Erik was still exhausted from their fairly illegal activities long after they'd left the castle, and didn't understand how Charles could be worked over that hard and still want to sightsee all day.
"What do you mean nap?" the Brit balked over beers (in "OMG an authentic German pub!" He just rolled his eyes when Erik explained that first off they were Bierhauses and second off they were all authentic because they were all in Germany).
"Aren't you tired?" Erik grumbled from where he was literally lying on the bar half asleep. "Mama will make us lunch and then we can cuddle up all nice and warm and nap and then after dinner I'll take you to the Christmas market, I swear."
"But Erik!" Charles cried as if he had suggested they have fresh baby brains for snack. "We're only in Heidelberg for another ten days, and there's still so much to see!"
"Like what?" Erik huffed.
"Well we rather skipped out on that trip to the castle, so we'll certainly have to have another go at it-I was thinking after dark would be very pretty. There's still the old university and the Christmas market (and that'll take at least a couple days) there's the zoo, the castle ruins, Saint's Hill, Heiliggeistkirche, St. Michael's Monestary, and-"
"Please," Erik begged, beat down by the mere mention of all these ridiculous tasks. "No more."
"Really, Erik! I can't believe you'd want to stay inside in such gorgeous weather anyway!"
Erik shook his head in amazement. How was overcast and negative below equaling gorgeous these days?
"Unless the next thing on your list is the Museum of Sleep, I'm out," Erik grumbled.
"Fine," Charles shrugged. "I'll go by myself."
"You'll get lost!"
"My travel guide has a map. Give me your mum's address and I'll take a taxi back when I'm done."
But the thought of setting Charles free on the streets of Germany with no way to contact him should something happen was too terrifying for thought.
"Mom wanted to come out for lunch, she'll be happy to go sight-seeing with you."
Charles seemed shocked-actually, he seemed slightly scandalized. "Alone? You want me to sightsee with your mother alone?"
"Since you'll be with my mother, you won't be alone."
Charles took a long swig of his beer and kept staring at it even when he was finished.
"I don't want to inconvenience her. I'll be fine on my own," he insisted.
"It'll be a good chance for you two to spend time together," Erik pointed out.
That didn't seem to make Charles feel any better, even though Erik had said it expressly to make him feel better.
"I don't speak German and she doesn't speak English, what are we supposed to do?" he argued sharply.
"Hey," Erik balked, sitting up and brushing Charles' hair back. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Charles said with a blushing glance.
"Okay...I'll just call my mom and have her take a taxi here, then I'll take it back to her place. Where do you want to take her? I'll make sure she knows how to get there."
"I don't know," Charles said indifferently.
"Check your book," he suggested before getting his handy out and dialing up his mother.
Edie refused to take a taxi, balking at the expense even though the chances of Erik letting her pay for it were nonexistent, so they waited at the bar for her to arrive via bus. It still didn't take that long, and Erik helped Charles figure out where to bring Edie while they nursed another beer. The man's heart didn't seem especially in it.
"Was ist los?" Erik questioned, putting his arm around the man's shoulders and pulling him into his neck. Charles wrapped both arms around Erik's slim waist.
"I-oh, I'm just thinking of Raven again," he said, rubbing his forehead against Erik's neck.
Erik grimaced into his hair. How did that girl manage to make her brother upset from thousands of miles away?
"Why? What did she say when you talked to her?"
"She's still not answering my calls. Logan says she's alive though, so there's that," the man sighed. Damn it, Erik would have to deal with this. He had been hoping to keep the secret a little longer and wasn't entirely sure he'd have to give it away yet assuming he could bend Raven to his will by pure intimidation, which he wasn't confident in. She seemed to vacillate between casually ignoring his ire and grudgingly following orders. Hopefully he'd be able to guilt her into answering her brother's calls.
Erik couldn't plan his attack too thoroughly right then though because Edie walked in.
She stared between them for a moment and then clapped her hands excitedly.
"Erik! Did you finally ask him?" she cheered.
"Was? Mama, what are you talking about?"
"You didn't ask him to move in with you yet? I thought for sure...He just looks like you asked him to move in with you..."
"Achtung, Mama: stop saying that!"
"What, he's going to suddenly learn German?"
Erik narrowed his eyes at her and glanced at Charles, who certainly seemed clueless enough but the man was a good actor.
