
It was going to be perfect; he’d practically calculated it into theoretical
perfection.
And then two months into the year that was turning out to be exactly as he
calculated, everything was ruined.
And that’s what Charles was thinking as he sat outside of the principal’s
office with a black eye and a split lip and a torn blazer, and, if he were to
check, probably multiple irreparable scuff marks on his shoes. What made it
even better was that the asshole who was responsible for all of this was
sitting right next to him.
“Everything is ruined.” Charles whined, to no one in particular, lightly
skimming his fingers over the bruises surrounding his eye and wincing.
“Shut the fuck up.” Erik was hanging his head between his knees. He looked even
worse than Charles. Half of his uniform was missing, his knuckles were still
bleeding, and Charles noticed that he smelled a lot like dirt and sweat and
alleyways.
“Mrs. Monroe is going to drop my average, I’m not going to be valedictorian,
everyone’s going to hate me, I can say goodbye to every single party for the
rest of the year-”
“Charles.”
“What?” Charles was almost crying at this point, but he didn’t even care. He
didn’t have anything left to care about now that his grades and his reputation
and his life were all ruined.
“Shut. The fuck. Up.” Erik took heavy breaths between words. Charles ignored
him, continuing to whimper and mull over everything that was going wrong.
Finally Erik stood up and stumbled across the hallway, heaving into the garbage
for nearly five minutes.
He lifted his head, arms still wrapped around the top of the trash can, and
glared at Charles with such abandon that Charles actually did start crying.
“I hate you.” Charles rubbed his eyes, wishing his voice didn’t shake so much.
And then, Erik smiled, as if this had been his plan all along: to break Charles
out of his perfect life until he was a crying, bleeding mess outside of the
principal’s office. And all Charles could do was continue to cry and look down
at his shoes. His shoes, which were in fact covered in scuff marks.
 
-
 
october
 
It was Friday afternoon. Charles sat in Latin class, internally groaning as
everyone took turns reading lines out of Pseudolus (how in the hell do these
people still not know their pronunciation?), and passing notes under the table
with Alex Summers.
Alex slid the note into Charles’ hand right as he stood up to read the next
page. Alex was the only student with a better grade than Charles in Latin, and
Charles would resent him for it, if he weren’t nearly failing calculus. Since
Alex was nearly failing calculus, though, he didn’t threaten Charles’ position
as top of the class, and so his success earned Charles’ respect.
They were friends, but their friendship was mostly based on bitching about
people they didn’t like.
Charles passed the paper back to Alex as he stood up, starting on the next
paragraph with, mind you, near-perfect pronunciation. Alex snickered, hopefully
at the note and not at Charles’ rolled Rs. Their teacher raised an eyebrow, and
Charles could see him eyeing the two of them suspiciously until there was a
knock on the open door.
It was the principal, Mrs. Monroe, wearing the same skirt suit she always wore
except this time in grey.
“Sorry to interrupt, I need to speak with Charles Xavier.”
She wasn’t speaking with urgency, but Charles immediately stood up from his
desk. Alex gave him a half-worried look before he picked up Pseudolus where
Charles had left off.
“Take your things with you, Mr. Xavier.” Mrs. Monroe left the doorway and
Charles shoved everything into his messenger bag. He met her in the hallway,
both nervous of why he was being pulled out of class and relieved that he was
being pulled out of class.
She didn’t say anything, just gestured for him to follow her.
“Mrs. Monroe?” Charles had to walk quickly to keep up with her long strides,
“Am I in trouble?”
Mrs. Monroe smiled, looking down at him while she continued speedwalking
through the building. Charles had to give the woman an awful lot of credit.
She’d started as principal halfway through his sophomore year and within a
month the school was running more efficiently, with students getting busted for
rule breaking more often than Charles had thought possible. That said, he’d
never been caught, and he hadn’t had to speak to the principal at all outside
of the yearly academic awards.
“You’re not in trouble. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Well, that was good news. Perhaps.
Mrs. Monroe stopped abruptly outside of her office. The next time she spoke her
voice was much quieter. Charles guessed there must be someone inside, but he
was still confused.
“Charles. You’re one of the best, arguably the best student in this school.”
Charles smiled. It wasn’t news to him, but it felt nice hearing someone say it.
“And I know that every year we promise single rooms to our top five students in
the senior class.”
Charles knew that also, because he was currently the proud owner of a single
dorm room, which, through his wit and charisma, had become one of the most
visited rooms on weekends.
“Now, I know this is asking a lot of you, and you can say no if you want to,
but we’ve just received a transfer student and I’d really like for him to move
into your empty bunk.”
Except it wasn’t an empty bunk, because Charles liked to lay his clothes on
them after doing laundry and the pillow was hiding bags of marijuana and the
mattress was sitting on a pretty respectable stash of liquor.
“His name is Erik Lehnsherr, and he doesn’t speak English too well but he’s
very intelligent. I understand this would be quite the responsibility, but
given your popularity and experience I feel that you would be the perfect
student for helping him adjust to his new life here.”
Mrs. Monroe smiled at him, and bless her heart, she had the exact impression of
Charles that he was hoping for, so it was really impossible to say no.
After all, this Erik Lehnsherr would probably be as starstruck with Charles as
every new student was. He could always use another admirer, and if Erik was
foreign he might even make Charles look cultured on top of looking charitable.
Charles was sold.
“I think that could be arranged.” Charles smiled at her, the same sweet,
closed-lip smile that he liked to use for waitresses and police officers.
“Thank you so much, Charles. This is a big help.”
As she opened the door she whispered,
“If you ever need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to come to me,
alright?”
Taking on a foreign transfer bunkmate was not at all part of Charles’ plan for
having the perfect senior year, but so far it seemed like it would actually
turn out to be an improvement.
 
Charles assumed that the boy sitting in front of Mrs. Monroe’s desk, with long
gangly limbs hanging out of the chair and a lost expression, was Erik
Lehnsherr. He immediately looked up at both of them, glancing back and forth
from Charles to Mrs. Monroe, but he didn’t say anything.
“Erik, sorry to keep you waiting. This is Charles Xavier.” She was speaking
slowly, waiting until Erik nodded in understanding to continue.
Erik nodded. Charles noticed that he didn’t look wealthy. He was wearing an old
white t-shirt and black jeans, and sitting next to his feet (which were
sporting a pair of faded adidas) was one medium-sized suitcase.
“You’re going to be rooming with him, okay? Charles is a very nice boy. He’ll
help you get settled.”
Erik nodded again. This time he spoke.
“I… go with him?” He sounded European. Maybe German, possibly Ukranian.
“Yes.” Mrs. Monroe said. She leaned over to Charles.
“He showed up on short notice. We’ll have his uniforms brought up to your room
by Sunday night. Until then I need you to give him a tour around campus, help
him get an ID card, see if there’s anything else he needs.”
“Not a problem.” Charles said, and then he smiled at Erik. Erik gave him the
same confused look from earlier.
“Why don’t you two go ahead, I have a meeting with the fine arts department in
fifteen minutes. Charles, you can take the rest of the day off.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Monroe.”
Mrs. Monroe walked around her desk and sat down. Erik hadn’t moved.
“Erik?” She folded her hands together on top of her desk.
He hastily nodded and stood up, almost tripping over his own feet.
“Shall we go?” Charles felt a little sad for Erik, or he would feel sad, if he
wasn’t about to introduce him to the top of the food chain. Erik walked
cautiously out of Monroe’s office with his suitcase.
He quietly followed Charles out of the building, through the quad, and into the
upperclassmen dorms, all the way to the east wing of the second floor, to room
63. Charles had hung a whiteboard on his door, like he did every year. For the
last two weeks it had read Doctor Xavier, Walk-Ins Welcome, which was an
indication that he was open for selling weed, but also a sign that if anyone
needed some free psych help he could do some of that too. He erased it with his
handkerchief and picked up the marker.
Everyone come meet Eric, he wrote, before grinning at Erik and unlocking the
door.
As far as dorm rooms went, the upperclassmen rooms were bigger, but still a
little cramped. Charles had a corner room, so there were two windows, along
with two beds with built-in dresser drawers, two desks with built-in lamps, and
one closet which, size-wise, was depressing to say the least.
Charles had covered most of the hardwood floor with a thick rug from Crate &
Barrel, one that matched the gray striped wallpaper, and he’d learned the
importance of blackout curtains (for Sunday morning hangovers), and battery
powered fans (for clearing out the air quickly), and a miniature refrigerator
(for obvious reasons). That said, his room was pretty minimalistic. It wouldn’t
be hard for Erik to move in. Except, of course, that he was currently using
Erik’s bed as a medicine cabinet.
“Erik, why don’t you sit on my bed for now?” He gestured to his bed and Erik
understood. He didn’t want to be as condescending as Mrs. Monroe was, but he
also didn’t have very much experience with people who didn’t know English.
The silence in the room as Erik looked around and Charles thought about where
he would keep his contraband was unbearable, so he decided to just fill the air
with his rambling whether or not Erik knew what he was saying. He started
rummaging through Erik’s bed, setting everything on his own desk.
“So, I figure I should give you the official tour of the school tomorrow after
breakfast, and it looks like we might have to take a trip into town. Both of
those we could do today, of course, but I don’t feel up to all of the walking--
practice was brutal this morning--and a group of us were all planning to go
down to the lake tonight, not to swim, which you should come so you can meet
everyone.”
Charles had to stop talking while he lifted the mattress, unloading almost
twenty small bottles from underneath. Erik seemed to be watching him, but he
had lost the confused look from earlier. In fact, he didn’t seem at all like
the person Charles had met twenty minutes ago.
“You should fit in just fine, though. Not to gossip, but Hank McCoy was a
transfer freshman year, not from Europe though, from South Carolina, and it
took him only a week before everyone knew him. Of course Hank is a star runner,
he came halfway through track season.”
He did a final check to make sure Erik’s bed was ready to be Erik’s bed before
turning around to actually look at Erik.
“Speaking of which, you look like you could be on the cross country team. You
should try out. I’m not on the team, obviously. I’m on the soccer team, or
football, whatever you call it where you’re from, um, where are you from?”
“Germany.” Erik said. He stood up from Charles’ bed and was on his bed in one
step. He took off his shoes and socks, leaving them in a pile on the floor that
made Charles want to actually cringe, but he restrained himself, making eye
contact with Erik.
“Now that my bed isn’t full of drugs, are you going to stop talking?” His
English was good, good enough that now he was the one who sounded
condescending. His German accent made it worse. This wasn’t right.
“I’m sorry?”
“Look, I get it, Charles is a very nice boy. I’m sure you have everyone falling
for your little charismatic scholar bit, but I didn’t come here so I could play
protege to some spoiled twat, alright?.”
“I thought you were-”
“Unintelligent?”
Charles crossed his arms. He felt heat rising in his cheeks from being
challenged like this and it pissed him off that he was blushing as much as
Erik’s attitude was pissing him off.
“Well, not exactly-”
“You have your methods, Xavier, I have mine. But I haven’t slept in three days
and I haven’t had a cigarette in five and I’d really appreciate it if I didn’t
have to look at you for a while.”
Now Charles was really upset. He reminded himself that he wasn’t here to
collect enemies, and tried another approach.
“I can get you cigarettes.”
“I’m sure you can.” Erik deadpanned. He laid down and rolled over, facing the
wall. It couldn’t have been comfortable, the way he had to curve inwards to fit
on the mattress, but it seemed like he was planning on sleeping to prove some
sort of point.
“I’m quitting. Now get out.”
Charles huffed. He hid all of the drugs and alcohol in the drawers underneath
his bed and left without another word, hitting the light switch as aggressively
as possible, trying desperately to resist the temptation to slam the door when
Erik called after him.
“You also spelled my name wrong.”
 
