"X-Men: First Class" has grabbed hold of patientalien and myself with a vengeance, so it was only a matter of time before something like this popped out.

Summary: Erik and Charles have plenty of zany adventures on their mutant recruitment road trip. Set during the movie; rated T.

Erik & Charles' Excellent Adventure

The Ford Fairlane stood outside, waiting. Charles took a deep breath and looked over at his companion. He hadn't been surprised Erik had returned, but he'd been very glad, and he was even gladder he did not have to shoulder such a heavy undertaking by himself. He liked Erik's company, or believed he would, once they'd had a chance to get to know one another a little better.

Erik hefted his suitcase and looked at the car over the rims of his sunglasses. "The CIA's obviously sparing no expense," he commented, but Charles couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not; the car didn't look so bad to him, anyways.

He decided to assume Erik was being sarcastic. He could have read the other man's mind, but he'd promised he wouldn't without permission - since he'd accidentally outed Hank, he was trying to be more careful. "Well, no one said you had to drive it," he said, trying sarcasm on for himself.

From the look on Erik's face, it was clear sarcasm did not fit him very well. He recanted. "Would you like to take the first shift, Erik?"

Erik still looked a little petulant, but eventually nodded.

Erik loosened up considerably when they weren't surrounded by suits, Charles noticed. The wind whipped through his hair and his left arm rested casually as he steered the car with one hand - Charles had balked at this initially, but Erik was doing a good enough job keeping the vehicle under control; it was also completely possible that he was doing the bulk of the driving with his mutation. On Charles' side of the car on the dash lay a sheaf of papers containing coordinates from Cerebro, and several paper maps of the States.

They switched spots a couple of hours out of Langley. Erik strode out of the convenience store they'd stopped at, carrying a bag of peanuts, as Charles readjusted the seat and mirrors to accommodate his slightly shorter frame. When he caught Erik smirking at him for this, he looked a tad harried. "I'm pretty sure I have a longer torso and shorter limbs," he said by way of explanation.

Erik snorted. "Would you like me to ask someone if they've a phone book you can sit on?"

Charles huffed. "So your good mood is contingent upon making fun of me. I see how it is."

"Seems that way, yeah." Erik waved a hand and managed to adjust his own seat ("to accommodate my shorter torso, right Charles?") without any of the fanfare, and Charles pouted a bit. Eyes still laughing, Erik proffered the now-open bag of peanuts, and Charles shook his head. Erik shrugged. "More for me, then." He was tipping a handful into his mouth when the car stalled and he was thrown backward. A small bit of peanut lodged in his throat, and he coughed it back into his hand.

Charles was wincing. "I'm sorry about that," he frowned, and then attempted to start the car again. Again, his jostling of the clutch resulted in a failed start, and he bit his lip, embarrassed.

Erik blinked at him incredulously. "Don't you know how to drive a stick, Charles?"

Charles nodded, peeved. "Of course. Well," he recanted, "I mean, I've driven cars before ..."

Erik raised an eyebrow, and Charles could tell he wasn't buying it. "I mean, they've been automatics, and I didn't need to drive when I was at Oxford, so ..."

Rolling his eyes, Erik pointed at the pedals by Charles' feet. "You look like a coordinated guy," he said. "Start driving."

Charles resisted the urge to scowl. "I'm perfectly capable," he said, starting the car again and gently easing it into first gear.

"Foot off the gas, foot on the clutch, switch gears," Erik instructed. Charles hadn't been expecting the instruction; he grew flustered quickly, and the car stalled again.

After what seemed like hours, Charles was able to shift gears with only a minimum of jerking movement, though the clutch was now making a horrible grinding noise. At last, they were on their way, though Erik grabbed the door handle every time Charles passed another car.

"Calm your mind," Charles muttered under his breath. Erik burped at him in response.

They decided to stop for a combination lunch-dinner after several hours of Charles jostling the car down the road. There was something hilarious to Erik about stopping at McDonald's, and even more so when they read the menu items: "'Tempting Cheeseburgers: Buy them by the sac full!' Oh, well, we have to get that," Erik told Charles.

