There were many upsides to knowing Erik Lehnsherr, not least of all that spending time with him was almost never boring, but as Charles had learned since the day he'd first run into the other mutant, there were also a few downsides. The most relevant one was that Erik was sometimes physically incapable of not confronting someone if he felt very strongly in his opinions about something. And his manners could be completely appalling.
This had been very funny, the first time they'd met. One of the more conservative school clubs had invited a man to campus, and he'd proceeded to stand outside of one of their classroom buildings, preaching all manner of truly backward things at the top of his lungs, as though this was going to sway anyone. Erik, naturally, had been at the front of the crowd which had gathered to try argue with him, picking a fight like he was born to it.
Charles had admired his gall, he supposed, right up until the preacher got particularly belligerent in his hate speech and he could feel the ripple of anger going up, so he'd run over to put a hand on Erik's shoulder. "Let it go, my friend. Ignorance like his is not worth wasting your breath on," he'd said, hoping this might derail him.
Instead, he got himself quite defiantly kissed by a near-stranger in front of a lot of people, to a round of entertained applause from onlookers, and their erstwhile preacher stormed off to go find somewhere else to convert the heathens. It was, on the whole, possibly the strangest way he'd ever met a friend.
After that, there had been a whole series of incidents. When there were anti-mutant rumblings from a group on campus, Charles had fought to keep him from making a scene in the middle of the student center, and ultimately had been forced to try to distract him by any means necessary. He'd mostly succeeded in dousing Erik in a very large cup of coffee, since it was wildly unethical to reach into a friend's mind and stop him from starting an all-out brawl, no matter how much he firmly believed that it was for his own good.
The worst had been the neo-Nazi group whom the university had been forced to allow to assemble, by virtue of their right to free speech, by far. That one had made Erik pace their dorm room furiously up and down for hours at a time, anger overflowing. "How can they put this above students' feeling safe? Over common decency? Over common sense? What about those of us who don't want these fucking bastards marching through campus, just because they have to be allowed to hate us according to – what – the Constitution?"
"Erik, I know, but there's nothing much we can do, they have as much right to say what they do as you have to call them fucking bastards."
Charles knew he'd made a mistake the moment the words were out of his mouth, from the way his friend lit up, mind clearly whirling even if he couldn't catch more than surface thoughts, enough to pick out that he was plotting something. "No. Whatever you're planning, stop it, right now."
Which was, of course, how he'd ended up shielding them both from detection when Erik inevitably decided to organize a protest, and the protest turned less-than-peaceful, because Erik had been involved, and anything he was involved with did not go according to plan. It was one of the tenets of the universe, whenever he was within ten feet of Charles, as surely as the fact that he would forgive his friend for it, no matter how exasperated he was for whatever had happened, and the fact that he would enjoy the fact that it was never boring.
It was hardly as if he was a law-abiding citizen, curled up around Erik under the bleachers where they'd taken shelter, using his telepathy to cloak them until law enforcement had gone by and they both burst into spontaneous laughter.
"So you won't help me plan a protest, but you will help me go on the lam? I see how it is." There was a smirk playing on his friend's lips, amusement bubbling up like warm champagne, accompanied by intent that was telegraphed so clearly that Charles found himself leaning in before Erik had even kissed him. There were benefits to a life of crime, it seemed.
The incident which was perhaps most in danger of highlighting the downsides of Erik's complete aversion to letting something go, happened a month later, at their university's annual Health and Wellness Fair. Wandering in had mostly been out of boredom, an act of seeing if they were likely to run into anyone peddling samples of interestingly flavored "health" smoothies or advice on how waving one's hands around a person's body helped with healing (last year, that had been one booth that Charles had just told Erik to walk slowly away from, because the placebo effect hurt no one).
The moment they spotted the sign for "Change Your Life With MagXap Insoles!", he knew that getting Erik to turn and walk away from this particular booth slowly was going to be no easy task. "Erik, don't," he hissed, "it's not worth traumatizing the poor man, he's likely in far over his head as it is..." But reaching for the other boy's wrist proved fruitless – he was already several strides ahead, making a beeline.
Erik! Get back here!
What? I'm just going to talk to the man.
You're a filthy liar, Erik Lehnsherr.
Catching up to him, Charles stood beside him and watched in horrified fascination as the man running the demonstration asked a girl to stand in front of him and then reached out a hand to push her backwards, watching her stumble. "Now step onto the insoles, and watch this," he told the onlookers, proudly, as he pushed against her again. This time, she didn't budge. There was soft applause. "That's what the insoles can do for you! They're great for improving circulation and balance."
"Circulation and balance? With magnets?"
The man turned to look at Erik, smiling, blithely unaware that he'd just been caught in the crosshairs of the one mutant who wanted to see him look like a complete fool in front of all these people just for the insult of claiming magnetic insoles were a remedy for anything. "Yes! See, they're aligned with the magnetic fields of the earth, and that helps promote strength and align a person's natural balance. The magnets themselves also help, with the circulation, you know."
Has this person ever even been to a basic science class? That's not how magnetism works! The tone of Erik's thoughts was so utterly indignant that Charles had to fight very hard not to laugh, and in that moment, he hesitated instead of coming to the poor man's rescue.
"The only reason your demonstration just now looked as though it worked is because she braced herself the second time, since she knew it was coming, and you knew that going in. It's not a measure of how well the insoles work at all, and I think you know that, don't you?"
The man stuttered. "Well, yes, but I had to do that, because the insoles really work!"
Erik rolled his eyes hugely. "The magnetic fields of the earth could hardly be tapped into by something that size, you idiot! And do you know how much force a magnet would have to be exerting to actually affect the circulation in someone's blood? I'm half-tempted to show you."
"Erik, don't you dare!" Charles stepped in then, grabbing hold of his arm. "Please excuse him."
"Am I wrong?"
"That's not the point. He's just doing his job."
"Just doing his job?"
The man was looking back and forth between them like he wasn't sure if he should flee or keep trying to sell things to the other students around them, caught between the intensity of Erik's anger and Charles's possible ability to calm him down, if he just tried hard enough. But Charles had possibly just said the exact wrong thing to de-escalate the relative level of the other mutant's indignation.
"You know what I mean. Go send the company a very annoyed letter about its false advertising claims if you want to. Complain to some larger government organization. The FDA, if you must. Fight the real evil. But leave…" Charles paused to read the name tag on the man's chest, which was the polite thing to do. "Kevin out of this. He's a pawn in a much larger game. No offense, Kevin."
Kevin blinked. "None taken?"
Erik glared, and as his last act, pulled every single coin on poor Kevin's person out of his pockets, along with his keys and a pen, letting them float up into the air around his head for a long moment, while the man's mouth dropped open. "That, if you were wondering, is how magnetism works," he snapped, stalking off.
Charles exhaled a slow sigh, covering his sudden desire to laugh, and then turned to follow him. Drama queen.