 
***** Chapter 2 *****
december
 
Mrs. Monroe showed up twenty minutes later, to find Charles sobbing into his
lap and Erik still throwing up periodically.
“Mrs. Monroe.” Charles sniffed. He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes but
more came out when he unintentionally pressed against his bruised eye. “I’m so
sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I tried to stop them, I-”
Erik groaned.
“Oh my god do you ever shut up, Charles.”
He seemed to have run out of stomach acid and was now leaning against the trash
can, rubbing his temples.
“Both of you. In my office.” Was all she said before she threw the door open.
They followed her inside, pointedly not looking at each other, and sat down in
front of her desk.
Mrs. Monroe had clearly been woken up for this meeting, because the clock on
her desk said 4:07 AM and she looked extremely tired and pissed off. She was
wearing a black velvet sweat suit with Calvin Klein spelled out in rhinestones
in the upper right corner. Charles suddenly felt like throwing up, from fear
and from rhinestones, even though he wasn’t nearly as drunk as Erik was.
He was only a little bit drunk. Only drunk enough that he was still crying and
did not plan on stopping anytime soon. Mrs. Monroe handed him a tissue box,
looking not at all sympathetic. She took a deep breath.
“What do you think will happen to our school’s reputation when word gets out
that the students are not only drinking, but starting bar fights?”
Charles could imagine Erik saying well, your students are already drinking in
his stupid asshole German accent. Thankfully, he didn’t say it.
“I don’t care which one of you is responsible, because both of you ended up in
the police car, but I need to know that this kind of thing will never happen
again. You get two options. Both of you could tell me everything that happened:
how you managed to sneak off campus, how you got the bartenders to serve you
alcohol at multiple locations, and how you hospitalized three men in an
alleyway, and if I think you’re telling the truth, the story never leaves this
room. Or, you two can continue to pretend that you don’t hate each other, and
that you don’t break the rules because you’re secretly trying to impress each
other, and I can tell all of your teachers what I think you did, whether or not
that may be accurate.”
Charles finally looked at Erik, and it reminded him of the first time he saw
Erik in this room, pretending to be lost and confused. Now, at least he wasn’t
faking the fact that he was full of pain and anger. He was glaring at the
floor, one hand still cradling his head. Erik probably had a wicked headache,
but Charles didn’t care. Let him suffer, he thought, and then almost
immediately felt a little bit guilty.
“It was my fault.” Erik said, and Charles’ jaw actually dropped.
“Before she died, my mother gave me this ring. I wore it every day, until four
hours ago, when I noticed that it wasn’t on my finger anymore. Charles told me
I could just buy another, which was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but it
was my decision to go back and try to find it. And I was the one who started a
fight when a man at the bar mocked me.”
“You broke a man’s ribs,” Mrs. Monroe looked at Erik with the same disbelief as
Charles, “for a ring?”
“Yes.” Erik raised his chin at her.
“Alright. Okay. But why were you two out in the first place? What made you
think you could pull off a bar crawl the Saturday before exams?”
Erik opened his mouth to speak again but Charles wasn’t going to allow it.
“That was me, Mrs. Monroe.”
“Charles-”
“It was me. I’d done it before, with some upperclassmen at the end of sophomore
year, and I talked Erik into it.” Charles didn’t mention the part about Erik
telling him that he would be worthless without his fake ID, because, honestly,
that was kind of true, and he didn’t want to lose his fake ID.
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around what thepoint of all of this was.”
Charles didn’t want to say it. Not out loud. The more the three of them looked
at each other in silence the more likely it was that he would have to say it.
Erik apparently had a different idea, because they both blurted something out
at the same time.
 
“We just wanted to have fun.” Erik said.
“I just want Erik to like me.” Charles said.
 
“Wait, alright, Charles, say that again.” Mrs. Monroe looked like she was
nearing the end of a mystery novel. The great mystery of why Charles and Erik
do stupid things.
“I just want Erik to like me.” Charles couldn’t stop his voice from shaking as
much as it did. He bit his lip, angry and sad and tired and drunk and all at
once wishing this conversation was over and feeling glad that it was finally
happening.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Erik asked.
“Erik, not now.” She focused her attention on Charles, “Can you please
elaborate?”
“Ever since you got here you’ve hated me for no reason at all and I’ve tried
everything, everything, for you to stop so we can at least be decent roommates.
And then you were talking about your school in Germany and how you used to
sneak out and go downtown all night and I just wanted to prove to you that I
can be the kind of person you want to be friends with. And I know I only made
it worse but for a second back there I felt like maybe you didn’t hate me, like
maybe I was finally interesting to you, and then I realized, while I was lying
on the ground and listening to you throw punches for no reason, that this is
the stupidest thing ever. Trying to make you like me is stupid. Because nothing
you do is reasonable. You hate for no reason and you fight for no reason and it
was stupid of me to try to be friends with you, but I still did.”
Charles didn’t notice how his gaze had shifted from the pencil sharpener on the
desk to directly at Erik. He immediately snapped his eyes away and looked back
to Mrs. Monroe.
“That’s why we snuck out, Mrs. Monroe.” Charles started crying again, silent
tears falling down his cheeks as he continued to stare at anything but Erik.
“Erik, is there something you would like to say to Charles?”
“Nothing I can think of right now.” Erik said, sounding emotionless. Charles
didn’t think he could hate Erik any more than he did in this exact moment.
Mrs. Monroe sat and waited for a couple minutes, as if Erik was going to change
his mind, before she stood up.
“You two can go back to your room now. I’m going to sleep on this and we’ll
talk about it again on Monday morning.”
“Yes ma’am.” Charles stood up, too, looking forward to sleeping for 16 hours
and avoiding Erik for the rest of his life.
“I expect to see both of you outside my office at 6:30.”
She held the door open and they both stepped into the hallway.
Charles pretended Erik wasn’t there during the entire walk back to their room.
Once he was inside he stripped down to his underwear, throwing his clothes in
the general vicinity of the closet, and got in bed, facing the wall. He could
hear Erik’s mattress bend as he sat down, but there wasn’t any movement after
that.
“Are you just going to ignore me?”
Charles ignored him. He laid in bed, eyes closed, hands fisted angrily in his
duvet, until he finally fell asleep.
 
-
 
august
 
It was Sunday night before the first week of school. Armando Muñoz (nicknamed
Darwin after an unfortunate, but hilarious, prank pulled on him in the science
lab) had called everyone down to the lake for a celebration of sorts. Nobody
had been down to the liquor store yet, so they drank root beer and went
swimming and smoked skinny menthol cigarettes.
The lake at Charles’ school was relatively small. The administration had funded
a fake beach to be added on the bank a few years earlier, which only resulted
in giving it a weird mismatched look. It was hideous, really, but since it was
located nicely on the edge of the campus, with minimal to no supervision on
average, they’d claimed it as a gathering place during the warmer months.
Charles wasn’t exactly a strong swimmer, but then again, neither was anyone
else. He was really unsure of how exactly his friends had started a tradition
of Sunday evening swims.
Charles’ friend group, which was comprised of him, Darwin, Alex, Hank McCoy
(nearly busted for hacking the school’s computers last semester and replacing
every picture on the website with stills from Bee Movie), Janos Quested (best
athlete on the soccer team), and Sean Cassidy (junior, but arguably the richest
kid in the school). Alex also dragged along his freshman brother, Scott.
Charles had waded around to his heart’s content after about half an hour and he
decided to sit on the edge of the lake in the sunshine for a while.  
“Hey, Charles, how’s your single room?” Hank sat down next to him on the sand,
handing Charles another soda.
“Oh, it’s a dream,” He said, “not that you weren’t a splendid roommate last
year. And the year before that.”
Hank smiled and adjusted his glasses. Charles liked Hank because he was quiet,
but not in a timid way, like most quiet people were. He only spoke when he
wanted to, and whenever he said something it was clear that he was always
listening and picking up on things. He was still willing to break the rules
with them, though, and he was great with computers, so he made an important
addition to their clique.
“You too. Although I wouldn’t give up my single for anything.”
Charles laughed.
“Me neither.”
Alex sat down on the other side of Charles, still wet from the lake, with a
cigarette hanging from his mouth. He offered them one and they both passed.
“I still don’t get why you don’t smoke.”
“Not a fan of tobacco.” Charles said, taking another sip of root beer.
“It messes with my running.” Hank was watching the lake. Janos and Scott were
still swimming, diving in and out of the shimmery green water. There used to be
a rope swing hanging from the big tree on the edge of the lake, but now
everyone had to just climb into the branches and jump off from there.
“Janos smokes.” Alex shrugged and blew smoke into the air. Hank coughed a
little bit.
“Janos is some kind of a superhuman.” Charles waved the smoke from the air in
front of him, but it was useless so long as Alex was right there. “I mean, have
you seen his hair?”
“He is beautiful. For a guy.” Alex said, “Just imagine if he wore those tiny
swimsuits like you do.”
Charles looked down at his square-cut speedo.
“These aren’t tiny.”
“Yes they are.” Hank said. Him and Alex laughed.
It wasn’t long until Darwin and Sean returned from their campus-wide search for
ice cream without any ice cream. Defeated, they took the last two bottles of
root beer and sat down next to Alex. Janos and Scott came out of the water
after that and everyone sat on the bank of the lake for a while, talking about
their summer and passing around soda and cigarettes until it got dark.
Charles had never really appreciated the way the sun set over the lake. He
half-listened to Darwin tell stories about his trip to Brazil and watched the
sky change colors, feeling the water slowly dry from his sun-warmed skin. He
thought about all of his past first weeks of school and decided that this was
going to be his best year yet.
 