"He's crafty, Mama. You have no idea..."
"Well we're going to have the whole afternoon together so I'll get some idea!" Edie said ecstatically, bounding forth to wrap her arms around Charles. She pulled the man from his seat and shifted him to the entrance, calling behind her "There's lunch in the fridge! The key's under the mat! Stay safe!"
Erik paused his mother in her kidnapping long enough to kiss his boyfriend goodbye, and tried to figure out why Charles looked as if he were being lead to his death instead of a fun afternoon of touristing it up...
Charles and Edie were back by dinner loaded down with knickknacks and food from the market apparently, including cinnamon cookies for Erik. His mother looked cheerful enough so he assumed they had had a fun time although Charles looked a little wane, like he did after benefactor's dinners or high society parties. He considered cheering the man by telling him that his sister had seen the error of her ways (or the nearest approximation Erik could manage), but decided against it on the hypothesis that copious coddling could move the man out of his funk without his sister's help.
Erik had called Azazel as soon as he got back to his mother's and the man answered the phone with a furious "Do you have any idea what time it is? It's my one day off you jerk!"
"Put Raven on the phone," he had replied easily.
"What are you talking about? Raven's not here."
"Don't play dumb with me I'm not her brother-just put her on."
"She says she doesn't want to talk to you."
"I just bet she doesn't. Put her on or I'm snitching the two of you out to Charles."
There was muffled talking on the other line and then Raven in her regular bored voice.
"I'm sorry, Raven can't come to the phone right now because SHE'S FUCKING PISSED OFF AT YOU, YOU BASTARD!"
Erik winced, pulling his ear away from her shriek and when he recovered enough to come back it was Azazel on the line again.
"I hope you're happy," the soft-voiced man growled. "I very much did not need that this early in the morning."
"She's really going to regret being this awful to Charles, and me for that matter, when she finds out about Paris."
"Why don't you just say?" Azazel asked, using enough awkward wording to make sure Raven didn't find out from him. Erik was blessed to have a manager devoted enough to Erik's secrets to not let a pair of knockers induce him to blab.
"There's still a week and a half until then; she'll let it slip. She's not used to having secrets from Charles, she wouldn't last a day. No way; that's the last resort."
"I think we're at that last resort: she hasn't spoken to her brother for three days. She's approaching critical instability and I can't image that Charles is far behind her. They normally manage about twenty minutes without speaking. At this rate they'll have simultaneous nervous breakdowns, and then where will your swell German vacation be?"
Erik gnashed his teeth with ire. He could only assume that since Raven was not screeching in the background complaining about being accused of impending female hysterics she was not in the room any longer.
"Well what am I supposed to do? If I tell her she'll blab to Charles for sure!"
"Since I am much smarter than you, I have already thought of a solution to your problem: She'll email Charles, explaining that her phone is broken, and I'll proofread her emails to make sure they don't divulge anything."
Erik glared at his phone.
"With my luck and her secrecy skills she'll post it on Facebook for all the world to see before the day is out! What am I supposed to do if she lets the cat out of the bag regardless? It's not like I'll be able to cancel her ticket once Charles knows about it."
"If she lets it slip then you get to throw her off a bridge, how about that?"
"I'd prefer the Eiffel Tower," Erik growled, and then sighed angrily. "Goddamn it fine. Put that harlot on the phone."
"Oh harrrlot!" Azazel called. "There's someone on the phone for you."
"Tell him to fuck off!" Raven shouted back like a spitting cat.
"Trust me, you're going to want to hear what he has to say."
It took about two seconds to tell Raven the happy news, but another five minutes to get her to believe it, and then another five minutes to talk her down from hysterics.
"Are you seriously serious?" she sobbed even though they had by then established that he was.
"Go pack your bag," he sighed. "And if you breathe a goddamn single word of this to your brother I'll gut you and turn you into saucisson."
"I don't know what that is but I will because I'm going to goddamn Paris!" she shrieked, clearly jumping for joy on the other end.
"Not a word! Do you hear me? Not to ANYONE-not to the cafe kids, not to Moira, not even to Logan! Not a single fucking person or I'll assassinate you before you even get through customs!"
"I won't, oh Erik I won't! I won't tell anybody! Ha! I'll send them a fucking postcard from Paris! Won't they get a kick out of that!"
