Thursday morning came on a lot faster than other mornings, or at least that's how Erik felt about it when Charles' alarm sounded off at 8AM on the dot. The man groaned from underneath him and struggled out an arm to shut it off and Erik realized he was lying fully on top of the other man, pinning him down. He rolled off apologetically and checked to make sure the other man wasn't crushed.
"Jeeze-I'm sorry," he said, pushing Charles' hair back out of his eyes and feeling him over for bruises. There were some, but just on his neck, and Erik did not think those were from being slept on.
"I'm fine," Charles chuckled. "You've only got forty pounds on me, Erik, really."
And Erik was happy, even though it was 8 in the morning and even though he had nearly flattened his boyfriend, so he leaned down and kissed Charles softly on the lips. The other man took to this pleasantly and stroked Erik's cheek with the back of his knuckles lightly.
"I have to take a shower for work. Do you need the bathroom first?" he asked when they broke off.
"Just for a second," Erik replied. "I don't need a shower." And he scrambled up to wash his face and use the facilities so he wouldn't make Charles late. He had seen what a late Charles was like, on Tuesday, and it had been awful. He didn't ever want that again: the rushing and the compressed pleasantries.
When he was done Charles was just exiting the closet with an armful of clothes, which Erik examined carefully. Pale blue dress shirt, gray cardigan, khaki slacks: it met his approval and he allowed Charles into the bathroom.
"I'll be quick. Make yourself at home," Charles suggested cheerily, much improved compared to his knackered self from last night.
So Erik made himself at home and headed into the kitchen. Raven was sitting on the couch watching TV in her pajamas, copy of The Feminine Mystique open on her lap.
"Ignoring school work?" he questioned, glancing at the TV: Divorce Court.
"That's what finals week is all about," she agreed, but then added, "If Charles asks, I'm writing an essay," and pointed to her school book.
"And you think he'll buy that?" Erik scoffed.
"He's an idealist," Raven explained. "He'll believe anything so long as it's pleasant."
Erik frowned at that and headed into the kitchen to have another go at making his man food.
"Please don't burn down our house again," Raven shouted from the living room and Erik examined the kitchen knives, picking out the perfect one for his murder fantasy.
He didn't have enough of an imagination to see how he could ruin scrambled eggs, so he cleaned out the skillet from last night and went to work. Charles arrived, dressed but still damp, just as he was adding some spice.
"Mmmm, thanks for breakfast, darling," he hummed, hugging Erik around the waist.
This was a mistake though, because Erik's mind blanked out and he couldn't remember how much salt he had added. Undoubtedly too much though. He added lots of pepper to counteract it as Charles went about brewing some tea.
"How did you sleep?" Erik asked. "Besides me crushing you, of course."
"Forty pounds is not exactly enough to crush me, dear. I slept absolutely perfectly."
Erik frowned. He had slept well, too, of course, but he couldn't help but think that he would have slept a hell of a lot better with an orgasm involved.
Since this was on his mind, he cleared his throat and tried to make his voice sound as philosophical as possible.
"I was wondering," he started, emptying the skillet onto a plate for Charles. He himself wasn't hungry.
"Do you want to eat in the dining room?" Charles interrupted, getting two tea cups down from the cabinet. His cardigan was folded up in the back and when he reached it notched up and showed a pale swath of spine. Erik had to swallow back the rush of saliva and he reached forward to fix the wardrobe malfunction. His fingers brushed against Charles' skin and they must have been colder than he thought because the man gasped and nearly dropped the cups.
"Sorry," Erik chuckled, rubbing some heat back into Charles' skin through his repaired clothes.
"S'okay," Charles murmured, and poured them each a cup of tea.
"Let's eat in here," Erik remembered to answer him-the dining room was connected to the living room and he didn't want to ask Charles anything as personal as this in front of Raven.
They fought over who would allow whom to use the breakfast stool to sit, and Erik eventually won by physically forcing Charles to sit down, knocking his feet out from under him.
"Anyway," Erik continued bitterly, shoving a fork into Charles' hand. "Like I was saying: I was wondering."
"Yes," Charles said for him to continue.
"I'm not the best at this whole dating thing, so I thought I'd just ask outright this time: How long does one generally date before sleeping together in order to not be a sexless prude nor a wanton sex addict?"
Charles set his fork down halfway to his mouth and looked almost terrified, so that Erik panicked trying to think what he had said that was so extremely off.
"Erik-no!" Charles said, but Erik didn't know what this 'no' was referring to so it didn't calm him at all. "Listen, I do not think you are a prude. Really, I'm very sorry about last night, and I promise you I won't pressure you again, I just got caught up in the moment. However long you want to wait, it's okay. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to do or before you're ready to do it."
