"Do you wrap Hanukkah presents?" Charles questioned in the bedroom, setting out all eight of Edie's fully-wrapped Hanukkah gifts. Erik had tried to explain that only one gift was really necessary, but Charles never did one nice thing when a holiday was offering up the perfect opportunity to do eight.

"It's a little late for that now, isn't it?" Erik questioned, flicking at one of the gift's quaintly Jewish-themed wrappings.

"I figured I'd do it while I knew I could find the right paper and if it was wrong I could take it off," Charles shrugged.

Erik picked up each of the gifts to make sure Charles hadn't swapped any of the ones they'd picked out together for something more expensive. If Charles felt he absolutely had to buy Edie eight presents Erik was at least going to make sure they weren't eight embarrassingly extravagant gifts, although he should trust Charles by now since he'd managed to contain himself last Hanukkah.

"Which one should we give her tonight?" Charles mused.

"Give her the medium one tonight and we'll surprise her with the big one on the last day," Erik suggested. Normally his family exchanged their largest presents on the last day, but Edie couldn't hold off any longer giving her present to Charles and had begged to exchange the large gifts tonight.

Charles grabbed one and Erik groped it to make sure it was what they had agreed on. Edie had been wanting an American cookbook for a long time, although Erik had no idea why since Edie wouldn't be able to read hardly anything in it. Working off this suggestion, though, Charles had of course decided to take it one step beyond and had actually made Edie a cookbook. Erik rather thought 'photo-journal' was a more appropriate description, though. The Brit had forced Erik to help him in the kitchen and photographed their progress through each recipe, including copious photographic evidence of their kitchen fires.

Erik's job, besides working the fire extinguisher and sporting a fireman's uniform for the rest of their recipes (and their bedroom), had been to write out the recipes and photo captions in German exactly as Charles dictated (and he was going to double check it with the German professor on campus so he better not try anything fishy). Erik had a full pack of tissues on hand because this cheesy gift was going to bring the waterworks out in full force, he had no doubt.

Since Erik was the guest, his mother let him say the prayers and light the menorah. He'd been dreading it all day: the last time he had said the blessings for Hanukkah he was thirty-three and visiting his mother in Brazil. He knew he was rusty, but he had done fine with the Hallel that morning, and it wasn't like Charles was going to know the difference or that his mother would care if he did something wrong. Still, he wished Edie would just at least do the first night to refresh his memory, especially since the first night meant one extra blessing to bestow and damn if he could remember that one.

One would think that going to temple that morning (for the first time in a very, very long time) would have helped refresh his memory enough to get him through one night, but in truth he had been extremely distracted. For one, pinning a yarmulke to Charles' soft brown hair was somehow an unexpectedly erotic act, and, secondly, Charles apparently wanted a play by play of every little thing going on, so that Erik had spent the whole morning alternatively translating every word out of the rabbi's mouth, and getting glared at by the rest of the worshipers.

In truth, though, he needn't have worried at all: his tongue seemed to know what to do even if he didn't completely. Besides, his one slip up at the end of the third prayer was already covered up by Edie clapping and crying and telling him what a beautiful job he'd done, and Charles wasn't much less emotional as he kissed his cheek approvingly.

"Is it inappropriate to tell you how sexy I find your Hebrew skills?"

"Do not ask me to sing the Haneirot Halalu while I fuck you," Erik growled (mostly because he wasn't sure he would be able to say no, even though it would be the most blasphemous thing he had done in a while). His mother yelped and beat him for saying fuck, and he had to insert Charles between them to save himself from further injury.

"Can we just open the goddamn presents already?" he demanded, rubbing his sore arse.

"I agree. I don't think I could watch someone else spank you for much longer without getting in on that action," Charles winked, somehow managing to squeeze Erik's ass without his mother seeing. Erik wondered how much practice the man had had at discreetly being a slut around mothers, because he certainly seemed too adept at it to be a novice.

They sat down on the couch, the three of them, with Charles in the middle and called Irena out but she begged off, asking her presents to be brought to her in bed, along with some more matzoh soup from last night, some of the latkes they'd made earlier, oh and some orange juice, that would be fantastic.