Not long after, they were back en route to tracking down their first mutant, Erik at the helm. At first, Charles made himself useful by checking the map, poking around in the glove compartment, fiddling with the radio, and frivolously arranging and rearranging the various papers they've brought with them. After an hour or so, however, he becomes distinctly less chipper. "Might we pull over at the nearest gas station?" he queried. Unwittingly, he sent a small flitter of anxious nausea telepathically to Erik, who blinked and looked suddenly concerned.

"What's wrong, Charles?"

"I'm not sure," Charles replied, but he was doubled over in the passenger seat and looked paler than usual. "But if we could get to a rest stop or something-"

"We'll get there," Erik promised.

The nearest gas station was a bit off the highway, and Erik may or may not have sped up considerably to accommodate Charles' need for a bathroom. When they arrived, Charles managed, with a bit of pained hobbling, to retreat into the toilet area, leaving Erik in the main part of the store. At first, he stood stoically, leaning against the wall near where Charles had fled, but after a few minutes, he grew bored and began weaving through the aisles. "Need any help?" the clerk asked, smiling gummily at him.

"No," Erik told her, and continued frowning. She continued to watch him covertly, and after several more minutes, he knew how suspicious he probably looked to her. 'Charles,' he thought, still getting used to being friends with a telepath. 'Is everything all right?'

'Yes, I think so. I'll just be ... a few minutes more.' Even mentally, Charles sounded strained. 'Please, Erik, feel free to occupy yourself.'

Erik looked briefly back at the cashier, who was now beckoning him over to show him some hand-blown glass pipes. He stifled a sigh. 'Okay. Hurry up.'

Erik made a show of admiring the cashier's wares, but he mostly just wanted to get going. Looking at the same package of chips for the thirtieth time was about as boring as it had been the first time. "It comes with a gift," the casher told him, jerking his awareness back to her.

Erik glanced at the bathroom door. "We'll take two," he said.

A little under an hour later, and feeling nominally better, Charles eased himself back into the passenger seat. "I'm dreadfully sorry," he said, trying not to blush. This wasn't exactly how he'd pictured their trip beginning, truth be told. In his mind, it was entirely more glamorous and he hadn't spent a portion of the time hovering over a dirty pit stop toilet that he was probably going to catch a disease from now. Also, Erik wouldn't have spent almost an hour chortling at him for not being able to drive. Speaking of Erik, too ...

"What are you doing?" Eyes wide, Charles watched Erik brazenly grab up a small glass piece from a paper sack pulled from the innards of his leather jacket. "Erik, is that marijuana?" Charles asked accusatorily.

"Yes it is."

"Did you ... did you buy it from that girl back there?" Erik didn't answer, preoccupied though he was with simultaneously driving and packing not just one, but two ("Two, Erik? Really? Were they having a special?") pipes. When he handed one to Charles, the other man looked appalled.

"It might help you calm your stomach."

"No, thank you."

Erik shrugged and toked. "More for me, then." He drove a bit, and then turned to stare at Charles. Then he turned back to face the road. He repeated the movement three times before Charles gave him a withering glare and muttered something like "for God's sake, Erik" and took a proffered pipe.

Erik waggled his eyebrows. "There, now, Professor. It'll be good for you."

Erik had to pull into the nearest motel after about an hour because Charles had tied his sweater around his head and he wouldn't stop looking at his hands and crying.

"It's amazing," Charles told him earnestly, looking up at him blearily. "The physics of it, the beauty. Look!" He pointed at his fingernail. "Each groove is different. A mutation. A ... a groovy mutation." He broke down into giggles.

Erik, who knew how to pace himself, grabbed Charles by the collar and herded him into the motel room. It was a dank place, but Erik had stayed in worse.

"Oh, look," Charles exclaimed, throwing himself onto the dirty comforter and pointing at a box next to the bed. "It's got magic fingers!" He dug around in his pocket for a nickel and slipped it into the box. Instantly, the bed started vibrating.

Erik sat down on the other, non-vibrating bed. "I wouldn't have pegged you the type to know about the features of seedy motel rooms."

Charles turned and looked at him sagely. "Erik," he said solemnly, though his voice vibrated with the movement of the bed. "I am a professor."