 
***** Chapter 3 *****
december
 
The first thing Charles saw when he woke up was Erik’s face. He must have been
standing over Charles’ bed and waiting for him to wake up.
Charles groaned, pulling his duvet over his head.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” He muttered. His head was throbbing with every
syllable.
“I brought you advil.”
“So what.”
“And I… want to apologize”
Charles pushed the duvet down again and squinted at Erik for a minute. He
struggled to sit up until they could finally talk face to face.
“This better be good.” He said, taking the advil from Erik’s hand and
swallowing it dry.
Erik sat down on the other side of the bed. He was wearing flannel pajama
bottoms that Charles was sure had come from his side of the closet and no
shirt, and Charles could see all of the scrapes and bruises he’d accumulated
about twelve hours earlier. Erik was looking at him too, probably making the
same observation about Charles’ half-naked body. Erik took a deep breath and
looked down at the floor.
“Look, Charles,” He ran a hand through his hair, almost nervously, “you’re a
spoiled brat with a superiority complex and a good majority of the things you
say piss me off to no end, but-”
“This is a shitty apology.” Charles crossed his arms over his chest.
“But, I don’t hate you. I only acted like it because I thought you hated me. I
thought that was how we were going to be. So I’m sorry.”
“That’s not how we have to be, you know.” Charles said. “We could be friends.”
“Friends.” Erik said the word as if it were foreign to him. He cocked his head
to the side and looked back at Charles.
Charles nodded.
“Friends.”
“Okay. And how do you suppose we do that.”
Charles thought for a minute. He really had no idea how to form relationships
that actually took effort. All of his current friends were acquired based on
proximity and mutual tolerance.
“We should probably see if we have any common interests. And then I guess,
spend time together that doesn’t involve fighting or binge drinking.”
Erik nodded very seriously, as if this was also a new experience to him. And
maybe it was.
 
-
 
november
 
It was Tuesday morning. The teacher for Charles’ Shakespearean Drama class was
five minutes late and he was sitting on the floor of the drama room next to
Darwin and Janos. The three of them should have been running through lines of
Macbeth for their rehearsal today, but instead they all just leaned in and read
through Darwin’s twitter feed.
When they heard the door opening Darwin shoved his phone into his backpack and
the whole class looked up from their conversations. In walked in their drama
teacher, Mrs. McTaggert, and the newfound bane of Charles’ existence, Erik
Lehnsherr, who had recently written Go Away on their door’s whiteboard in
permanent marker. Mrs. McTaggert was nice, but she didn’t reveal much of her
personal life to the students, choosing instead to work through her off blocks
and leave campus right after the bell. Charles liked her well enough.
Mrs. McTaggert led Erik to the front of the room and called for everyone to
stand up.
“Isn’t that your new roommate, Charles?” Darwin whispered. Charles nodded,
frowning in Erik’s direction as theatrically as possible. Darwin got the
message and patted Charles’ shoulder in consolation.
“I’m sure he’ll come around.”
“I’m sure he won’t.” Charles said. Then Mrs. McTaggert took a couple minutes to
introduce Erik to the class, mentioning that he was a last-minute transfer from
Germany and failing to mention that he was a douche and a half.
“Now, since our class isn’t too big I should be able to find a part for you
from some of our students who have multiple, but until then Erik why don’t you
just spectate.” She gestured for Erik to sit down in one of the chairs on the
room’s perimeter and he nodded. Still playing dumb, obviously.
“Alright, everyone. I hope you’re all ready because we’re going to jump in
right where we left off: Act I, Scene 5. Where’s my Lady MacBeth?”
Charles took off his blazer and stepped forward, biting his lip because he
could see Erik in the corner of his eye, smirking like this was the funniest
thing ever. Mrs. McTaggert didn’t seem to notice. She gestured him onto their
little stage and rounded up the rest of the Act I gang.
As a result of Erik silently passing judgement from the corner, Charles decided
to give today’s rehearsal his fucking all. Mrs. McTaggert was grinning at him
through the entire thing, occasionally applauding. Charles tried not to look at
Erik, however, but he could definitely hear him exhaling laughter through his
nose every couple lines.
 
After class he left Darwin (who was playing Malcolm) and Janos (who was Lady
MacDuff, so there) behind in the hallway and jogged to catch up with Erik.
“Something funny in class today, Erik?”
“Just you, Lady MacBeth.”
Erik was deliberately walking fast because he knew Charles couldn’t catch up
without breaking a sweat. This was one of the first times Charles had actually
seen him in their navy blue uniform with gold trim, though, and he looked very
nice. Which was annoying as hell.
“There’s nothing shameful about being a woman, you fucking misogynist.” Charles
panted.
“Of course not, Charles. But there’s definitely something shameful about your
acting.”
And with that, Erik rounded a corner abruptly, leaving Charles pissed off and
slightly confused in the middle of the hallway, about to be late for AP
Psychology. Charles mumbled fuck you, too and speedwalked to the other side of
the school.
 
-
 
december
 
Charles and Erik were sitting on the floor of their room, backs against their
respective beds. Erik’s legs were long enough that his feet were just inches
away from Charles’ hip. For the last half hour they had been trying to find
common interests, with minimal results.
“You’re in Shakespearean Drama with us. Does that mean you’re a fan of
Shakespeare?”
“He’s alright.” Erik shrugged, “As far as theater goes I’m more into recent
works.”
“Musical theater?” Charles had already exhausted nearly every form of
entertainment, only to find that their preferences were similar in demographic,
but not shared.
“My mother took me to see Chicago once.”
“Did you like it?” Raven had a habit of dragging Charles to see broadway shows
during every school break. He’d become an unintentional aficionado. Chicago
wasn’t his favorite, but it was definitely something he could talk about.
Erik smiled almost shyly, looking down at his hands.
“I did.”
“I liked Chicago too. I saw it with my sister a couple summers ago.”
Even though small talk was one of Charles’ best skills, after growing up with
conspicuously large parties in his home, small talk with Erik was taking all of
his energy. Thankfully, Erik looked like he was thinking the same thing.
“Do you… do you maybe want to work on finding common interests later?” Charles
asked, swaying his feet side to side, his big toes knocking together on the
upswing. Erik nodded. His feet had unintentionally imitated Charles’ in their
boredom.
“I still have one more exam to study for.” He took his laptop off of his bed,
“You wouldn’t happen to be an expert in C++, would you?”
Charles laughed.
“Programming? God, no. You’re on your own.”
Erik scoffed, opening up his computer.
“Some valedictorian you are.”
The two of them sat in silence for the next hour or so. Charles leaned his head
back on the edge of his mattress and stared at the ceiling, watching the light
from the windows change. He listened to Erik’s typing, which would occasionally
be interrupted with small grunts of frustration, and felt warmth radiating off
of his body in the cold of their bedroom. He wondered if this was as close to
friends as they would be able to manage; quiet afternoons in their room when
neither of them had better things to do. Charles could live with that.
After all, the semester ended in two days, and then they only had five more
months of trying to like each other before Charles went to England and Erik
went god knows where. It was unlikely that either of them would attempt to stay
in contact once the year was over. Charles could live with that, too.
 
 
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     this chapter includes some references to child abuse and some weed
     just a warning
december
 
Charles returned with a week still left in the winter vacation, because he
couldn’t stand being at home another second and getting a jump on his studies
before the new semester didn’t sound so bad. Raven took one look at the bruise
on his left cheekbone and she agreed to drive him from Westchester to his
school in Vermont, hugging him too tightly when he got out of the car. She
promised that next Christmas it would be just the two of them in her tiny dorm
room at Brown and he nodded silently.
This wasn’t the first time their stepfather had been a little too drunk and a
little too angry, resulting in Charles coming back from breaks with bruises
underneath his clothes, but as Raven’s corvette turned the corner off of campus
grounds, leaving Charles alone with his suitcase, he wanted to believe that it
would be the last.
Charles let out a sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding in, and trudged through
the snow to his dorms. He checked in with his floor advisor, Logan Howlett, a
surly looking man who seemed to have no interest in teaching or teenagers, but
was pretty liberal when it came to enforcing dorm rules. After Logan gave him
the OK to return to his room, he was all set to get in bed and sleep for a
while, until he opened the door and found Erik sitting in bed reading Charles’
copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Charles stood in the doorway, confused, first of all, and waited for Erik to
notice.
“Oh, Charles,” Erik sat up from the rather impressive slouch he was in, “you’re
early.”
“Yes.” Charles said, eyeing Erik a little suspiciously. “So are you.”
Erik looked down at the book he was reading and looked back up at Charles like
he’d just been caught in the middle of a crime. Charles chuckled a little and
finally stepped inside, carefully taking off his boots before he got water on
the rug.
“You can read it. It’s alright.”
He started to take off his coat and scarf before he realized there might be
bruises visible from the relaxed neckline of his sweater, not to mention the
fading, purple-green one on his face. When he turned around Erik was staring at
him.
“Charles, why are you back early?”
Charles set his suitcase down, looking at his feet for a minute. He couldn’t
decide if it was worse to lie to Erik or to tell him the truth, so instead he
said,
“Do you want to get high?”
 
