AlphaBetically speaking, Charles came first

Author's note: Hi everyone! Here is already the last chapter and I'm offering you this 25th drabble as a Christmas present since Advent calendars usually go only until the 24th... I have been really happy writing this whole story (especially the cutest drabbles) and I hope you took some pleasure in reading it as well. :-)

Many many thanks to fidjet for her advices and indefectible support, and to Lysen5972, without whom this fic would have been ruined by numerous mistakes. Thank you, you're the best.

Universe: This is a College-AU (with or without powers, you can pick whatever you like)

Rating: K+

Enjoy!

Z – Zygomaticus

Everything about Charles made Erik smile. The way he would try and tame his hair by combing a hand through it. The way his cheeks flushed when he was cold, when he was embarrassed, or when he hurried to not arrive late. The way he would marvel at small and mundane things, that only he kept finding wonderful, like the wind in fallen leaves, strange shapes in coffee foam or slugs in the middle of a path. The way his eyes sparkled when he was happy – Erik quickly made it his life-goal to always see him with sparkling eyes. The way he could get excited about almost anything, especially if it involved his friends, genetics or historical movies. How he looked with his reading glasses on. How he looked in the oversized jumpers he wore to be comfortable. How he looked in general. All in all, Erik was basically smiling every time Charles was around. Which, considering that he was a rather taciturn person, was pretty surprising.

More than that, he could also listen to Charles for hours. Whether he was talking about what he'd done during the day, what he'd read, what he was passionate about or even what the weather was, the sound of his voice was enough to induce in Erik a deep feeling of satisfaction. Which was also surprising considering that he tended to be feed up with a lot of people in less than five minutes. But with Charles, somehow, it was different. And since they'd first met at the chess society, a little over a fortnight ago – which was a very short time considering how it had changed everything in Erik's life –, he had done everything he could to see him as often as possible. Given that Charles was a biology major, and he an engineering one, their paths didn't usually cross much, but they'd made do.

At the moment, they were both sitting in one of the many cafés on campus, and Charles was finishing a funny story about his clumsy lab-partner, Hank, who had once again failed miserably in asking out Raven, Charles' sister. In the end, both were laughing so much, it took them a little while before they could stop and start their conversation again.

"By the way," Charles managed to ask a few minutes later, "are your teeth better?"

"My teeth?" Erik repeated, sightly puzzled.

"Yes," the other explained, "you were massaging your cheeks and jaw quite often the other week, I assumed it was because you had a teeth problem."

"Oh, that, it was nothing. Just a slight ache because I was a little tired, that's all."

"That's good then," Charles smiled while Erik took a sip of his coffee.

There had been no teeth problem whatsoever, Erik thought as Charles started to talk again. But there was no way in hell he would ever tell him, that his cheeks had hurt because he made him smile so much, that his unused zygomaticus muscles had ached for over a week before they accustomed themselves to this new and pleasant exercise.

I hope you liked it and if you did, don't hesitate to leave a comment, I really love to read them. Have a very nice Christmas day, a very nice New Year's eve and I hope 2017 will bring you everything you want!