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Well," he said solemnly, "That explains everything, then." He watched Charles sprawl across the rollicking bed for a few more minutes, still mumbling about some of the groovier mutations he wished that he had. Erik decided it was rather endearing for someone as brilliant as his new friend to be the most embarrassing recreational drug user ever ("see, I put my finger up like this against my head because that makes it groovier, Erik").

He began rummaging around in their bags for one of the paperbacks he'd brought along, when he was greeted with another of Charles' accidental mental projections. In it, Erik was driving a cheeseburger on wheels, which was apparently a stick shift vehicle. "Wow," he said, and then looked up sharply when he felt a surge of alarm run through his and Charles' telepathic connection.

"Oh, I, I need to get to the bathroom again ..." Charles struggled to right himself on the still-vibrating (Charles had stuck another nickel into it) bed. Erik reached over to help, and had gotten the other man into a standing position (albeit one mostly provided by leaning heavily against Erik) and then Charles made a small gurgle and proceeded to throw up down the other man's shirt. "Oh, oh Erik, I ... oh, that's decidedly ungroovy ..."

Erik sighed. "Feel better, at least?" he asked. Miserable and glassy-eyed, Charles swallowed and nodded. Erik thought about patting him on the shoulder or back, but decided that being projectile vomited on once that day was enough for him. 'Come on,' he sent through their bond, 'let's get you cleaned up.'

Charles continued to be fixated on his own sick all over Erik's turtleneck. 'Groovy,' he sent back, and Erik rolled his eyes.

Once Charles was relatively more presentable and Erik had balled his puke-covered shirt in the corner, they settled in for the night. Charles lay rather contritely on the now-not-vibrating bed, head nuzzled into a pillow, his eyes still a bit glazed. When Erik ruffled his hair and petted his forehead and made brief, wordless noises of comfort at him as he walked by, the soft, unspoken 'thank you' made him smile.

Charles was determined not to embarrass himself any more. He made a private vow to not do anything ridiculous or horrible for the rest of the trip, no more cheeseburgers, and no more marijuana. At all. Period.

Erik had been nice about the whole affair, but Charles was sure the other man was filing away all of the indiscretions in order to tell the others back at headquarters. He hadn't said as much, and Charles hadn't sensed as much, but he was sure it was happening nonetheless. He was a professor, after all.

"So where's the first location?" Erik asked once they were back on the road.

Charles peered at the map. "Hank was kind enough to translate the coordinates into general locations, so ... New Jersey. So you need to get on I-95 north."

Erik glanced out the window at the factories running along the road on either side of them. "You do realize we're in Ohio, right?"

"Oh," Charles said absently, scratching his head. Then he blinked and turned the map right-side up. "Oh ..." he said again. "Um, so you're not going to get on I-94 north quite yet."

"How not quite yet, Charles?"

Charles refused to meet Erik's gaze. He mumbled something.

"I didn't catch that, Charles."

The telepath tried to save face: "Oh, look, we could stop in Chicago and check out that lead first." He glanced at the other man. "This will still work out, Erik," he said brightly.

"Uh-huh." Erik stifled a sigh.

When they got to Chicago, Charles pinpointed their first mutant in the downtown area. After settling in a nicer room than the one they'd left Erik's barf-stained shirt in and getting lost for nearly two hours trying to find the address, they sat outside of a mid-range gentlemen's club, still in the car, and stared at one another. "I'm not sure about these clothes," Charles said, fingering the fabric of his new suit jacket. Erik had snorted when Charles had not seen anything wrong with soliciting an evening with a lady of the night while dressed, as he had so rudely put it, "like a 105-year-old," and then he'd practically dragged him out to go shopping. Charles had felt the sleek, black tux that Erik originally chose for him was too much, so they had settled for something still dapper, but gray.

Angel made it fairly easy for them, even with Charles' nervous babbling and also the fact that he'd read her mind and discovered that she thought they were lovers. When he reiterated this briefly to Erik, the other man didn't help their cause by squeezing Charles' leg and telling Angel that they were on their honeymoon. Then he'd leaned over impulsively and given Charles a messy kiss on the mouth. Humiliated, Charles chanced a look at Angel, who seemed bored once she realized that she didn't need to take her bra off for this one, for more reasons than one. "So do you guys have any pot?" she finally asked.