Ten minutes later, they had both climbed into Charles’ bed, wrapped under the
duvet because Charles needed to open both of the windows to let the smoke out,
and were passing a blunt back and forth without saying anything. It wasn’t long
before Charles felt the familiar lightness in his head and heaviness in his
body. He relaxed against the wall, laughing a little when he looked at Erik
again.
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
“It’s your book.” Erik said, letting smoke curl out of his mouth like he had
all of the time in the world. Charles smiled, because he felt like it, and Erik
smiled back.
“It’s a good book.” He protested.
“I’m not saying it isn’t. But Holly Golightly really doesn’t have her
priorities in order.”
“I think that might be the point.”
“Whatever.” Erik slumped, letting his legs hang off of the edge of the bed. “So
are you going to tell me what happened over the break, or what?”
Charles sighed and took another hit until it filled his lungs.
“You want the whole truth?” He coughed.
“Sure.”
Erik slid his socked feet back and forth on the rug, waiting. He looked tired
and relaxed and almost… happy. Charles figured that if he were lucky, Erik
wouldn’t bother to remember any details of this conversation anyway.
“My father died when I was seven, my stepfather has issues, and I make a fairly
suitable target as it turns out.”
The room was silent for a moment. Charles passed the blunt to Erik.
“That’s really all there is to it.”
Erik opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. He
took another hit, looking conflicted. All things considered, Charles was glad
that this was the outcome, because he was afraid that Erik would try to pull
more information out of him like everyone else did. He leaned his head against
the wall and closed his eyes.
The silence was broken a few minutes later, Erik’s voice sounding small and
distant.
“My mother is dead.” It was as if he was forcing the confession out, like the
words were as bitter on his tongue as they were in the air. Charles didn’t open
his eyes.
“My mother is dead and my father is in prison. I’m here because my aunt lives
in Rochester and doesn’t want me to turn out like either of them.”
Charles had no idea to respond to that, either, so he figured that it was best
if neither of them tried to comfort one another. Someone started playing the
piano in the second floor rec room a few minutes later and Charles let his mind
sway with the faint music. He was so far elsewhere that he almost didn’t notice
Erik’s head resting on his shoulder.
A few hours later he woke up because the snow had become heavier and started to
blow in through the window. Erik was still asleep against him. It almost broke
Charles’ heart to have to wake him up so he could close the window, but Erik
just sniffed and sleepily curled further into the duvet.
Charles decided that they definitely needed to do this more often, and
collapsed into Erik’s bed, traces of the high still swirling around in his
brain.
 
-
 
january
 
One of the things Charles had especially appreciated in the two months of
having a single room was the extended freedom he had when it came to
masturbating. With a roommate, one either had to find a guaranteed time alone
in the room, or shower at odd hours, or even take the risk of waiting until the
other boy was asleep and very quietly making an attempt.
A good percentage of the school operated in this fashion and everyone knew it,
but it was still all very don’t-ask-don’t-tell. Some boys even snuck around
together, which Charles, unfortunately, had less experience in. Except for one
night towards the end of Junior year. Hank was at his family’s home in New
Hampshire for the weekend and Janos showed up to their room after dinner
looking to get drunk.
They both ended up tipsy and slurring compliments to each other until their
bodies were closer than expected and Charles was hard and Janos noticed and it
took about eleven minutes to exchange handjobs before Janos stumbled back to
his room.
Both of them silently agreed the next morning that they were never going to
speak of it again.
Regardless, Charles still had needs, and now he had a roommate with no friends
who spent an awful lot of time in their room.
He had just returned from classes on a Wednesday, feeling particularly on-edge,
when he remembered that Erik told him during Drama that he had a meeting with
his advisor after school.
I could do it right now, he thought as he stood awkwardly in the middle of his
room. How long did meetings with the advisor take, anyway? If Erik was still
pretending to have broken English he probably had more than enough time.
Charles felt his body warming just from thinking about it, and then the door
opened and he jumped. So much for that idea.
“Erik, dear god, you scared me.”
Erik shut the door with his leg and tossed his backpack on his bed.
“Sorry, Charles. I’ll remember to knock next time I want to enter my own room.”
He kicked his shoes off and loosened his tie at the same time, and Charles was
still standing and watching him for no reason, wondering why the hell he was
still horny. He shook his head and sat down on the floor.
“How was your meeting with the advisor?” He asked, eyes following Erik as he
dug through their closet and started to change clothes.
“I fucked up.” Erik laughed as he took off his shirt and Charles felt his
heartbeat quicken. I’ve seen countless naked backs before, I’ve seen Erik’s
naked back before, what the bloody hell is happening. Charles blinked, but he
couldn’t move his eyes away.
“You… what?”
“She told me my English was really improving. I think I blew my cover.”
“Oh.” Charles laughed, but he had to make an effort not to choke as Erik bent
over and took his slacks off. He is literally always in this fucking room when
does this asshole find time to exercise. Fuck.
Erik put on jeans and a gray pullover and Charles reminded himself that it was
definitely just repressed feelings manifesting in the closest possible target,
who also happened to be in varying levels of nudity. He hadn't even noticed how
attractive Erik was before. He hadn’t even thought about whether or not he
might be gay.
Suddenly Charles couldn’t even piece two thoughts together about what was
happening and Erik had turned around and was saying something to him but he
didn’t catch any of the words. Charles made a run for the door and hid in the
bathroom for twenty minutes, lightly hitting his head against the wall of the
shower and trying to make sense of how it felt like some sort of switch had
been turned on in his brain and would. not. turn. off.
 
Charles must have forgotten to lock the door, because Darwin came in with his
shower bag and a towel slung over one shoulder, took one look at him, and said,
“Roommate issues again?”
Charles scoffed and walked out of the shower. That was the understatement of
the year.
 
When he finally came back to the room Erik was sitting on his bed playing chess
with himself. Charles recognized the chess set from the rec room, even though
nobody was allowed to take items out of the rec room. Erik looked up at him.
“What was up with you?”
“Oh, um, I just had a wave of nausea is all.” Charles lied, “I think I’ve been
spending too much time indoors.”
Erik nodded absently.
“I didn’t know you play chess.”
“You never asked.”
“I play chess too.”
Both of them slowly started to smile at each other at the realization that
they’d finally found a common interest. Erik gestured for Charles to sit down
on the other side of the chessboard and they played match after match until
dinner time.
Charles tried to concentrate all of his attention into the game, avoiding
letting his thoughts dwell on Erik’s hands or the way his eyes smiled when
Charles beat him or the fact that they were both sitting in Erik’s bed. He
desperately tried to push all of that to some dark secluded corner of his mind
to be sorted out later, but when Erik won for the third time in a row, smiling
and leaning against the headboard with his long torso, Charles felt himself
start to blush.
 
 
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
     in case anyone was wondering why i decided that teenage charles
     xavier wears tiny swim trunks
     this is why.
february
 
Charles was very skilled at suppressing unwanted feelings. He’d been doing it
for years, pretending that his mother wasn’t an alcoholic and that the Xavier
home was as joyful and welcoming as its heir. So it really wasn’t hard to
subdue whatever kept happening whenever Erik was around.
It was Saturday afternoon and the two of them were talking about Truman Capote
again, because Charles had a collection of his works and Erik was close to
reading through all of them. So far Erik’s favorite was A Christmas Memory,
which also happened to be Charles’ favorite. The way Erik talked about it
reminded him of the first time he’d read it in ninth grade.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in.” Charles said. He was doing 90 degree swivels back and forth in his
desk chair and Erik was sitting on the floor with his back against Charles’
bed. Alex was at the door, Darwin and Hank standing behind him.
“Guess what, dude.” Alex was grinning like a madman and carrying a beach towel
in one hand.
“Oh, no.”
Charles knew what was happening. Erik didn’t, obviously, so he looked up at
Charles in confusion. Charles shook his head back and forth.
“Oh, yes, Charles Xavier, tHE ICE HAS MELTED.”
“Not again.”
“FIRST SWIM OF THE SEASON GET YOUR ASS UP.”
Charles looked out the window hoping this was some sort of joke, because it was
barely over 40 degrees outside and this was by far the worst tradition they
had. Alex was right. The grass was brown and dry, and the sun was barely
visible through the clouds, but there was no ice in sight. Charles groaned and
stood up.
“I don’t want to do this.”
“We’re doing this. Put your suit on.” Alex turned to look at Erik on the floor,
“Erik, put your suit on. This is a yearly tradition.”
“You don’t have to do it, Erik.”
“Both of you have to. We’ll be waiting in the foyer.”
Alex shut the door and Charles reluctantly searched through the back of his
closet.
“Isn’t it dangerous to swim in this weather?” Erik asked.
“Well, the water is so cold that it’s hard to breathe and Logan has told us
multiple times that we’re dumbasses for doing it, but so far there have been no
cases of hypothermia.” Charles finally found a bag of summer clothes and pulled
it out.
“Sounds like fun.” Erik said, and Charles raised an eyebrow at him.
“Do you want to come along?”
“Sure.”
Charles rummaged around for a pair of swim trunks.
“But I’ll need to borrow a swimsuit.”
 
