When the ladies finally left (after another long round of cheek-pinching and womb-pimping) Erik and Charles helped to clean up their mess, racing Edie for the most strenuous tasks and mostly beating her out. Erik did dishes again and Charles wiped the tables, vacuumed up the crumbs from the sandwiches (and, Erik fully suspected, destroyed the evidence of his own hidden teacakes). Edie had to sigh acceptance at the simple task of packing the leftovers, and then promptly unpacking them when Irena fluttered out of her room like a wounded bird (a pelican maybe) and decided she wanted some. Once the woman was fed she claimed the lights were too bright and stumbled back there to lie down some more (and, if the sounds were any sign, watch some trashy day-time TV).
When the chores were done Erik kissed his mother on the cheek and called upon his boyfriendly rights to ruthlessly tourist it up on his and Charles' first real vacation together.
"Sorry, Mama," he shrugged, pulling on his coat and wrapping the biggest knitted scarf Edie could find around Charles' throat.
"Don't apologize—just go cheer him up!"
The other man did seem a little down since trying to call Raven: she hadn't picked up again. Erik was about ready to fly back just long enough to thrash her.
So Erik went to cheer Charles up. Or try to. The first tourist spot was a flop: the playground Erik had grown up going to was now a parking lot. So they walked down to the Neckar and followed the river along scenically arm in arm, stopping in the park by the river that Erik used to attack ducks at.
"I really hated ducks. No idea why. They were just the dumbest birds. I think I hated them even more than pigeons. Duck came near me? That was fuckin it. It was on. One of us was leaving the goddamn park and it wasn't going to be me," Erik admitted, and Charles had to stop in his tracks and kneel down he was laughing too hard to stand properly.
When the man was recovered they continued on their walk, Erik unable to stop smiling when Charles was beaming so brightly beside him. Effectively cheered up, he would say.
"It's so beautiful here," Charles sighed finally, leaning his head on Erik's shoulder on the down stroke of their steps. "Don't you miss it?"
"I've lived in very beautiful places: here, Killarney, America—our town most of all."
"Really? You think our place is more beautiful than all this?" Charles questioned, sweeping his arm to take in the pale blue hill ridges and sparkling Neckar and cheerfully European buildings.
Erik grinned and tucked a piece of flyaway hair back under Charles' cap, eyeing him affectionately as he said, "Yes. Infinitely."
It was easy to admit to: Heidelberg was gorgeous, but when stacked up against his memories of their town (Charles as they rowed out onto Blue Lake, Charles in his backyard cutting camellias for his desk, Charles' eyes lit up by the Christmas lights on Candy Cane Lane) it simply paled in comparison.
Charles made their city home, and Heidelberg could never be more beautiful than their home.
Speaking of home…
Erik took a deep breath and was promptly interrupted.
"Where are we walking to?" Charles asked lazily, wrapping his arm around Erik's waist.
Erik sighed in frustration but answered him. "Well, we're going to take the Philosophenweg up and around and down to the Alte Brücke. We should make it there by dark, and then we'll get to see the castle lit up."
"Are we going there today?"
"I wasn't thinking so. I thought we could do that and the Schlossruine tomorrow while it's light out. Is there anything you want to do? Hmm? Anything your travel book tells you I have left out?" he teased. Charles was a manic traveler: he had checked out three different travel books on Germany in the last two weeks and had frazzled himself to the bone trying to memorize them all on top of his playful book of Jewish traditions and Erik's makeshift German lessons.
"As a matter of fact," the man started up defensively.
As Erik turned the man onto the Bergstraβe and then right to the Philosophenweg onward up to the start of the official hike, he got to hear all about the matter of fact: the Market Square, Old Town, the student prison, the Church of the Holy Ghost. And the zoo.
"I draw the line at the zoo," Erik growled.
"You were a child here! What could you possibly have against the zoo?"
"I had a bad experience," Erik muttered as they hiked, unwinding his scarf in the dual heat of their climb and his embarrassment. That was the most downplayed way of explaining the time Wolf von Strucker, that inestimable asshole, shoved him over the barrier of the seal exhibit during the class fieldtrip and he'd nearly drowned. Even thinking of it now he wanted to shove some more metal bits into his old water balloons and go after that jerk once again.