The fact that they did have pot made Angel trust them enough for them to give her a plane ticket to Virginia. A wire from Moira later that day confirmed the young woman had gotten there safely. "Success," Erik said, turning from the hotel desk and giving Charles a lopsided smile.

"You see?" Charles prodded. "It's all working out. We just need to be ... flexible." He wanted to stop thinking about the kiss Erik had so casually bestowed upon him, but he couldn't. He almost wished they hadn't given Angel all of their pot; at least then, he'd just be babbling about his groovy fingernails and not thinking about why Erik kissing him was probably the best part of this entire trip so far.

"Well, right now, I'm starving," Erik announced, heading to the parking lot with Charles in tow.

"Anything but cheeseburgers," Charles moaned, rubbing his stomach. "I don't know how you can eat such horrible food and not be bed-ridden afterwards."

Erik's expression darkened for a split-second, perhaps remembering something he didn't want to share, but then he brightened. "Because I'm a mutant," he replied blithely. "And I want steak." He waited for Charles to strap himself in, and then turned the key in the ignition.

Charles looked a bit peaky. "I'm a mutant," he argued, feeling vaguely defensive for no reason. Never mind that he was pretty sure Erik could guzzle gasoline and still be ready to run a marathon in the next instant. Damn his German constitution, Charles thought, a bit enviously.

Erik snickered at him. "Right, and your mutant power is being able to throw up at will."

"I said I was quite sorry for that." They rode in silence for a few moments, and then Charles made an interested noise and pointed. "Oh, look, Erik, a steakhouse. There's something on the sign about a 'Gutbuster Challenge.'" Erik hit the turn signal at the next exit.

The Gutbuster Challenge was exactly what it sounded like: The person who could finish a giant cut of meat without, as the burly waiter told them, "sharin' or throwin' up before you're done" ("that leaves me right out," Charles had joked) got his or her meal for free. Charles ordered a much more modest meal for himself, and then convinced Erik, a bit passive-aggressively, to take the challenge. "You should really push yourself to new limits, Erik," he commented, and Erik kicked him under the table, but ordered the steak, and plenty of beer.

As the intensity of Erik's five-minute barf-fest near the dumpster outside of Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse petered off, he was able to stop heaving long enough to glance up from where he was kneeling on the pavement at Charles, who was, for once, relatively relaxed and not fawning over his own body parts or exclaiming over vibrating furniture. "I suppose, since you finished the entire thing and then vomited, you technically won the challenge," he conceded graciously.

Erik wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah, I did," he agreed.

"Who knew there were so many cows in this country," Charles mused, rolling up the window as they passed yet pasture. They were in the Midwest, near another mutant, give or take a hundred miles, and Charles was driving, but only after Erik had declared that there were fewer worries of him doing something disastrous out there, "unless you decided to run into a barn or something. By the way, don't run into a barn if you can help it."

Erik craned his neck to see out Charles' window, his right arm resting on his own open pane. "I think those are horses, actually," he proffered.

Charles glowered. "Well, whatever."

"Not much for nature, are we?" When Charles continued to be moody, Erik cleared his throat. "So," he said amiably, "What do you think the next mutant we find will be like?"

Charles looked up at the rearview mirror to see blue and white flashing lights. "I don't know," he said, "but he's going to have to wait." He managed to pull onto the shoulder, and rolled down the window. Erik looked mutinous.

"License and registration please," the mustachioed officer demanded, shining a flashlight into the car - completely unnecessarily, Charles wanted to point out, since it was daytime. He felt a brief moment of panic as he remembered he didn't technically have a license, but then calmed.

He pressed his fingers to his temple and projected his will upon the officer. "You don't need to see my license and registration," he informed the man.

The cop looked blankly at him for a moment. "No, of course I don't," he said as if it made perfect sense.

"We're free to go," Charles added.

"Right, get out of here," the cop replied, waving with his flashlight for them to get moving. After only a mildly embarrassing squeal from the clutch, they were on their way again.

After a few minutes of driving, Charles realized Erik was staring at him. "What?" he asked. "I didn't want a ticket."