Oh, fuck.
 
The worst part of all was that Erik could pull off Charles’ tiny swimsuits even
better than he could. They threw on t-shirts and sweatpants and met the rest of
the group downstairs. Clearly Alex wasn’t able to talk Scott into coming to
this one, but Sean and Janos showed up and they went outside before Logan could
stop them.
Erik actually looked excited to swim, but while they walked across the fields
to the lake and talked about their classes, a corner of Charles’ mind refused
to think about anything except for Erik’s long, muscular legs, wearing Charles’
swimsuit underneath his sweatpants. Charles pretended that he was capable of
ignoring it, pretending on top of pretending, and told Hank about a new
genetics program that was opening up at Oxford.
They stripped down to their swimsuits against the biting wind, savoring every
second that the sun would appear before it hid behind more clouds, and lined up
on the edge of the lake.
“On three, we’re all going to jump in.” Darwin said to Erik. Charles wanted to
stand as far away from Erik as possible ever since he’d taken his pants off,
but he settled for using Sean as a buffer.
“Someone should probably test the water, first, guys. Just in case it’s more
cold than usual.” Sean said. His red hair was swirling around his head in the
wind and he clung to himself against the cold.
Darwin thought about that for a minute. He stretched a foot down to dip a toe
in the water.
And then Erik pushed Sean into the lake and Sean yelped. Alex doubled over
laughing.
“Erik!” Charles exclaimed, watching Sean rise to the top of the water, coughing
and shivering and halfway glaring at Erik.
“What?” He said, “You know you were thinking the same.”
Erik stepped back and took a running start, and everyone jumped in after Sean
gave a weak thumbs-up. They didn’t bother counting to three. Charles felt his
body tense when he hit the water, and he floated paralyzed for a moment,
willing his muscles to relax so he could reach the surface. An arm around his
waist pulled him up and he gasped for air.
“This is awful.” He sputtered, and Erik laughed.
Charles tensed again, because Erik was right next to him, arm still holding his
waist tightly, both of them practically naked. He splashed Erik in the face
awkwardly and tried to swim away.
He was saved when Sean jumped out of the water behind Erik and pulled him
under, and then everyone was splashing and tackling each other and everything
was okay.
Alex and Darwin tried to climb the tree, even though it was dried out from the
winter and they kept slipping off of it, and Hank waded around until he found a
rock to stand on, leaving Charles and Erik and Janos and Sean in the midst of a
water fight that could only end in some dreaded form of skin-on-skin contact.
On the bright side, though, swimming in circles to avoid Erik’s trajectory was
a good way for Charles to keep warm.
He laughed when Sean and Janos teamed up to take Erik down, which resulted in
Erik smiling at him devilishly once his head was above water again, and then
Erik was coming for him with frightening speed and Charles flailed his arms and
legs towards the shore, chanting a chorus of nope nope nope nope nope nope
nope.
Erik tackled him from behind and pulled him backwards until his head was
underwater. Charles struggled, kicking his legs above the surface until Erik
lifted him up again and he coughed the lakewater out of his nose and mouth.
Erik didn’t let go, leading to the exact outcome that Charles feared: he didn’t
want Erik to let go.
So he pulled his arm back and elbowed Erik in the stomach.
They stayed in the water for a long time, all freezing but intent on being
outside as long as possible. They must have missed dinner, because while
Charles stood on the rock next to Hank he could see a crowd of students walking
back from the dining hall.
And then Logan saw them and yelled from almost 200 meters away.
“YOU DUMBASSES BETTER GET OUT OF THERE BEFORE YOU GET HYPOTHERMIA OR SO HELP ME
GOD”
They all scrambled out of the water and grabbed their clothes.
Charles decided that the walk back to the dorms, when the sun was setting and
he was soaking wet and the dead grass made his feet sting, was worse than being
in the water. By the time they got inside both he and Erik were shaking, and
they unintentionally huddled together as they navigated the hallways, dripping
water on the carpets.
“This is the coldest I have ever been in my life.” Charles hugged his clothes
to his chest.
“Quit whining.” Erik said, but his teeth were chattering just as badly as
Charles’.
Without thinking it through, Charles steered them into the bathroom and turned
on the shower. He shivered under the water as it warmed up and Erik locked the
door and joined him in the stall and then Charles realized what a colossal
mistake he had just made.
There was no way to avoid standing close to Erik now, because they were both
leaning under the spray of the showerhead, and Charles could feel his skin
reddening from the water and the steam and the fact that he was so close to
Erik he could hear him breathing.
Erik was running his hands through his hair, and Charles watched the muscles in
his chest and arms move. He didn’t understand how someone could be so good
looking. Honestly, it was almost a character flaw.
And then he looked up, and Erik was staring at him.
“Charles?” Erik lowered his arms slowly. Charles closed his eyes and swallowed
hard, because he hadn’t tried hard enough to get rid of his weird attraction to
Erik and he kept losing control around him and this was about to get extremely
awkward.
So he did what he had been doing for the past two months. He made a run for it.
“Well, I think I’m warmed up enough.”
Charles tried to step out of the shower but Erik grabbed his wrist, pulling him
back, willing Charles to look at him. Charles did. Erik was watching him like
he’d just solved a mystery, and Charles was the missing piece, and now the
entire world made sense.
“Charles.” He said again, like his name was sacred. Charles made a choked noise
in the back of his throat and Erik reached for his other wrist, pulling both of
Charles’ arms to wrap around his waist.
“Erik?” He breathed. He was directly under the showerhead now, and the water
was running down his face, making his hair fall into his eyes.
Erik crowded Charles further against the wall, out of the spray, and pushed the
hair from his face before kissing him. There were still traces of the cold on
Erik’s lips, every press of his mouth sending tiny shivers through Charles’
spine. Charles pulled his arms tighter around Erik’s body and hung on for dear
life. He craned his neck up and pushed his tongue inside Erik’s mouth and Erik
groaned, bending his leg forward so Charles was practically straddling his
thigh, and god, everything felt so good.
Charles dug his nails in Erik’s back when he leaned down and grazed the line of
Charles’ jaw with biting kisses. The mysterious almost-erection that occurred
weeks ago didn’t even compare to how hard Charles was now, aching inside of his
swimsuit and against Erik’s thigh. He bit his lip to keep from moaning and
pulled himself closer in search of some kind of friction.
Erik’s hands found his hips, and the two of them shifted around awkwardly
before they had established a rhythm, with Charles riding Erik’s thigh and Erik
sucking on Charles’ neck, both of them struggling to keep the noise low enough
that it couldn’t be heard over the shower.
“This fucking thing.” Erik whispered, tracing his fingers along the band of
Charles’ speedo before he pressed his hand against his erection through the
fabric. Charles whined.
“Erik. Erik. Please.” He gasped, and Erik shushed him, kissing his cheek and
the corners of his mouth, tugging on his bottom lip with his teeth while his
hand continued stroking up and down. Charles screwed his eyes shut, his mouth
open and gasping for air against Erik’s neck, and came, almost collapsing from
the force of it. Erik held him through it until he could stand again.
Charles leaned up and kissed him, turning them around so he could stand under
the water. Erik kissed him back with an edge of desperation, his hands slipping
over Charles’ shoulders, and Charles reached a hand into his swim trunks and
gave Erik, in his opinion, the best handjob he had ever given. It took Erik
maybe two minutes before he was panting and coming into Charles’ hand.
They both stood under the water for a few moments and then Charles turned the
shower off, sitting down on the tile and wondering what the hell he had gotten
himself into. Erik sat next to him, flushed and nervous and probably thinking
the same thing.
“What do we do now?” He whispered, and Charles shrugged.
“Try and make it back to the room without it looking like we just had sex in
here.”
Erik was silent for a moment before he dissolved into laughter and Charles
joined in, lightheaded and sleepy and trying not to panic for at least the rest
of the night.
 
When they finally made it back to their room safely, they locked the door and
changed into pajamas and laid down in Charles’ bed. It was pretty cramped, and
Erik took up maybe half of the space with his legs alone, but somehow they were
able to maneuver themselves into a prime cuddle position, With Erik’s head
against Charles’ chest and his legs curled at the foot of the bed. Charles ran
his fingers absently through Erik’s wet hair.
“Did that actually just happen or am I imagining it?”
Erik smiled, sleepy and warm and only a little bit uncomfortable. That was
enough of an answer.
“I think I’ve been attracted to you ever since that day I ran out of the room
in a panic and came back to find you’d stolen the chess set.”
“I’ve been attracted to you ever since we were sent to the principal’s office
at 4 AM and you started sobbing.” Erik mumbled, his breath warming Charles’
skin through his t-shirt.
“That’s a joke.” Charles said.
“Maybe it was the morning after that. You know you’re very pretty when you wake
up.”
“I’m pretty when I sob, too, though.”
Erik breathed out a laugh, letting his eyes flutter closed.
“You’re a brat.” He whispered.
“I know.”
Charles picked up his copy of In Cold Blood that was still on the floor from
earlier and threw it at the light switch. Erik was too close to sleep to really
appreciate the fact that he made it on the first try, but Charles would be sure
to tell him about it in the morning. They held on to each other through the
night, with Charles smoothing back Erik’s hair lazily and Erik’s hand fisted in
Charles’ shirt as he slept.
 