Charles was surprisingly incapable of leaving it at that considering how many times he left it at that for his own stories of trauma, so by time they were breaking off the path to wind their way down to the bridge the man had the whole story out of him.
"Oh, darling," the bundled brunet murmured into his bare throat, forcing them to stop as he hugged Erik for all he was worth. "You don't need to worry about that," Pulling back, the man stared into his eyes lovingly. "If you fall in again I'll jump in after you and save you, I promise."
"I didn't fall in—I was pushed! The boy was trying to murder me!" Erik snarled shrilly, pulling out of Charles' affectionate grip. The other man only laughed and held his hand tightly through their gloves. Erik huffed but allowed it.
"You're not the least bit angry that some kid was trying to kill me? What if he'd succeeded, eh? Who would you date then?"
"Oh, I wouldn't date anyone, of course. I'd die a horny old spinster. Here lies Charles F. Xavier, buried with his well-used vibrator."
Erik couldn't help it, he snorted on his own laughter and slapped Charles' arse through their heavy layers in punishment. "You sex-freak," he chortled.
"Only for you, love," Charles replied easily, not affected at all these days by the moniker. That kind of resilience steeled Erik's half-hearted resolve.
"Okay, okay, we can go to the zoo. But we're giving that seal exhibit a fucking wide berth."
"Deal, darling," Charles cheered, kissing his cheek warmly.
After a long day of sight-seeing he and Charles collapsed back into the homey warmth of the Weisser Bock and started peeling off winter gear. Passing it on their way back to the bridge Erik had immediately recognized it as the nicest restaurant he had known as a child. He had always said he'd get married there (why his ten-year-old self had wanted to get married at all, in a restaurant much less, was beyond him, but he'd been serious enough about it to drag Natalie there under a white sheet and ask the proprietor if he'd do the honors), and he pulled the two of them inside.
The place was packed but quaint, and Charles had bonded with the hostess immediately because the woman spoke broken English. They were now inestimable bosom buddies, to the point that the woman was hugging his boyfriend.
Erik kicked his ankle under the table to let the man know that he was in no way okay with this, and the smaller man flinched but forbore.
"Danke, Effi—ein Sekunde, bitte," Charles requested, motioning to their menus.
"Oh, German very cute—good German," she cooed, running her motherly plump hands over Charles' hat hair affectionately. Erik cleared his throat and glared at her but she ignored him. "Gluhwein Mama Effi bring, ja? Ja. Good Karl. Ich bin sofort wieder da!"
When the woman left Erik didn't bother to open his menu, only stared at Charles across the table assessingly, with a faint smile.
"What?" Charles laughed. Erik shook his head and sighed.
"Even in Germany! Even with a language barrier! Even thousands of miles away from home you manage to woo random strangers!"
Charles shrugged nonchalantly. "It'll take a lot more than bringing me to exotic locales to make me change who I am," he sniffed.
Erik rubbed his face disbelievingly but couldn't stop smiling.
"God but I love you," he sighed passionately. Charles jerked his eyes up to stare at him delightedly.
"I—I love you, too," he grinned, reaching across the table and holding his hand. Erik leaned his forehead against the grasp for a moment and then kissed his knuckles before letting him loose. His heart was thrumming painfully in his chest and he wanted to hold Charles close to him, touch him all over and grasp him tighter than he'd ever clutched someone, because he'd never needed someone the way he needed Charles, not to survive but to live.
"What brought all that on?" Charles asked mistrustfully over his menu.
"What do you mean? I always love you," Erik grinned sharkily.
Charles looked at him appraisingly, as if trying to figure out his secret, but smiling like it was a sweet secret. "Not like that: not like it's breaking your bones."
Erik pressed their ankles together under the table and smiled back gently. "No, I always do love you like that."
Charles blushed and went back to studying his menu, pressing his leg back against Erik's sweetly.
After such a long active day Erik didn't think he'd have any trouble falling asleep. He hardly ever had trouble falling asleep, after all. Why would he start now? But as soon as he climbed into his makeshift bed on the couch and closed his eyes he could tell that he was not going to be so lucky tonight.
