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Charles comes down with a fever on Thursday, so he ends up heading home early and missing all of his afternoon classes. Thankfully he shares all three of them with Hank McCoy, who calls him afterward with a detailed list of everything Charles missed. Trust Hank to take meticulous notes in every class, and to be thoughtful enough to pass them on.
“So for Calculus, you just need to do problems 31 through 45 on page 335,” Hank says, sounding as if he’s reading from a checklist. “And Professor Callahan also posted a final exam review for us to look at before next week.”
Charles scribbles the note down halfheartedly, trying not to sniffle. His nose hurts from his blowing it too much. “Mm, okay. Anything else?”
“Yeah, Dr. Liu assigned our final project for Poli Sci today. We’re supposed to research a recent piece of legislation, present it to the class, and argue for or against it.”
Charles chews on the end of his pen. “That sounds fun.”
“Yeah. Actually you have to work with a partner. And…” Hank hesitates. “Well…we all chose partners today.”
There’s guilt in his voice. “You didn’t choose me, did you?” Charles guesses, frowning. They’re always partners on everything. Why—
“Alex Summers didn’t have a partner,” Hank blurts out. “And I just—I volunteered.”
Oh, of course. Hank’s only had a crush on Alex since the first day of college. “Good for you,” Charles says sincerely. “It’s about time, honestly.”
He can practically hear Hank blushing. “Yeah, well, we’ll see if something happens. Not that I expect anything to happen but—it would be nice, I guess, but it’s not like I planned this or anything—”
“Hank,” Charles interrupts, “so who did I get?” They have an even number of students in their class, so he can’t be the odd one out.
There’s a long pause. Then Hank says weakly, “Erik Lehnsherr.”
Charles goes still, heart leaping. “Erik?”
“I know,” Hank says miserably. “He didn’t have a partner, so he automatically got paired up with you. If I’d known that would happen, I wouldn’t have asked Alex if he wanted to be partners. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Charles says, a bit faintly. His pulse quickens in excitement. Partners with Erik? This means they’ll have to talk. This means they’ll get to spend time together.
“I wish he’d gotten someone else,” Hank continues, clearly agitated. “He’s so…scary.”
“He’s just passionate about what he believes in,” Charles says. Granted, Erik does get worked up a lot in class, but he always makes good points. He’s probably the most politically savvy nineteen-year-old Charles knows.
“He’s scary,” Hank insists. “Did you hear he made Gregory Campbell cry?”
“If he did, Campbell deserved it. He’s a total asshole.” Charles takes a sip of his chamomile tea and winces when he finds it cool. “It’s not entirely his fault, I suppose—his father is a member of Friends of Humanity.”
“I guess.” There’s a pause, a rustle of paper on Hank’s end. “Okay, I have to go. My roommate just got home. Hope you feel better soon.”
Charles sinks further underneath the heap of blankets on his bed. “Thanks.”
He spends the next hour working up the energy to get out of bed, then fetches his calculus textbook and listlessly goes through the problems. It’s nothing too difficult, but with his head all muddled and hot, it takes him much longer than it usually would. By the time he’s finished, it’s dark outside, the sun having just slipped below the horizon. He’s debating whether or not he just wants to go to bed early when his phone chimes with a notification—a Facebook friend request from Erik Lehnsherr.
Wide awake now, he sits bolt upright, pulls up the request, and…lets his finger hover over the accept button, hesitant. Will it seem too eager if he accepts the request immediately? Should he wait a few minutes?
Probably, he thinks. But patience has never been Charles’s strong suit. He hits accept and, a moment later, jumps when the chat head pops up with a message from Erik.
hey, so we’re partners for the final project in poli sci. you weren’t in class today so I didn’t get your number. figured we could talk here.
Charles’s heart thumps unevenly. He and Erik have spoken before—argued, really—in class, but they’ve never talked outside of class. Erik runs in an entirely different friend group, people Charles doesn’t know. Charles, on the other hand, is a part of a more popular crowd, largely as a result of his family wealth and his fondness for house parties. Their social circles don’t intersect as much as Charles would like.
Hi, he sends back. I was sick. Hank McCoy told me about the project. Do you have an idea of what we want to do?
Charles has a few ideas himself, but he figures Erik has got to have some law or bill that he feels strongly about. Erik has an opinion about everything.
Sure enough, Erik responds promptly with: mutant registration act 2001, the workplace equality act of 2005, or student safety act in 2009. you can choose.
All three are highly controversial, all hotly debated even today. Just Erik’s style.
After a moment of consideration, Charles sends back, The Student Safety Act sounds good.
okay, yeah. so do you want to meet up this weekend to work on this? a moment later, Erik adds, wait, are you still sick?