 
***** Chapter 6 *****
december
 
Usually whenever Charles felt like the worst thing that could happen to him was
happening, he would think back to all of the other times he’d thought the same
thing, and then try to talk himself out of it. For example: Well, I may be
trapped in the field house with the biggest spider I’ve ever seen but at least
it’s not like that one time I was trapped in my mother’s armoire and had to
listen to her and Kurt have sex, or: Yes I may have thrown up more times than I
can count in the past two hours but at least it’s not like that one time during
freshman year when I threw up in front of half of the senior class at my first
party and everyone laughed whenever they saw me in the hallway for the rest of
the semester.
Charles wasn’t sure if his goal following Erik and the three other men into the
alley was to stop the fighting or to join it, but he ended up on the ground
regardless. Two punches to his face and a couple more to his ribs and stomach,
some of which most likely came from Erik, and Charles decided that he wasn’t
going to get up again.
There was a murky looking puddle next to his head, something that looked like a
mixture of snow and petrol but smelled an awful lot like death. Charles dipped
the tip of his fingers in it and immediately regretted it. He shook his hand to
try and get it off, thinking back through all of his memories for something
that could be considered worse than this.
There was the time he ended up in a similar position on the bathroom floor
after Kurt nearly dislocated one of his shoulders, but the clean, cool tiles of
the bathroom were definitely an improvement from an alley full of death
puddles. Charles looked down and there was another one right next to his feet.
He hastily moved his legs away to reveal that his left shoe had been sitting on
a pile of french fries. Just seeing it made him conflicted on whether he felt
like crying, vomiting, or just dying right there.
“Charles! What the fuck are you doing we need to GO.” Erik was yelling at him
and suddenly there was a pair of shoes a few inches from his face, partially
submerged in death puddle no. 1. Charles looked up and Erik was the last one
standing. Behind him two men were on the ground and one was limping away,
cursing under his breath.
“I’m not moving.” Charles fought back the bile that was burning the inside of
his throat.
“The bartender called the police. If we hurry and if you stop being a baby we
can get back to campus before sunrise.”
Erik squatted down to look Charles in the eyes. His eyebrows were knitted
together angrily and there was blood coming from somewhere on his forehead.
Charles weakly noted that Erik’s face was fairly well shaped and symmetrical,
but it was really becoming kind of difficult to keep his eyes open.
He was jolted awake again when Erik slapped him across the face, causing his
body to jerk and his foot to slip over the french fries and into death puddle
no. 2.
“GET. UP.” Erik growled in his ear. Charles whined.
“I am injured, and disgusted, and covered in french fries, and the only way I’m
getting out of this alley is if someone with any amount of decency will carry
me out.”
Charles screwed his eyes shut and could hear Erik muttering I swear to fucking
god before he was being yanked off of the ground. Erik pulled him upright--
rather forcefully, Charles might add--and pushed him forward towards the
street. He stumbled along, reaching for something to hold on to in the dark.
Erik grumbled and grabbed him around the waist, pulling Charles’ arm over his
shoulders, and they walked together through the equally gross and icy streets
where Charles’ feet managed to drag through every single puddle.
They made it almost halfway back to the school, to the beginning of the gravel
road that led to the woods next to the dorms, before a police car pulled up
behind them, sirens and lights blaring as a man stepped out and told them to
put their hands in the air.
Erik sighed loudly and dropped Charles, effectively causing him to fall to the
ground again.
 
-
 
march
 
Hank sat down at breakfast with his Physics textbook and a tray comprised of
two cups of coffee and half of a blueberry bagel. His hair was a nightmare,
well matched with the haphazard combination he was wearing of his pajamas and
the school uniform. Alex and Darwin just laughed.
“I guess the school is done enforcing uniform rules.” Alex said. Hank frowned
at him, shoved the bagel into his mouth, and opened up his textbook.
All of them, including Charles (and now, for some reason, Erik), sat at the
same table for every meal, the one in front of the window and two tables from
the door. Although inconveniently far from the end of the meal line, it was in
enjoyable proximity to the front, a prime location for people-watching and
closer to the exit. Like most days, Darwin sat back in his chair and watched
the indefinite line of tired, pajama-wearing students while Alex was hunched
over eating and Hank was buried in the pages of his textbook.
Darwin spotted Charles moving forward in line, and he would’ve waved if he
wasn’t turned around and talking to Erik. He couldn’t decide if it was better
or worse that Charles and Erik were spending time together without ripping each
other’s heads off. From this angle they looked almost like they were friends.
“Hey, what’s the deal with those two?”
“Which two?” Alex spoke with his mouth half-full of scrambled eggs.
“He’s probably talking about Charles and Erik.” Hank said, even though his
chair was facing the opposite direction. He took an irresponsibly large sip of
coffee.
“Yeah I’m talking about Charles and Erik. I thought they hated each other.”
“You’re like, three months behind, dude.” Alex started eating off of Darwin’s
plate and Darwin elbowed him away. “They’re practically boyfriends.” He said.
“I’m pretty sure they are boyfriends.” Hank closed his textbook over the table,
rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. He turned around in his chair and the
three of them stared at Charles and Erik standing in line. They looked like
they were bickering about something, but there was an element of warmth to the
way they regarded each other, almost like they enjoyed arguing.
“Shit, Hank. You might be right.” Alex said.
Their staring went unnoticed as Charles and Erik went through the meal line and
looped back around to the table. The two of them were laughing, Erik’s giant
smile breaking out on his face while Charles blushed, and they didn’t stop
their little private conversation until they sat down to see Alex, Hank, and
Darwin openly gaping at them.
“What is it?” Charles asked, still breathless from laughter. His breakfast was
more or less as responsible as he was, oatmeal and fruit and scrambled eggs,
whereas Erik didn’t even have a tray, just a mug of coffee with a slice of
toast balanced on top. Darwin looked at Erik suspiciously. He opened his mouth
to dismissively say nothing when Alex went ahead and blurted out,
“So are you two boyfriends or what?”
Charles froze and Erik jolted up from the way he had been slouched over in his
chair, both of their eyes getting wide as they looked at each other nervously.
Hank sighed and went back to studying.
“Uh… well, we, that is to say, I… I don’t, um,” Charles stuttered, blushing
bright red to the rips of his ears. Seeing this, Erik’s demeanor changed and he
smirked and leaned forward to kiss Charles on the cheek, making him turn
impossibly redder.
“Well now I really wish McTaggert didn’t take up my phone yesterday. I could’ve
captured this moment forever.” Darwin leaned back in his chair, entertained
because he hadn’t Charles this embarrassed ever since that one time during
freshman year when he threw up in front of half of the senior class. He failed
to notice Alex eating off of his plate again until it was too late.
Charles was still red and frowning down at his breakfast. Erik smiled, taking a
sip of his coffee before kissing him on the cheek again. It was almost
terrifying to see them like this after nearly a semester of Erik going out of
his way to be an asshole. But Charles seemed different around Erik, less
neurotic, maybe, or less worried about being universally adored. And Erik was…
well, Erik was Erik. There wasn’t much Darwin could do about that.
“Called it.” Hank said from behind his textbook.
 
 
***** Chapter 7 *****
Chapter Notes
     in which there are a lot of feelings
april
 
It wasn’t difficult for Charles to convince Erik to stay at school for the
week-long spring holiday instead of going to his aunt’s house in Rochester. The
two of them didn’t seem to get along much at all, from what Charles had
noticed, and it was a whole other story with his cousins. So they spent the
week together, playing chess, breaking a decent number of school rules,
studying for AP exams, and not studying for AP exams.
The school was pretty empty. Only a handful of students were left in the
upperclassmen dorms, which resulted in the east side of campus being pleasantly
empty. Charles took the opportunity to show Erik all of his favorite hiding
spots from the last three years. By Wednesday they’d made out in every
climbable tree on the grounds, felt each other up in the equipment shed next to
the soccer fields, and drank the rest of Charles’ vodka in a secluded spot on
the roof.  
“Have you gotten any replies from colleges yet?” Charles asked after the bottle
was empty. The sun had started to set and the pink and orange light seemed to
soften Erik’s face.
“Yeah.” He replied, leaning back on his elbows against the rough shingles. “All
of the American universities rejected me, but I can go to any of the German
ones.”
“Erik! Why didn’t I know this?” When Charles got accepted into Oxford, everyone
knew by the end of the day, but he told Erik first, who responded by making fun
of his obsession and then kissing him senseless.
“It’s not important.”
“Of course it’s important. I’m happy for you.” Charles fiddled with the hem of
Erik’s shirt absently, slipping his hand underneath and then using his torso as
leverage to pull himself closer.
“What are we going to do after this year ends, Charles? Have you thought about
that? What’s going to happen to-” He gestured at where their bodies were lined
up on the gentle slant of the roof, “to this?”
“Oh.” Charles frowned, “I suppose I haven’t thought about it.”
“We’re going to be hundreds of miles away no matter where I go.”
“Easy. Transfer to Oxford.” Charles smiled and moved his head onto Erik’s
shoulder.
“I mean it.”
“I know, darling. I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer for you.”
Erik huffed. He seemed slightly dismal for the rest of the day, even if he
pretended not to be. Charles wondered if their relationship really meant that
much to Erik, that he couldn’t reconcile with the two of them parting after the
end of the year.
He’d avoided thinking about it, but maybe he would have trouble with it, too.
 
That next morning it was their last day with a mostly empty floor before
everyone started to come back during the weekend. When Charles woke up Erik was
lying in bed, awake, still looking upset. Charles got up and crawled into
Erik’s bed next to him.
“It’ll be okay.” He whispered through the silence of the morning.
Erik rolled over and Charles wrapped his arms around him, thinking of the irony
that his few chances of being big spoon always came with the catch of grumpy
Erik.
“How can you be sure of that?”
“I can’t.”
Erik was grumpy, but not grumpy enough that he didn’t want to have sex again.
It was the last day when Charles didn’t have to bite his hand in an effort to
keep the noise down, and Charles rode him slowly until they were both shaking
and sweating and Erik was cursing with every breath. He etched Erik’s face into
his memory, the way he looked at Charles in awe before screwing his eyes shut
and arching back into the pillows, the way his demeanor had changed so much
this week when they could finally take their time.
Charles leaned down and kissed Erik again and again as they became more and
more desperate, moaning into his mouth as his orgasm finally washed over him.
Erik followed pretty closely behind, continuing to thrust as Charles stayed
motionless and overwhelmed.
He collapsed onto Erik’s chest. They took heaving breaths of air as they both
came back down. Charles hummed and closed his eyes, covering Erik’s body with
his own, and Erik pushed the hair off of Charles’ forehead and continued to run
his fingers through it.
“I think I might be in love with you.” Erik said, still breathless. “But I
don’t know. I’ve never been in love with someone before.”
Charles would always regret that he hadn’t said more after Erik had opened up
to him like that. Instead he had just said:
“If this--us--if we’re really something, we’ll find a way to make it work, I
think.”
“Okay.” Erik said, not sounding particularly comforted, “Okay.”
 