Erik continued to stare at him incredulously. "Exactly how many times has that worked?" he asked.

Charles blanched, and then sent a quiet mental response to the other man.

"Ten?" Erik balked.

Charles looked stuffy. "Well," he said sulkily, "Eleven, if you count this latest one." Erik resumed shaking his head. "I had no interest in going to prison," he continued, and then: "But I suppose it would have saved us some travel time."

Erik squinted at some notes Charles had made earlier. "Are we just going to bust this kid out of jail?" he asked dubiously.

Charles blinked. "Hopefully, our CIA clearance is better than that," he said jovially. "But just in case, you should probably drive the get-away car, Erik."

Surprisingly enough, getting Alex out of prison was disturbingly easy and then he, too, was on a plane to Virginia. Standing by the open passenger door of the car, a map spread out on the roof, Charles said, "We've got five more possibles between here and Florida," he said, tracing his finger down the map.

"You actually made a route?" Erik asked, climbing into the driver's seat. "Is it going in the right direction? You know Florida's south of here, right?"

Charles frowned slightly, but folded up the map and got in the car as well. "I know that," he replied, a little hurt - hadn't he proven this would all work out? "Our next stop is about two hours from here."

"Lead the way, Professor," Erik replied, and they were off again.

The bar was crowded, and loud, and the unkempt man on the stool didn't even turn around before telling them to fuck off.

"I think that's the first time I've ever been told so enthusiastically told to go fuck myself," Charles mused as they walked back through the parking lot.

Erik considered this. "Want to make it two for two?" he asked.

The cramped living room was piled full of yellowed newspapers and knick-knacks. Also, everywhere he looked, Charles could see another cat. "So, sixteen of them, you said?" he asked the woman politely, pretending to be interested in the cup of tea she'd foisted upon him that no force on Earth could make him willingly imbibe.

Erik sat next to him, their forms making distinct depressions in the beaten up sofa. "And you say you can talk to them?" Erik intoned. 'Charles, really?' he asked silently.

'Let's just see what she can do,' Charles sent back, and then smiled in a disarming way. "So, Mrs. Pennyworth, can you show us this mutation of yours?" When she looked confusedly at him, he stifled a sigh and clarified: "Er, your gift. Can you communicate with one of your cats for us?"

Mrs. Pennyworth managed to wrassle up one of the animals, who didn't look very happy about being pulled away from where it was sniffing Erik's leather jacket. "Come on, Dumpling," the so-called mutant told it, grabbing its face between pudgy fingers. "Tell Mommy about your day." She then proceeded to lean in, appearing to listen to the cat. "Dumpling says there're two strange men in our house right now. Don't you, Dumpling?" she cooed. As she said it, her hair turned from its original drab brown-gray color to a green, and then back again. She didn't appear to notice, but Erik and Charles both did, and Erik nudged the other man in the ribs, hard.

"Um, well, that's a very interesting talent, Mrs. Pennyworth, and thank you for sharing it with us." Charles stood up, and Erik followed quickly. While he sent a quick suggestion into her head to forget their faces, another skinny feline tromped over and began slurping out of Charles' cup. "Ew," he shuddered, and Erik smirked.

"I feel like a pervert," Charles muttered, slouching down in the car seat, putting his hand over his eyes as if it would shield his identity. He suddenly wished he had a baseball cap.

Erik, conversely, didn't seem at all uncomfortable with the fact they'd been lurking outside an elementary school for an hour. He'd explained he was used to tracking people and that Charles shouldn't feel guilty - it wasn't like they were there to hurt anyone, after all.

A school bell rang and hoards of children ran out into the bright early-autumn day. "There she is," Charles said, straightening slightly, and pointing.

A girl of ten walked alone, staring at her hands. As she got closer, Charles could see that her fingernails were growing and shrinking at will. When she stuck one of them up her nose and then stuck whatever came out on the end of it in her mouth, they both gagged.

"On second thought," Erik said, "Let's just go."