Charles sighs. Yeah, but I think I’ll be better by Saturday. At least I don’t think I’ll be contagious.
that’s fine, Erik sends. just don’t want to make you work when you’re sick.
Charles can’t help but smile, a bit of warmth curling in his gut. That’s thoughtful of you, thank you. But I think I should be okay by Saturday. Say, 10 a.m., my place? There’s lots of space to work here.
Erik replies, okay. send me the address.
Charles does so. Then, after a hesitation, he adds, Should we exchange numbers? That might be easier than chatting through Facebook.
Even though Erik really has no reason to refuse, Charles still holds his breath until Erik’s answer comes in: sure. 347-555-7801.
With a thrill, Charles enters it into his contacts and carefully saves it under Erik Lehnsherr. He shoots Erik a quick text—Hey, it’s Charles Xavier—and receives a thumbs up emoji in response. And that’s that.
He wishes he had something more to say, something to keep the conversation going, but he can’t for the life of him think of anything appropriate. Small talk would just be awkward—they’re not friends after all. So, after a few minutes, he just puts his phone down on the nightstand, crawls under the covers, and tries not to get too excited about seeing Erik on Saturday.
*
Bright and early Saturday morning, he sets about straightening up his apartment so it looks like it’s occupied by a human being rather than a pack of raccoons. He washes all his mugs, throws away a shit ton of old newspapers, puts away the books he usually leaves scattered around, vacuums the carpet, and tries to put some order into the clutter on the coffee table. After a couple of hours, the place actually looks habitable again. Charles rewards himself with a cup of Earl Grey and spends a few minutes browsing through the news. There’s nothing much of interest, save for the fact that Arsenal’s punched their ticket to the FA Cup final. Charles makes a note of the date of the final and has just finished his tea when there’s a knock on the door.
Setting his mug and tablet aside, he takes a deep breath and combs a nervous hand through his hair. He’d spent ten minutes this morning in front of the mirror trying to figure out what kind of style he wanted to go for, and he’d ended up choosing a pair of tan slacks and a blue sweater. Understated but still nice. At least, he hopes that’s the impression he’s giving.
It’s not like this is a first date, he tells himself wryly, trying to take the pressure off. He probably won’t even notice what you’re wearing.
When Erik knocks again, Charles hurries to the door and pulls it open. “Hi,” he says, staring up at Erik. He doesn’t think they’ve ever actually been this close to one another before. “Hey.”
“Hi hey yourself,” Erik says. He’s wearing a turtleneck that does delicious things to his torso and a pair of well-fitted jeans that make his legs look endless. With his leather jacket and his aviators, Erik looks like a fucking wet dream. Charles’s mouth goes dry at the sight of him.
“Uh,” he says, scrambling to pull himself together, “come in.”
Erik slips his sunglasses off as he steps in and glances around. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” Charles shoves his hands into his pockets. “Do you, er—want something to drink?”
“No, I’m good.” Erik lets the strap of his laptop bag slide off his shoulder. “So. Are we just working on the couch?”
“Yeah. Just sit wherever. Make yourself comfortable.”
As Erik takes the couch, Charles settles himself in the adjacent recliner with his laptop. He opens it up, pulls up the couple of tabs he’d been reading earlier on the Student Safety Act, and asks, “So where do you want to start?”
“Can I get your Wi-Fi password?” Erik asks.
“Yeah, it’s—”
Charles goes absolutely still. It hadn’t occurred to him until this very moment that Erik’s coming over would probably lead to Erik’s asking for the Wi-Fi password, because of course they couldn’t work on their project without internet. He has a sudden, vivid recollection of the day he’d set up the router, grinning to himself as he’d entered in the new password: erikhotfacelehnsherr. Because what were the odds of Erik Hotface Lehnsherr himself actually ever coming over?
His mind blanks out in horror. How the fuck can this be happening to him? What the hell can he possibly say to make this not weird?
“Uh…” he says intelligently.
“Is it on the router?” Erik asks, glancing over to the device next to the TV.
“No, it’s…” Charles unsticks his throat, his mind racing. “It’s kind of long. I’ll just—type it in for you.”
“Okay,” Erik says, handing his laptop over. “Can you read it aloud as you do so I can log in on my phone, too?”
Please, Charles prays, if there’s a god, he’ll open a sinkhole beneath my feet right now. RIGHT NOW.
The ground remains disappointingly solid beneath him. Charles closes his eyes briefly in despair and says, “It’s embarrassing.”
Erik’s eyebrows go up, and his mouth pulls up into a wicked smile that somehow makes him even hotter. “Oh? Do tell.”