-
 
may
 
It was a close win, in the end. Darwin was only half a grade point away from
there being a tie with Charles for valedictorian, and the two of them
unintentionally avoided each other for the second half of May while they tried
desperately to bring their grades even higher, but Charles did, in fact, win,
just like he’d planned at the beginning of the year.
He hadn’t planned on Erik, though, but at this point he couldn’t imagine having
spent the year without him. Erik fit into his group of friends well once they
all stopped being suspicious of him, and he even went to their final Sunday
night swim of high school, an evening they all spent pretending not to be sad
about graduating and going their separate ways.
Charles and Erik had done a lot of that same pretending since spring break.
They didn’t talk about college or leaving or graduation and then they held each
other as closely as they could in Charles’ bed every night.
Their room was eerily quiet on the morning of their graduation ceremony.
Charles was doing the last of his packing, filling boxes that he’d be loading
into Raven’s corvette in a few hours before he went to stay with her in New
York for the summer.
Both of them were dressed up in suits, and Erik, in Charles’ opinion, looked
breathtaking. He stole glances every once in a while to see Erik reaching to
take a poster down, bending over to strip the sheets off the bed, and it almost
made him angry that someone could look so good in any position. They finished
up with half an hour to spare and sat on Erik’s bare mattress.
Erik held Charles’ hand tightly and Charles leaned his head into the juncture
of his neck and shoulder, looking for something to say that would make either
of them feel better. He came up short and settled on inching closer to Erik and
fighting back tears until they were finally called to put on their robes and
come downstairs.
Darwin and Alex saw them downstairs and greeted them with excitement, which
only made Charles feel sick as he tried to be excited back.
“Don’t be nervous, man!” Alex said, “You’re fucking valedictorian!”
Charles smiled weakly and Erik rested his hand on his back.
“Can’t say the same for this guy here.” Alex whispered and gestured at Darwin,
who promptly cuffed him on the back of the head.
Hank showed up moments later and seemed to catch on to Charles’ and Erik’s mood
pretty quickly. He gave Erik a quick nod before distracting Alex and Darwin to
give them a few minutes of peace.
The seniors were herded to the main building which contained the auditorium,
and as much as Charles wanted to cling on to Erik for the entirety of their
last day together, they weren’t safe being boyfriends around the whole school.
They made a lot of prolonged eye contact which Alex had insisted was depressing
as hell, seriously guys just looking at you makes me feel like I’m the one
going through a breakup.
Charles saw Raven’s car in the parking lot on his way there, feeling excited to
see her and then realizing that he hadn’t told her about Erik much at all. He
wondered if Erik would be able to stay long enough for him to introduce them,
or if he’d even want to at this point.
When they reached the auditorium, Charles left with Mrs. Monroe and some of the
other faculty to take his seat on stage. He waved goodbye to his friends, who
waved back and gave some thumbs-ups for his coming valedictorian speech.
Charles let himself smile now, trying to be more excited than sad.
His cap was a little tight, and most of the ceremony blurred together with all
of the bright lights and applause. He gave himself a headache as he sat onstage
in anticipation of the speech he’d written and rewritten for the past week, but
once his name was called and he could hear Raven cheering louder than the rest
of the audience, he felt his anxiety slowly melt away and he stepped up to the
podium. He cleared his throat as the room went silent.
“Every year,” He said, trying not to think about how weird his accent sounded
through the speakers, “Every year I start school with intricate plans of how
the year will go. It’s a little embarrassing, I’ll admit, the time I’ve spent
in the summers imagining every day of the coming school year. But not nearly
embarrassing as the lengths I’ve been known to go just to achieve those
things.”
There was some laughter from the senior class, even those who didn’t know him
well enough to know that the joke was accurate.
“And I suppose it’s worked out for me, to sort of micromanage my life, I mean,
I did become valedictorian after all, which has been my plan since day one. But
when I was writing this speech, and trying to fill ten minutes with something
inspiring and applicable, the only conclusion I could draw was that I have
wasted a lot of time planning my life when I could have been living it.
All of those hours I spent trying to make sure that everything turned out to be
perfect, those were a waste of time. Because life doesn’t have to go according
to plan, it’s actually better if it doesn’t.” Charles smiled, “At least,
sometimes.”
More of the students, and some of the parents, laughed.
“Needless to say, I came to this conclusion because there were a lot of things
this year that I didn’t plan on. I met people, I did things, I learned things,
that months ago I would’ve completely avoided in favor of following the rigid
schedules I had assigned myself.
In the past four years, there have been friendships I missed out on because I
was too busy trying to optimize my socialization in order to reach a certain
reputation. There have been classes I didn’t take in favor of doubling up on
subjects that, in the end, weren’t as important as I thought they would be.
There are life experiences I didn’t have, all because I wanted to be the best
student in this school.
But really, I’m no better than anyone else. I’m not going to stand up here and
congratulate myself on the choices I made and didn’t make, because the reality
is that the lot of you probably enjoyed high school a lot more than I did. I’m
not going to give you advice on how to be more like me.
I am, however, going to strongly advise that you be not like me. Don’t be like
me. Don’t try and organize your life into graphs and time slots, and accept
that some things will just happen as they happen. Sometimes things don’t go
according to plan, and sometimes, those things only make your life more rich.”
He allowed himself a moment to catch eyes with Erik before looking back to the
room, and had to convince himself that Erik definitely was not crying because
if he was crying then Charles wouldn’t be able to stop himself from crying.
“In front of me is a class full of young men with dreams, some of them even
bigger than mine. And all I hope for as we move on to the next chapter in our
lives, is to be more like all of you. I hope that we can all reach our goals,
but I also hope that we won’t be so obsessed with our ideas of perfection that
we disregard the importance to enjoy life as it happens.”
After a few more silent moments, everyone realised that the speech was over and
the room erupted in applause. Charles let himself cry once Mrs. Monroe had led
him back to his seat and they began calling the students one by one to walk
across the stage.
The ceremony went by even faster after that, and then they were throwing their
caps and it became a mad rush of kids trying to leave school as quickly as
possible.
Charles found Erik behind the building, leaning against the wall in the shade.
His suit jacket was off and his sleeves were messily rolled up as he continued
to rub his red eyes. He wordlessly came up next to him and started to fix his
sleeves until they were neatly cuffed at the elbow.
“I liked your speech.” Erik said, his voice rougher than usual.
“Thank you.” Charles fixed Erik’s tie for good measure.
“You should’ve let me proofread it, though. It was a little self-absorbed.”
He looked up and Erik was wearing a shadow of the smirk he usually had when he
teased him. Charles breathed out a laugh and leaned forward into Erik’s chest,
and wrapping their arms around each other felt as easy as breathing.
Fifteen minutes later, saying goodbye to Erik turned out to be suffocating.
Charles didn’t have to hold his breath as he watched Erik get farther and
farther away through the rear-view mirror, because he already couldn’t breathe
at all.
 