When they were settled again on the couch Charles somehow finagled Erik into the middle seat, which he didn't exactly mind since it put his two favorite people in the whole world on either side of him. His mother looked about ready to explode with excitement at getting to exchange gifts with her "son-in-law", oh and her son too.

"Have Charles go first!" she cried, shaking Erik's arm like a dog with a stuffed animal.

"You've got a lot to learn, Mama. It'd be easier to get Charles to murder someone than to get him to take before he gave, especially as a guest."

Edie managed to swipe the both of them with her affectionate eye before stroking Erik's sweater with amusement. "Alright, kleiner. You go first then."

When Erik went to take his present from the coffee table Charles yanked his arm back as if he were trying to shoplift.

"Erik! Let your mother go first!"

"She told me to go first!" he rather whined. "Besides, if she goes first Hanukkah will be over by time she stops crying."

Charles eyed him distrustfully but sat back, allowing him to search out his present from his mother.

He could tell as soon as he picked it up that it was clothes but he didn't mind that: his mother made amazing clothes, the only ones that fit him right, truthfully.

Sure enough he plucked out a beautiful pair of navy blue slacks and a pale gray-blue dress shirt. And a pair of suspenders.

Edie saw him staring at them and smiled ecstatically. "I couldn't make those but you seem to love suspenders so much lately that I thought I'd get you a pair! For all you like them you don't own any; I thought for sure you'd know what I was up to when I asked you last month."

Erik struggled to swallow, unwilling to explain to his mother that the reason he had such a thing for suspenders was because he had discovered how absolutely cock-achingly gorgeous Charles was taking them off.

"Very nice present," the man murmured directly into his ear, reaching over closer than he needed to in order to finger the blue straps provocatively.

"Later," Erik growled and Charles laughed and sat back mercifully. Erik meanwhile turned to his mother and flattered her in his own way, accusing her of spending weeks making something so beautiful, or spending too much money on such fine fabric. She was overjoyed with his praise and she kissed his cheeks happily, hugging him.

"Charles' turn!" she then cheered, reaching across Erik's lap to pat the man on the knee. He smiled bravely and took Erik's new clothes to lay them on the chair beside them out of the way and searched through the presents on the table for his.

"That's from me," Erik balked when Charles caught one up.

"I know, I want to open your present," the Brit replied, kissing his cheek. Erik pushed the gift out of his hands and pressed Edie's to his boyfriend.

"Trust me, if you don't open hers now she's going to have an aneurysm."

He tried to figure out why Charles' mouth twisted like that, but then had to give up as the look disappeared and Charles went about opening Edie's gift. Erik hadn't been trusted enough to know ahead of time, although Edie had asked for Charles' dimensions so he rather assumed it was a shirt or something.

Really, he wasn't far off, he saw, when Charles pushed the wrapping paper aside to stare at his new sweater. It was deeply, darkly blue, but somehow still bright, and it looked extremely soft. The collar buttoned and there was a stripe of red at the hem and cuffs, but the piece de resistence was a broad band going around the shoulders in cream and outlined in red that held a pattern of red hearts.

It was gorgeous and dorky and everything Charles loved and Erik wasn't surprised to see the man's hands shaking slightly as he barely touched the collar, the buttons, the hearts.

"Where on earth did she find this?" he said thickly and Erik sat back, smiling hugely and watching the man overdose on affection. He glanced at his mother and she seemed about thrilled out of her mind at the reception of her gift, hands clasped against one cheek and eyes shining and smile just about painful, he was sure.

"She made it. She's amazing with a pair of knitting needles. Or regular needles actually. Anything textile she's pretty much a pro."

Charles turned to stare at him, eyes bright and wet.

"She-she made this?" he choked out. Erik couldn't diminish his grin enough to talk, just nodded.

His grin faded plenty quick though when his boyfriend coughed miserably and jumped up from the couch, shoving his gift onto Erik and sprinting for the bathroom.

Erik and Edie shared dual shocked looks.