"So yeah, I've just had this tail for as long as I can remember," the latest mutant, an overweight young man with glasses and an Aquaman t-shirt stretched precariously across his midsection. "I've seen a couple of doctors about it, but they won't operate 'cause there's a vein or something in it." He looked back and forth between Erik and Charles, both hideously out of place in the run-down comic book store in Arkansas. "So come on, Batman could totally take Superman in a fight, am I right?"

The man they'd been subtly dodging in a shopping center in Georgia stepped out into the sunlight, and his skin promptly began to sparkle.

"Groovy," Charles said appreciatively.

"No," Erik said simply.

The leather seat was making Charles' butt sweat. He was not going to mention this to Erik, but it was making him uncomfortable nonetheless. He just didn't want to get out of the car and have Erik see the line of butt-sweat on the seat. He leaned his head out the open window.

"Fountain of Youth?" Erik read off a billboard. "Seriously?"

Charles shrugged, the heat bothering him more than he wanted to admit. "Let's just get there," he suggested, hoping he didn't sound like he was whining.

The parking lot of Busch Gardens was enormous, and Charles hoped they'd be able to find the car again once they'd returned. The line for the ticket window was also ridiculously long, and Erik tried to cajole Charles into mind-tricking their way to the front. "No, it's not fair," Charles informed him.

Scant minutes later ("Only because it's rather hot out here and I wanted to get inside to buy some water quickly," Charles protested), they were mulling about, on their usual hunt for yet another mutant. They found him in the theme park aquarium, trying and failing to woo a girl. 'Maybe try scaring fish away the next time you want to pick someone up,' Erik suggested to Charles.

'Shut up, Erik," Charles returned swiftly, and then he introduced them to the boy, who told them cautiously that his name was Sean. "You guys aren't undercover cops, are you?" he asked nervously. 'Gay undercover cops,' the kid thought, and Charles knew he shouldn't want to punch a child in the face so badly, but it was very tempting.

Once Sean was safely on his way to headquarters, Charles and Erik decided to call it a night before heading up the East Coast. "Do we have anything to do?" Erik asked on the way to the motel. "I finished my book, and Moira didn't let me bring Shaw's file with us."

Charles shrugged, and pulled into the parking lot of a small general store. "I have an idea," he said. "Wait here."

He returned a few moments later carrying a bag, but he refused to let Erik see the contents until they were at the motel. Once there, he pulled out his prize with a flourish.

"You got us ... a chess set?" Erik asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Charles' face fell. "You don't like it?" he asked, suddenly feeling very silly. "I thought it would be a way to pass the time, and strategy is very good for ..."

Erik stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "its fine," he husked. "Thank you."

Charles beamed, and then added, "I also bought us alcohol."

"Now it's a party," Erik intoned dryly, but Charles was getting better at reading affection into the other man's sarcastic bent, and it was definitely there just then. He grabbed up a couple of clean-ish glasses provided by the motel and served both him and Erik drinks.

"This is good, yes?" Charles asked, watching Erik set up the chess board.

Erik looked up. "What's that?"

Charles shrugged. "You know, this. What we're doing. It's enjoyable. Is it tolerable enough for you, Erik?"

Erik finished the task and took a sip of his drink. When he set the glass back down, he was smiling. "I'm having a good time. But," he warns, "That doesn't mean I'll tolerate you cheating to figure out my next move."

Erik was a surprisingly good chess player, Charles came to realize over the course of the evening. He supposed it made sense - the man was a consummate planner, and had a knack for thinking several steps ahead in anything he did.

"Are you sure you're not reading my mind?" Charles teased, as Erik captured yet another one of this pieces. "Because this hardly seems fair."

Erik shrugged. "You're making your moves very obvious," he replied. "There's no element of surprise." He looked up. "You're an open book, Xavier."

Charles blinked at that. "Am I?" he asked, and suddenly, he felt very exposed. Erik made him feel vulnerable. He had a feeling it would always be that way, like he was constantly just slightly off-center, even if he were to force himself into the other man's mind to even things up. As it was, he conceded the chess match to Erik, and then the next two matches, and also polished off more of Erik's vodka martinis than he cared to fact check, before deciding to call it a night. "I'm a little more drunk than usual, I should say," he told Erik with a small laugh. The alcohol was making him feel warm and light-headed, or perhaps that was Erik, who was now mostly allowing him to lean against his chest.