There’s no way to play this cool: Charles can feel his face heat in mortification, utterly giving him away. “It’s…”
Erik’s grin widens at his hesitation. “Oh this is going to be good, isn’t it?”
Cheeks burning, Charles mutters in a rush, “It’s erikhotfacelehnsherr.”
Erik blinks. “What?”
Charles takes a deep breath and fights the urge to hide his face behind his laptop. “I said, the password is erikhotfacelehnsherr, no spaces.”
Even without peeking, Charles can feel Erik’s shock. Oh god, he thinks bleakly, sinking down in the recliner. Now he thinks you’re a creep. He’s going to get up and leave and never speak to you again, and he’s going to tell all his friends and they’ll have a right old laugh about stupid Charles Xavier and his stupid crush and—
“You think I’m hot?” Erik asks, sounding a bit dazed.
Charles is so startled that he jerks his head up to look Erik full in the face. Erik’s looking back at him, smile faded, eyes wide. “That’s your reaction?”
“What?” Erik demands. “I think it’s a fair question!”
“You don’t think it’s—I don’t know, creepy or anything?”
“I don’t know, should I?”
“Well—no. I think.” Charles’s head spins. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“But you think I’m hot.”
“Well—how could I not?” Charles flails a hand at Erik. “Look at you! Just—look at you!”
Erik’s pleasure suffuses the room with warmth. “You really think that?”
“Yes,” Charles says, because he really has nothing left of his dignity to lose at this point. Besides, Erik seems to be taking this better than expected. At least he’s not recoiling from Charles in horror. “I’m sorry,” he says, resisting the impulse to curl up into a humiliated ball, “I just made everything weird. I don’t even know if you like guys—”
“I do.”
Charles’s heart flip flops in his chest. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Erik’s looking at him like he’s never seen Charles before. “For the record, I think you’re hot, too.”
“Thanks,” Charles says. Then Erik’s words really sink in, and Charles jolts like he’s been stuck with a cattle prod. “Wait—you think I’m hot?”
“Yeah,” Erik says, like it’s stupidly obvious. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“I…” Charles knows he’s attractive and has used it to his advantage before, but it’s different, hearing it come from the mouth of the boy he’s been lowkey crushing on since the moment Erik eviscerated a mutantphobic asshole in Poli Sci on the third day of class. It’s a moment before he can speak again, overwhelmed by the idea that Erik thinks he’s attractive. Holy shit.
“Well,” he says, a bit awkwardly, “now what?”
“Well,” Erik says, then stops. He’s restlessly turning his phone over and over in his hands, and Charles realizes that Erik’s nervous. Cool, suave, aloof Erik is nervous, and somehow that makes everything so much more real and so much less terrifying all at once.
“We could work on the project,” Charles says slowly, “or we could...er…” Damn. Why is it so much harder to proposition someone without alcohol? He cycles through a handful of stupid, cheesy one-liners and finally just says, a bit helplessly, “You wouldn’t happen to want to make out, would you?”
Erik gives him a look full of fond exasperation. “That was the weirdest way you could have asked that. But yes, fuck Poli Sci.”
He tosses his phone and laptop to the side, and Charles barely has time to set his laptop on the coffee table before Erik’s on him, crawling into his lap and kissing the living daylights out of him. Erik kisses like he argues: sharply, unreservedly, with a touch of defiance like he’s hoping for a challenge. So Charles kisses him back just as hard, grabbing fistfuls of Erik’s turtleneck and hauling him closer. And he finds, to his surprise and delight, that as soon as he digs in his heels and pushes back, Erik softens, quiets, and lets Charles take control, lets Charles lead the kiss. It’s heady and incredible, having Erik open up for him. How many people ever get to see this gentler side of Erik? Charles can’t help the thrill of triumph that fires through him.
After a couple of minutes, Erik pulls back, his eyes bright and feverish with want. “Couch?”
Charles looks up at him and notes Erik’s wrinkled shirt, mussed up hair, and red-kissed lips with utter satisfaction. “Bed?” he counters, searching Erik’s face.
There’s a moment of hesitation. Then Erik climbs off him and tugs him to his feet. “Lead the way.”
The walk to Charles’s bedroom passes in a blur of brief kisses and stolen touches. Erik’s hands feel incredible on him, on his jaw and neck and chest. By the time they reach the bed, Charles is already hard and dizzy with want. Yanking his shirt off, he crawls into bed, turns over onto his back, and props himself up on his elbows. When he looks up, he finds Erik just standing there, staring down at him with a hungriness in his eyes that makes Charles shiver.
“Coming?” Charles asks after a long pause.