Erik stopped this madness with a firm hand over Charles' mouth.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked steadily.
Charles blinked up at him with those huge blue eyes of his and eased his hand away.
"Just that...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you," he murmured, apparently taking Erik's hardness for a cover of his humiliation rather than for what it was: pure and simple confusion about a matter he did not want any confusion to mar.
"I'm not embarrassed, I'm confused. What did you mean about pressuring me?"
"For sex," Charles explained and Erik stared at him dumbly.
"When did you pressure me for sex?"
It was Charles' turn to be confused. "What? Last night! When I..." he cleared his throat and lowered his voice. Erik remembered that Raven was right in the next room. And she had apparently turned off the TV. Or at least muted it.
"Stop being a fucking perv and mind your own business," he shouted at her, and when the TV noise came back on Charles continued softly.
"I started undressing you and you stopped me."
Erik wasn't sure all his organs were working properly: either his heart wasn't pumping regularly or his lungs were dealing with oxygen correctly, but his body felt off.
"I stopped you because you were exhausted! Were...weren't you exhausted?"
"Well, yeah, but I don't think I'll ever be so exhausted as to pass up having sex with you," Charles laughed. But Erik did not see how this was a laughing matter.
"Are you telling me that if I hadn't stopped us last night we would have had sex and you would not have fallen asleep in the middle of it?" He growled dangerously.
"Fall asleep during sex? Is there such a thing?" Charles balked, as if he were hearing about a rare tribe abroad that ate babies for Christmas.
"O God," Erik gasped, shaky, and pushed Charles out of the chair so he could sit down before his legs gave out.
"Erik, it's not so bad," Charles said, and went to continue but Erik interrupted him.
"How on Earth is it not so bad? We could have had sex last night, and instead it's going to be put off till next week at the earliest, and anything could happen between now and next week! I could be dead by next week, and then you'll have some lustful ghost coming after that arse!"
Charles just smiled at him. "Well, from my perspective things are looking pretty rosy. Here I thought you were some sexless prude and I was going to have to wait months to get you relaxed enough to fuck you. Now it turns out I only have to get through a week or so."
Erik looked at him blankly. "Did you just say the word fuck? Are professors allowed to talk that dirty?"
"You haven't heard dirty yet," Charles hummed to him, and Erik managed to crack a predatory sort of smile in anticipation.
"A week is a long time to wait for it, too," Erik suggested, and his mind sparked with genius and he had to try hard to keep his face neutral as he considered it fully. "I'll put the blame securely where it's due:" he said, keeping the plotting out of his voice. "Science. It must be a very important conference to keep us from escalating this relationship."
"It is, unfortunately," Charles frowned, taking his now-cold eggs and microwaving some heat back into them, along with their tea. "Scientists from the entire Eastern seaboard will be there analyzing each other's work. Some important acts will go on to present at the national conference in March, with grants being given out after that to fund expenses to the conferences in Paris and Shanghai in July."
"When do you find out if you've made it?" Erik asked to keep him talking while he thought. Would his plot still work with this new information? Erik didn't want to ruin Charles' chances at the conference with his deviant behavior...
"Well, this weekend we'll have kind of a peer review, and then make any changes necessary to our work, then the short list candidates will present at the January conference, then we'll find out about nationals probably in early February or so."
Erik perked up at this.
"So this weekend doesn't completely make or break your chances. It's like a practice run."
"Yes, rather," Charles agreed.
Erik beamed at him, and had to rush to come up with a reason why: "Well, regardless, I know you'll do amazing. I'll start booking my ticket to Paris."
Then he realized that he was implying that he and Charles would still be dating in July, and that Charles would want him to come with him to an important international conference. Charles didn't correct him, though, just smiled joyfully and kissed him on the mouth.
Plotting was ruling his mind, but he managed to have a few braincells left over, just enough to notice Charles' face when he bit into his eggs.
"Damnit, what this time?" he asked.
"Nothing," Charles said, not blinking. "They're great."
Erik glared at him and popped a bit into his mouth. He had to lunge across the kitchen to spit it out into the sink so it didn't end up on the floor. He grabbed for a dishtowel blindly and wiped the overwhelming taste (if you could call something so monstrous a taste) of salt and pepper from his tongue. There was no hint of eggs that could come through past that.
"Oh, Erik, don't be so melodramatic! It's not that bad!" Charles insisted.
"You only think that because you have no taste-buds leftover from your first bite," Erik replied, rinsing his mouth out. "Throw those away before you get a sodium overdose and die and then I'll never have sex."
Charles scoffed but did as he was told. He certainly wasn't going to fight to eat them after all. They were absolutely godawful.