"Write to your brother that you're going to stop being such an awful bitch, and let Azazel ensure it's not full of obvious slips, got it?"
"He can read whatever the hell he wants, I'm going to Paris! Oh, Erik, you're the best brother-in-law ever ever ever!" she trilled. Erik couldn't help but smile: she'd never called him her brother in law before. Maybe he'd been right and all it would take would be a Christmas trip to Paris to make the girl cheerful enough not to sob his plan into failure when he asked Charles to move in with him.
"Okay okay, cool it. Put Azazel back on."
"Ohhh lover!" Raven sing-songed off the phone. "Your husband wants to nag at you. I've got to go plan for Parie!"
"You've put her in a right cheerful mood," Azazel said appreciatively.
"Yeah, she's almost as chipper as her brother now. Don't let that good mood distract you from successfully censoring her email. Maybe find a way to block Facebook for a week, too."
"I'll do my best. Is there anything else?"
Erik considered asking about Charlie, asking if the cat was okay, if he was still hanging around, if he looked skinnier or less loved with Erik on vacation. But he decided he couldn't risk it, not with Azazel. He thought about calling Emma to go check on the thing, but didn't think she'd actually drive all the way over there to look after a stray, or go through all the work of sneaking it tuna in the appropriately clandestine manner. Maybe Moira would do it for him. She was soft-hearted like that; it was why she and Charles were such good friends.
"Nah, that's it. We can email about the cafe-even with a phone card this call can't be cheap."
"Alright-hey, how's the vacation going?"
"Oh just swell," Erik groused. "I'll talk to you later."
"Bye, boss."
Needless to say, too much of his conversation was a secret to share any of it with Charles. So he kept quiet, just kissed his boyfriend hello again and listened to him about his day (from Charles in English in one ear and from his mother in German in the other) and sat down on the couch with him to get the play-by-play off Charles' camera, and once he had succeeded in cheering the man all on his own, he encouraged him to check his email.
Charles just grinned at Raven's message; he seemed very sleepy after his long day, and Erik pointed this out. "You should have come home and napped with me. Now you're going to fall asleep at seven again like a grandpa."
The man shut his computer and curled up in his lap: the petulant stance he reserved for sickliness or general self-pity and started to whine but Edie interrupted him by calling them to dinner.
Erik loved his mother's cooking but found he hated meals because it meant Irena inevitably made an appearance. For the most part she was bed-ridden with migraines or paining kidneys or a million other imaginary defects, but somehow she always felt improved enough for meals. Erik tried to ignore her more successfully by focusing on massaging Charles' thigh under the table. It worked beautifully, especially when the man reciprocated.
"I think Charles is getting sick," Edie insisted, pouring the man another steaming ladle of matzo soup and brushing his hair back from his brow, true coddling if ever Erik had seen it.
He was surprised when Charles ducked shyly from out of her grasp, pressing his face into Erik's shoulder as if he were embarrassed.
"He's just tired after all your sightseeing," Erik replied, brushing his cheekbone over Charles' crown.
"I don't think so. He seemed tired before we even started sightseeing."
Erik frowned at this news. Charles had seemed tooth-achingly energetic at the bar.
"Are you feeling alright, Maus?" he questioned, pressing the back of his hand to Charles' cheek. He didn't feel too warm.
Charles shrugged out of his grasp to finish his third helping of matzo.
"In America I'm Mausi but here I'm Maus?"
Erik blushed hard. Mausi was a bit too kitschy to toss around as a grown man in front of people that knew how kitschy it was. "That's not an answer."
"Neither is that."
"Charrrles," he growled and the man laughed.
"I feel fine! Why?"
"Mom said you were a bit listless today."
Charles shrugged, looking at his soup. "You saw the pictures. Did I look listless?"
The man had a point-in all the photos he was as Heilligkeit as ever, beaming as if he were having the time of his absolute life.
He turned back to his mother with a shrug. "He says he feels fine."
Edie twisted her mouth pensively. "Maybe I was imagining it."
"Well I don't feel fine," Irena bemoaned glumly. "Your neighbor has gotten me sick. I knew he would."
"He's not my neighbor," Erik growled with a roll of his eyes. "He's my boyfriend."
Irena looked morosely shocked. "That's not polite dinner conversation."
Erik rolled his eyes once more for good measure.