 
***** Chapter 8 *****
december - one year later
 
Oxford was everything Charles had spent his life dreaming it would be. His life
had fallen into a binary of studying his ass off and going to crowded parties,
charming his way into campus bars and working through his hangovers in the
library, and he absolutely loved it. He was surrounded by likeminded people of
the same background and fit into the social scene smoothly. Nobody made fun of
his tiny swim shorts or his taste in literature or his love of tea, he hadn’t
set foot in Westchester since winter break of senior year, and he was having an
almost irresponsible amount of sex.
Still, in those sparse moments when he was sober, and free of impending
deadlines, and alone in his tiny flat, he felt a distinct emptiness in his
life. He hated to admit it, but he missed being challenged and made fun of and
argued with. He missed the playful mockery whenever he acted too British,
because Charles had no novelty here. There was nothing that set him apart from
the hundreds of other charming, well-to-do, hard working freshmen, and there
was also no one to tell him when he was being an annoying brat.
Simply put, there was no Erik.
Saying goodbye to Erik during the summer had been hell, but they both assured
themselves that their relationship was just a fling, a silly, short-lived
romance to take the edge off of senior year. Charles even believed it for a
while as he sweet-talked his way into the beds of men and women alike,
relishing the freedom of having sex whenever he wanted and as loud as he
wanted, and generally feeling hot and unstoppable. It was all easy, too, to buy
someone a drink and tell them something random about their genetic makeup that
he’d read from one of his textbooks the night before (which somehow turned out
to be a pretty effective flirting method).
Charles was walking home one night--or rather, one morning--after spending the
evening with a lovely woman who taught him about quantum physics between rounds
and smoked pot with the windows open, just like he used to. It was during this
walk through the empty streets, as his high started to wear off, when he
decided that maybe he didn’t want it to be easy anymore.
He sat down on the icy doorstep of his building and called Erik, feeling the
cold seep through his corduroys and hoping that Erik still had the same phone
number.
When Erik picked up the phone Charles felt his heart stop. What the hell was he
supposed to say?
“Charles, it’s three in the morning.”
“That’s funny.” Charles didn’t laugh, “I think it’s two here. Where are you?”
“München. I mean, Munich. I’m in Munich.” Erik sounded sleepy but Charles could
tell that his accent was rougher. He felt the same nervous energy that he used
to get around the earlier days of his attraction to Erik.
“And you’re at Oxford?” He asked.
“Yes.” Charles pulled his coat tighter around himself. He really ought to go
inside, but something about Erik made him feel like he needed the privacy of an
empty street at two in the morning instead of the thin-walled building full of
classmates, still pulsing with club music that spilled out of the windows.
“Why did you call me, Charles?”
“I…” Charles began. He closed his eyes. Why did he call Erik? He didn’t know.
All he knew was that hearing Erik’s voice over a staticy long distance phone
call made him feel like his life had been missing an important piece all this
time.
“I miss you.” He finally said, and then he said it again, more to himself the
second time, “I miss you, Erik. So much.”
Erik was silent for a minute, but even if he had responded right away Charles
wouldn’t have been able to hear his voice over the pounding of his own heart.
“I miss you too.”
“You do?”
“There’s a distinct lack of whiny pretentious roommates in my life right now.”
Charles smiled, feeling his body warm despite the biting wind.
“Would it make you feel better if I whined to you over the phone?”
“I should really go back to sleep, but maybe just one complaint. Give me
something really privileged.”
“I’m so tired of one night stands. It’s like I don’t even have to try anymore
to pick someone up. We just make eye contact, maybe exchange three or four
words, and then we hook up. There’s no challenge to it anymore. I may as well
just watch porn. Sex used to be so exciting, you know? We would put so much
thought and planning into it, although I suppose that’s just because we were at
risk of being caught. Nobody cares, here. There’s no challenge.”
“Oh wow, Charles. It must be so hard for you.” Erik deadpanned, “You probably
can’t even bat those pretty eyelashes without being mobbed by suitors.”
“Tell me about it.”
Both of them laughed a little bit, and it felt good, the way Erik teased
without the underlying malice that he once had. Charles wondered if he still
wore that same lopsided smirk.
“Are you being safe?” Erik asked, suddenly serious and almost sounding
concerned.
“What do you mean?”
“With your one night stands. Tell me you’re not being an idiot on top of being
a floozy.”
“Yes. I’m being safe.”
“Good.”
“I want to see you.” Charles blurted out.
“I’m in Germany.”
“I mean, if you’re schedule is open, and mine is also open, and you’re not
seeing anyone, although we could just be friends, why wouldn’t we just be
friends, what am I thinking, I could, um, I could pay for your flight and
everything, it would only have to be for a few days-”
“Charles.”
“Sorry, I just thought, I feel like-”
“I want to see you, too. I’m just...busy right now. With school and work. You
know.”
“I understand. We can work something out. I’ll call you again when it’s daytime
and I’m not sitting on my front steps coming off of a high.”
“How cold is it over there? Go inside, for god’s sake, before you get sick. ”
“I’m fine.”
“And you’re alone? Do you frequently get high and walk around alone?”
Charles almost forgot who he was on the phone with. Was Erik worrying about
him? He shrugged it off, but Erik was right because he noticed the ice had
completely soaked through his pants and parts of his body were starting to feel
numb.
“I’m fine, mum.” He said finally, “ Now go back to sleep. I’ll call you again
at a decent hour.”
“Okay. Goodnight, Charles.”
“Goodnight Erik.”
Charles felt a lump in his throat as he hung up. It was as if all of the
semester’s moments of missing Erik combined were washing over him in waves of
pain. He made it to his bedroom with cold, clumsy limbs and went to bed,
telling himself that he had no reason to feel sad about this, replaying the
phone call over and over again in his head. He wants to see me, he thought, he
misses me. And then Charles fell asleep.
 
-
 
june
 
Charles couldn’t remember a time when he felt as nervous as he did waiting for
Erik in the airport, which was silly, because this was Erik. He knew Erik, he’d
lived with Erik, they’d been calling each other almost every other day since
December, there was no reason for him to be nervous.
But somehow, Charles could feel that things weren’t going to be the same
between them. They weren’t in boarding school anymore and it’d been a whole
year of meeting new people and trying new things, a year apart from each other.
Charles hoped he wasn’t the same as before. He liked to think he was less
spoiled, less entitled, more cultured, and at least three inches taller. His
level of debauchery had gone down at least fifty percent, most likely due to
the fact that Erik tended to call at night (although Charles would never admit
that out loud).
When the plane landed and Erik finally stepped out of the jetway, Charles
realized that things definitely weren’t going to be the same, and that,
compared to Erik, he really hadn’t changed one bit.
If Erik was tall before, he was somehow infinitely larger, the muscles in his
arms and legs and shoulders making him look less like the gangly kid that
Charles first saw contorted into one of Principal Monroe’s chairs and more like
a man. He was tanner, his hair was cleanly cut and styled, and with the way he
looked around the gate it was as if he regarded the world through different
eyes. Charles wouldn’t have recognized him if they had merely been friends.
It was because they were so close, because Charles heard Erik’s voice and his
laugh and even his smile through the phone, the way he’d become less rude and
more caring, the way he’d grown up so much just in the way he spoke to Charles,
that Charles saw Erik in person, in all of the other ways he’d grown up, and
knew it was him, knew it couldn’t be anyone else.
His first instinct was to call out to Erik and wave his arms above the crowd of
people and run into his embrace, possibly followed by fabulous sex and riding
horses into the sunset, but Charles reminded himself that he had grown up too,
so he stayed where he was and waited, trying to figure out exactly what being a
mature grown up was supposed to mean at times like this.
When Erik spotted him he grinned and walked over to Charles with the same
enviably long strides, a satchel thrown over his shoulder and a carry-on
suitcase rolling behind. Charles couldn’t help it; he grinned back, feeling
stupid and nervous and insanely relieved to see Erik again.
They stood there for a minute, facing each other and smiling like they’d gone
mad.
“Hi.” Charles said. Erik laughed, which sent a twinge of pain through Charles
at how much he had really, honestly, irrationally missed him.
“Hello.” Erik said back.
Charles had a tendency to overshare at times like this. He’d half expected to
talk Erik’s ear off by the end of his first night, but seeing Erik in real life
instead of over the phone while he was alone in his room, Charles didn’t feel
like he needed to fill any silence with his rambling. In fact, he didn’t really
want to say anything at all, he just wanted to look at Erik for a few hours.
“Shall we go?” He asked, and the two of them took the train to Oxford in
relative silence, looking out the window and occasionally looking at each
other. Erik was tired from the trip and Charles couldn’t think of anything to
say that he hadn’t already talked about over the phone.
When they got to the station near campus Erik decided he’d rather walk to
Charles’ flat than take a cab. Charles mindlessly recited some campus history
he’d picked up during orientation as they walked through the streets and
courtyards, worried that maybe Erik was bored or annoyed or otherwise not
having a good time and planning on never visiting Charles again.
As they walked, the hot afternoon melted slowly into evening, sun shining
ruthlessly through the gaps between buildings and glaring off of windows.
Charles squirmed and fiddled with his clothes while he walked, pushing his
sleeves up again and again and trying desperately not to sweat through his new
shirt. Erik didn’t say anything. He wondered if he was being a poor host
already, if he hadn’t grown up enough or if he was too different now, too quiet
and too sad.
“This is me.” He said, awkwardly stopping when they reached his flat. It was a
nice building, a little old, not the nicest Charles could be living in, but
well located between his classes and the bars he liked to go to.
“I don’t want to say I was expecting a penthouse, but this seems a little under
what you’re used to.”
Charles scoffed.
“Maybe I wanted the thorough Oxford experience.”
Erik smirked at that, and Charles realized that that was about as pretentious
as actually renting a penthouse.
His flat had three rooms: his bedroom, which featured some of the same decor
items he had in boarding school, a tiny kitchen he almost never used, and a
bathroom with hideous tiles but a walk-in shower. Every floor of the building
had a common room with couches and a telly, and a laundry room which was
commonly fought over every weekend. Nobody they passed on their way to Charles’
flat seemed to bat an eye at Erik, which was insane because it was likely that
Erik was the most beautiful man any of them would encounter in their lifetime.
“I should be able to borrow an air mattress from the girl across the hall.”
Charles observed, letting Erik into his little setup and immediately trying to
be hospitable. He hadn’t exactly had many guests overnight who he wasn’t
clearly planning on sharing his bed with. “Are you hungry? I have some leftover
chips in the fridge, although I don’t know if you like them cold. I also have
cereal, I think. Now I wish I’d gone shopping before you arrived.”
He continued to rifle through the kitchen while Erik set his things down and
sat on the edge of his bed.
“I was going to buy beer, but then I realized that I have no idea how to shop
for beer, so I suppose we could just go together. Or we could just go to a pub
tonight if you like.”
When Erik didn’t respond he gave up and leaned against the doorway of the
bedroom. Erik was still on the bed, which was significantly bigger than their
dorm room beds and practically filled half of the room. His eyes were scanning
around the walls, decorated with a tasteful amount of posters and news
articles, and the open closet full of sweaters, and his messy desk, taking it
all in.
“Erik? Are you alright?”
Erik nodded and looked up at Charles.
“Come here.” He said. Charles raised an eyebrow and slowly walked towards him.
Erik reached his hands out and Charles was still confused for a moment before
he grabbed a hold of Charles’ waist and pulled him closer. Erik held him
lightly enough that Charles could get away if he wanted. When Charles stepped
between his legs and made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere, he held on
tighter and rested his forehead against Charles’ stomach.
At first Charles didn’t know the best way to respond. He rested his hands on
Erik’s shoulders, feeling the muscles there, before finally giving in and
curling his body around Erik, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face
in his hair.
Neither of them said anything; they didn’t need to.
Charles sighed and felt dangerously close to crying, and Erik mumbled into his
torso, his warm breath going straight through his shirt.
“Please don’t make me sleep on an air mattress.”
Charles laughed wetly, letting a tear spill over onto his cheek.
“Okay.” He said, “Okay.”
 
end.
 
 
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