Erik bent so that his mouth nearly tickled Charles' ear. When he spoke, his voice was low and hummed pleasantly in Charles' mind: "Careful, now. We don't want anything bad to happen to you." Charles shivered and tilted his head up. He peered closer at Erik's eyes, his pupils slightly dilated, the soft lines that appeared when he smiled like he was doing now. "Charles, are you feeling all right?" Erik asked, and Charles could feel a large hand cradling the small of his back. It felt nice.

"Never better," Charles murmured; though after Erik finally decided to kiss him and then led him towards his own bed, undressing them both with a combination of his metal manipulation powers and his own dexterous fingers, he wasn't sure that that was entirely accurate.

Now that they had a definitive route in mind, the trip up the coast was surprisingly uneventful, up until they reached the outskirts of New York City. "The car is making a funny noise," Charles commented as he eased his foot down on the clutch to shift gears.

"It's been making that noise since you broke it," Erik replied, eyes closed, head against the seat back.

Charles huffed: "It wasn't my fault!." He could tell Erik was teasing, but it was still a sore subject. "This is a different noise," he said as the engine thumped again. He gulped. "Um, Erik..."

The car jerked and the dashboard lights flickered. "That's not good," Erik said, sitting up straight as the engine sputtered and died. He closed his eyes again, and Charles could tell he was using his gift to move the car to the side of the road so they didn't get plowed into from behind.

Charles had to admit, when he popped the hood of the car to peer at the innards, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. He was pretty sure the fan belt wasn't supposed to be in three pieces, though. "Oh," he said, "well that's not good."

Erik spread his hands and hovered them over the engine, concentrating on the metal fixtures below. After several long moments, he looked grimly at Charles. "So we might be here a while."

Several hours later, the two sat side-by-side in the cramped waiting area of a car repair garage. The CIA had been contacted, money was being wired for the repairs to the vehicle, and at the moment, the only thing to do was wait. Erik alternated between reading from another paperback he'd purchased there, staring blearily at the small television set in the same room, and watching Charles pace and make plans to get them up and running again soon.

A sudden, long, whining, sustaining noise from overhead caught everyone in the vicinity off-guard. Instinctively, Charles covered his ears a bit, though it was still enough to hear one of the mechanics' orders for everyone to get under any piece of furniture that they could. He turned to Erik, only to find the other man sitting frozen in place.

"Erik?" he called, and placed what he hoped was a comforting, yet insistent hand on the other man's shoulder. "Erik, please, we have to get under something. It's an air-raid siren." Still, Erik remained still, his face arranged into a fearful mask. Beginning to get scared himself, Charles decided that there was no other choice. Putting two fingers to his temple, he closed his eyes momentarily and delved into Erik's head.

Immediately, he was bombarded with memories of a time long ago. There were glimpses of a younger Erik, being forced down underneath a rickety wooden table by a soldier whose armband was decorated with a tell-tale swastika. Quickly, Charles understood the other man's behavior. 'Please, Erik,' he murmured soothingly. 'Calm your mind. It will be all right, Erik. Please trust me. I won't let anything hurt you.'

It took several more seconds, though they felt like hours. Eventually, however, Erik seemed to snap out of his thoughts. He looked up at Charles, who hovered above him, holding out a hand and biting his lip, his concern apparent. "Come on," Charles said out loud, and Erik nodded and took a deep breath and then allowed Charles to pull him up. Together, they scrambled underneath a low-slung table in the garage, and waited for the loud noise to peter off. Gratefully, Charles reached out to clasp the other man's hand, and gave Erik a small smile when he felt his own hand being squeezed.

The air-raid drill set back the car repairs considerably, so Erik and Charles found a motel for the night. "Our last one's around this area," Charles said, looking at the coordinate printout and comparing it to their map.

Erik made a non-committal noise from the bed, and Charles looked up. The other man had been very quiet since the drill, even quieter than usual, and Charles was sorely tempted to touch his mind again, even if just to provide some comfort.

"I think we're putting together a really good group," Charles continued, fully aware he was falling into his habit of chattering nervously to fill silence. He glanced over at Erik again, who was staring at the blank screen of the television. "Erik?"