He struggled at if for a few more minutes, most of it spent with his mind racing trying to figure out what could have skewed his abilities. Was it all that Gluhwein Effi had pushed on them? One would have thought that would help him sleep. Was it that passionate 'goodnight kiss' Charles had instigated when they were getting ready for bed? That sounded more likely, but he felt mostly sorted out now, and he hadn't lost any sleep to blue balls before, and he'd certainly been driven to worse levels of it by his sultry boyfriend.
Without coming to a consensus he stared at the ceiling for long stretches of time doing what he always did the one rotten day out of the year he couldn't sleep: cataloguing the various house noises around him. It was his go-to response in hope that the boring task would drive his mind fleeing into sleep to avoid its continuance but there was no such luck now. He could hear Irena's piggy snoring and the dim sounds of cars on the streets, the bell of someone's bike-who rode a bike this time of year in this type of climate? And he could hear the squeaking of Charles' bed as the man flipped and flopped as violently as ever.
He grinned, imaging what he would be doing if there were a comfortable way to fit two grown men into that bed. Probably dodging kicks, or at least attempting to. He'd probably have gotten a flung knuckle to the face by now, but that had its perks as it came with ample apologies and kisses and coddling.
No, doting, he corrected himself. Apparently coddling was a mother-and-child action, at least in Charles' mind.
He spent the next indeterminable amount of time wondering about that, about Charles' ideas of mother-and-child and how he had come by them. The man had long ago given Erik an extremely vague outline of his childhood and his childhood relationships, and then spent the rest of their relationship so far slowly filling in the gaps. Erik had come to accept the man's aggravating method of imparting information: start out with the vaguest estimation possible, and then spend the rest of your life doling out details as hesitantly as possible.
So on their first date he had found out that both of Charles' parents had died (and then promptly lost that knowledge to alcoholic haze, regaining it again weeks later when Charles referenced it). A month in, he found out that Charles' father was Brian Xavier, the famous physicist (he hadn't known he was famous, Hank had told him). Two weeks after that he discovered that Charles didn't actually remember his father at all, even though the man had died when Charles was already four-Charles felt inestimably guilty about this. After that he was told that Charles' mother, Sharon, had been very depressed after Brian's death. She didn't like motherhood: that was Brian's deal. He was the one that had wanted children, enough to adopt Raven when Sharon found out she couldn't have any more children of her own.
After that the information was slow to come because it became so much more personally dour to Charles.
That was one sure way to tell how much a memory had hurt Charles: how long it took him to tell you about it. It was only in September or October that Charles had explained he technically had a step-father and step-brother out there, but he wasn't in contact with them. It was another night of pulling to teeth to discover that Kurt had 'rather disliked' Charles, and Cain had felt the same, only 'rather more so'. Raven was the one to explain that that meant Kurt hurled an ever-varying litany of incredibly cruel words at him, and Cain had simply hurled fists. When Cain sent him to the hospital with a gushing head wound (that explained the scar at his temple his hair only barely couldn't cover), Charles and Raven had gone to live with their fraternal grandfather for the summer. Sharon hadn't put up a fight during the whole process, and in fact when Charles came back to complete his schooling she banned him from the premises for 'causing a ruckus and getting poor Cain sent off to counseling'.
During the school year, Papa Xavier put the lives of his grandchildren in the hands of his only son's friend and closest colleague, Dr. Alexander Ryking, and the man had doted on them. A widower with a grown son, he enjoyed their company immensely, although Charles rather thought that, having a son of his own already, the man had naturally grown rather closer to Raven. In the summers they went back to their grandfather and his extensive estate in the Lakes District. He died when Charles was eighteen. As his sole relation, the brunet inherited the estate and respectable fortune. The house was now a museum and had been featured in the latest BBC rendition of Jane Eyre.
Sharon died, most likely of complication arising from untreated alcoholism, when Charles was nineteen. She hadn't spoken to him except through lawyers since they had waited for the ambulance together after his ghastly head-wound. She had told him to please cover up because the sight of his blood was making her nauseous. Then she called the governess, Miss Jo, and went to 'lie down'. That had been when he was seventeen.