In response, Erik hauls off his own shirt and climbs up on top of Charles. His torso is just as well-defined and gorgeous as his turtleneck suggested, and Charles delights in running his hands all over it, from the tops of Erik’s shoulders down to his firm abdomen. Erik makes a low noise when Charles hooks his finger into one of the loops in his jeans and tugs, pulling the waistband down enough to expose his boxers. They’re purple, which Charles finds ridiculously charming. Everything about Erik is ridiculously charming.
They make out for a few more minutes, Erik’s weight solid and comforting on top him. Normally Charles considers kissing merely a prelude to the real fun, but right now, he honestly couldn’t bring himself to care if they ended up just kissing for the rest of the day. Erik is an amazing kisser. Charles has no idea where he learned it from—the thought of Erik learning how to be intimate with anyone else makes him instantly, furiously jealous, he has to admit—but Erik was certainly an apt pupil.
When Charles starts to unzip Erik’s jeans, Erik pulls back. “Wait, wait.”
Charles stops. “What?”
“Before we go any further, I have to know something.”
His tone clears some of the haze of arousal from Charles’s head. He sounds serious. Why does he sound serious? Swallowing, Charles says, “Yeah?”
Erik stares intently down at him, brows furrowed. “Do you really think Tom Weissenberg was rightfully charged in Weissenberg v. Indiana? Because if you think what he did was wrong—”
Charles has never felt so incredulous in his life. “Are you seriously asking me about class right now?”
“This is important!” Erik insists. “It’s been bothering me ever since you said they were right to lock Weissenberg up. I mean, what he did was clearly in self-defense and—”
“Of course he was right!” Charles exclaims. “I was just playing the devil’s advocate, you idiot. I’m not a complete naive tool!”
Erik grins at him sharply, practically glowing with approval. “Thank god. I can’t like someone who thinks Weissenberg deserved jail time. Just because his own defense counsel had it out for him—”
“Shut up,” Charles interrupts fondly, and yanks him down into a kiss.
*
At lunch on Monday, Hank spends half an hour with his head buried in his hands, groaning something unintelligible. Eventually Charles coaxes the truth out of him: turns out Alex Summers has a long-term boyfriend named Armando from out of state he’s been dating since high school, and after graduation, they’re probably going to get engaged and married and have five babies and live happily ever after.
“He spent half the time texting his boyfriend,” Hank moans. “I had to do most of the work. Almost all the work, if we’re being honest.”
“I’m sorry,” Charles says, patting his shoulder consolingly. “At least you can stop pining for him now and move on.”
“I guess,” Hank says miserably.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll look over your lab results for you later if you want.”
Hank brightens immediately. “Will you? I know you’re busy, but I could really use a second set of eyes on that. The data analysis turned out all screwed up, and I can’t figure out where I went wrong.”
“Sure.”
Hank begins to pick at his fries less morosely. “What about you? You met with Erik over the weekend for the project, right? At least now we know he isn’t a serial killer. I thought for sure I’d turn on the news this morning and see they’d found your body in a ditch somewhere.”
“Yeah, Erik’s…” Charles can’t keep the broad grin from spreading across his face. “He’s something.”
Hank stares at him, eyes slowly growing huge. His shock feels a little like someone’s cannonballed into a calm wave pool, the ripples buffeting up against Charles’s telepathy. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“You’re blushing.” The fry drops from Hank’s fingers numbly. “Oh my god. Oh my god. You slept with him!”
“No, I…well.”
“How did you—why did you?” Hank gapes at him. “He’s Erik Lehnsherr. He’s—”
“I’m what?” Erik asks, sauntering up coolly behind Hank.
The blood drains from Hank’s face. Utterly white, he sits frozen while Erik circles around the table and bends down for a kiss. Charles tilts his face up to accept it, thoroughly enjoying the minty freshness of Erik’s mouth, and then pulls back with a grin. “Hi you.”
“Hi yourself,” Erik says. “Ready?”
“Erik and I are going to study in the library,” Charles explains, getting up. Slipping his book bag onto his shoulder, he looks at Hank and adds with some amusement, “Are you okay? Do I need to get you some water?”
Hank’s still sitting there like a stalled car. “Uh...I…what?”
“Just send me your datasets later and I’ll take a look at them,” Charles says, squeezing him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
“Bye,” Hank says weakly.
“Is he okay?” Erik asks as they head off. “He looks broken.”
“He’ll be fine,” Charles says. His smile only widens when he laces their fingers together and Erik doesn’t pull away. “So I know this really good nook on the third floor of the library where we can go.”
“Oh?”
“It’s really private,” Charles adds with a wicked grin. “No one ever goes there.”
Erik shoots him his own toothy grin full of excitement. “By all means then. Lead the way.”