"Right, good group," Erik echoed. "And then we'll go after Shaw." Charles suddenly noticed the silver coin Erik was floating just above his palm, and understood.

He got up and sat beside Erik on the bed. "There's nothing that Shaw can do to hurt you anymore," he said. "And we'll get him, I know we will."

Erik nodded shortly, and seemed to come back to himself. "Right," he said, but he sounded unconvinced. Charles put his hand on the other man's shoulder and squeezed it lightly. Erik watched him. "You can't always save me, you know," he said to Charles.

Charles' expression was sad. "I will always try, though."

Erik turned his head. "I don't understand why," he muttered. When Charles continued to gaze at him questioningly, he added, "I don't understand what you see in me."

"Everything," Charles breathed in a jagged whisper. He looked pleadingly at Erik. "There's so much to you, and you don't even know. And that's why you're so precious, Erik."

Erik studied his lap for a while, and then pocketed the coin before gradually, cautiously meeting Charles' gaze. "Thank you," he finally said.

"For what?" Charles blinked.

Erik leaned closer, pressing their foreheads together. "For everything," he smiled. He let Charles initiate the first kiss this time.

Charles recognized the presence of another mutant in the vicinity right away, and hailed the cab. The young man in the driver's seat was surprised they'd asked for a ride all the way back to Virginia, but after Erik had helpfully turned on the fare box from the backseat, he acquiesced.

They left the car in New York, but a phone call to Moira from a gas station on the way back solidified a plan to get it returned to the CIA headquarters. With another person now accompanying them, Charles found himself pulling back somewhat - it wasn't the same when it wasn't just him and Erik, and he could tell Erik felt the same way, though the other man did nudge his knee playfully numerous times during the six-hour ride, and even ribbed him when they needed to stop at a convenience store for him to use the restroom.

Once back in Virginia, they left their newest recruit with the others of the team to get acquainted, and went with Moira to attend a debriefing. "Not the fun kind, I'll bet," Erik muttered to Charles as they followed her, making Charles sputter a bit.

As it turned out, Erik was right. Though the subject of recruiting mutants was endlessly fascinating to Charles, after several hours of intense questioning, not only by Moira, but by her still-gun-shy associates, even he had had his fill for the day. In that sense, he perhaps reacted with a bit more relish than the situation warranted when they were told that they could leave for the night. "I'll escort you to your rooms," Moira told them both, though she seemed to direct her smile at Charles.

"Let's check on the new recruits first," Charles suggested. As they made their way towards what they had heard another operate term "Mutant HQ," Charles' enthusiasm for all that they were going to be able to accomplish rose up anew. "I think you'll find that they're all intelligent with amazing talents ..." Charles was saying, and then he and Erik and Moira simultaneously noticed the statue that had been lobbed in half.

"'I expect more from you,'" Erik teased Charles. It was just the two of them again, and as Charles had anticipated, Erik was much more candid without Moira around. He appreciated that, even though it seemed like it would be eternally accompanied by Erik cracking jokes at his expense.

Charles sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It had been a long trip; a rewarding one, but definitely full of more ups and downs than either of them had anticipated. Though he was a rather talented - and adorable, Erik had claimed - telepath, Charles was not a fortune-teller. The days, weeks, months that followed might prove to be the beginnings of greatness, or something else entirely. All he could really be certain of, through sheer gut instinct, if nothing else, was that Erik's presence was crucial to shaping whatever the future held, for all of them.

In the privacy of an adjoining suite that Charles expected they would only be using half of, Erik retreated from the bathroom, a towel around his waist, his hair damp, his face freshly shaven. Long legs took him to stand just before Charles, whom he clasped gently by the shoulders. "Penny for your thoughts," he murmured, hands sliding up and lightly massaging the other man's temples.

Charles closed his eyes and tilted his head back a bit. "I was just thinking," he responded slowly, a bit sleepily, "How much I enjoy your company, Erik."

Erik pressed a kiss to his forehead. "What an amazing coincidence," he smirked. "I was going to say the same thing about you." He bent down and planted another kiss on Charles' waiting mouth.

Charles grinned cheekily when they parted. "Groovy," he said.