Sighing, Erik turned onto his side and realized he had thought much more depressingly than he had meant to. He had only meant to analyze Charles and Sharon's relationship. Instead he'd gotten into their whole seedy past. Charles would just die if he could read his mind, going over all these miserably sordid details. If anyone were to write his posthumous biography (and there was already talk of it in certain fanboy circles despite Charles' ongoing pulse) and include these facts the young professor would undoubtedly come back from the dead just to squash the project. He could normally attain disdain without hurting his gentle sensibilities, tops, but he found it in him somewhere to downright hate sordid details.
Erik decided he absolutely had to stop his brain from going over these facts before Charles randomly developed psychic abilities and caught him in the act.
So he turned on the lamp behind him and scrounged around for a book, finally settling on his father's tattered old tome of Irish poetry. Jakob loved all things Ireland-had even named his daughter Eire although it banned him from having a say in future children's names such as Erik's own. He had dragged his whole family there although Edie didn't speak a word of English and had no interest in learning one. The man had even insisted on being buried there, saying only that his heart belonged to Ireland. "You didn't marry Ireland, you married me," Edie had argued back heatedly. "That's my heart you're talking about burying in some potato farmer's back yard!"
Erik had only been reading for a moment or two when he heard Charles' metal bed squeak loudly and looked up to see the younger man stumble out of the room grumpily.
"What's the matter, Mausi?" he teased quietly, assuming the man was up for a cup of water to offset his drunkenness. Instead of stumbling to the kitchen or the bathroom, though, the man stumbled to him, kneeling down by Erik's chest and leaning down across him, resting his head on Erik's ribcage.
Erik didn't complain, just laid his head back and stroked Charles' hair across his skull, scraping the skin gently with his blunt fingernails. Shivering slightly, the smaller man slipped his arms under the covers against Erik's stomach and allowed his boyfriend to tuck the quilt around his shoulders.
"I couldn't sleep I guess," he sighed as Erik tickled the nape of his neck with his fingertips.
"Me neither," Erik admitted with a whispering laugh. Charles turned his head so he was looking up at Erik and smiled when Erik moved to run his fingertips over Charles' cheek and brow. The man smiled but shivered, too. "It's too cold to sit there. Climb in."
"I won't fit," Charles argued with a yawn, but Erik wasn't taking no for an answer. He found that if he took the cushions off the back of the couch it gave them just enough room, assuming they both lay on their side. They didn't though. Instead, Charles collapsed halfway on top of Erik, tangling their legs under the heavy quilts and cuddling up to him like his own Siamese twin.
Erik twisted his left arm around the brunet so that he could manage to continue stroking his hair back, turning his head to lay sleepy kisses there as well. Charles, for his part, stroked Erik's ribs through his T-shirt gently and nuzzled into his shoulder with a contented sigh.
"Did those old women really want you to impregnate me?" he mumbled. Erik couldn't help but laugh, but tried to keep it quiet.
"Well, they wanted us to have babies, and that's the only way it's going to happen."
"I could impregnate you," Charles argued, either still drunk or quickly falling asleep against Erik's warmth.
"With these slim hips? I'd never survive labor."
Charles hummed displeasure and squeezed his hips affectionately.
"What were you reading?" he murmured, his lips brushing against Erik's chest as he spoke.
Erik had forgotten about his book but glanced at it again, reading whatever was at the top of the page in his most Irish of voices:
"How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;"
Charles rolled up onto his elbow to stare at him and Erik stared back, equally shocked that the random spot he had chosen would be romantic enough to make his bones ache for how much he felt that sentiment towards the man in his arms.
Charles apparently felt likewise, based on the ardent way he kissed Erik's lips, the way his hand gripped Erik's shoulder like he'd hold on forever.
"You goddamn Irish seductress-surely you don't expect me not to shag you senseless after a stunt like that," he panted.
"I'm afraid I do. I've gotten through my entire life without my mother once walking in on me having sex and I want to die with that accomplishment."
"That'll be easy because you're going to die from lack of sex on this very trip," Charles groused, collapsing back to Erik's side but still holding him tightly around the waist so he couldn't have been too wrathful. "And you're going to drag me to the grave along with you."
"It's been all of two days. I think we'll survive a while longer," Erik chuckled.
"Not with lines like that we won't," complained Charles, yanking the book away from Erik's grasp and hiding it under the couch cushions. Erik suspected the man was going to clutch the passage to his breast long enough to imprint the words there eventually, but he didn't attempt to prevent that feat.