"Erik!" Edie finally recovered from her surprise to say. "What did you say to him?"

"Mama, nichts! I just said that you knitted his sweater!"

"Well you must have said something! Something happened!"

Erik agreed, and he was tired of tiptoeing around what. He brought his mother to the kitchen and told her to make them hot chocolate while he got the bottom of this and grabbed a knife.

The bathroom door was the same one that was there when he was a child and he knew from experience that a well-placed blade could trip the lock faster than you could say "Erik, was soll's*!"

So with a practiced move ingrained into his muscle memory he shoved forward the knife to slide the latch and threw open the door. Then promptly shoved it shut behind him before his mother could catch his boyfriend sobbing in the bathroom on Hanukkah after opening her present.

"Holy fuck, Charles! What's wrong?" he hissed, kneeling in front of the man where he was hunched over on the edge of the bathtub. Handkerchief having a rough go of it trying to rub away as many flooding tears as it could. Charles was too busy trying to keep his sobs absolutely silently to answer.

His eyes were swimming and his cheeks were sopping and splotchy red and he looked as if he were about to choke on his tears but damn it he would not make a noise. Erik, meanwhile, felt as if his heart was going to burst out of his chest this sight ruined him so much and he had expected it so little.

"Ah-I'm so-so-sorry," Charles gasped, hyperventilating to the point that he could hardly speak. Erik hadn't seen someone cry so hard as to hyperventilate since Keven fell of his skateboard and skinned his knee down to the bone.

"Shhh, shhh," Erik murmured, putting his arms around the smaller man and holding him to his chest. Charles hitched and trembled in his arms but refused to make a sound, which was more disconcerting than anything. He had cried at those damned abused pets commercials every other day for months and that had been a lot less intense but a lot louder.

"Charles what is it? What's wrong?" he begged to know. The man sucked in deep breaths and pulled away completely, mopping away his tears, but Erik could tell the Brit had rather put off his breakdown than alleviated it.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, forcing his breathing under control with that same iron will he exacted over himself whenever he had to be strong for someone else. "I'm sorry. I just remembered I had to call Raven but she didn't answer and I guess I was just upset. I'm fine now. Please, let's get back to the festivities. Your mo-mother must be worried."

More deep breathing had to get him back under control after that slip but of course he managed it. For how emotional Charles could be, sometimes he seemed even more stony than Erik: like the way he could turn off dour emotions in order to be a better guest. It was cruel, but Erik knew he had to break that, if only just this once. Otherwise this stony covering would grow over the problem and he'd never get to the bottom of this situation.

"You called Raven?" he asked steadily. Charles pressed his handkerchief to his eyes almost painfully and nodded.

"Yes," he murmured thinly. He was trying to keep himself from trembling, was partly succeeding now. It hurt Erik that he was going to have to put a stop to that.

"Where's your cellphone?"

Charles stopped and looked up at him, staring wide with those wet blue eyes rimmed a raw red.

"My phone?" he asked distractedly. Erik nodded. "My phone...it's..." Charles scoped a weak hand to his pockets, but of course didn't find it.

"It's on the nightstand," Erik pointed out.

Charles' staring eyes filled up with tears again which about broke Erik's heart and he took the smaller man up into his arms, caught him as he lost all the self-control he'd so pain-stakingly built up and more. The brunet couldn't keep quiet this time around, brought a hand up to muffle his sobs and when Erik pushed that hand away the palm was angry-red with violent bite-marks.

He didn't know what to do and he didn't know what had brought this on and he was horrified to see that even a year into dating and on the brink of asking the man to move in with him he was still just as clueless as when he'd seen Charles cry for the very first time. He did the only things he could do: he held the man tightly and rocked him and murmured to him and when the man's hitching breaths started to subside he pulled back and helped dry him off.

"What's wrong, Charles?" he murmured.

The brunet eyed him painfully and held his hand and said, "I'm pregnant."

Erik had fallen back on his sore arse hard before he figured out the man was joking.

"How can you joke after those waterworks?" Erik hissed, hitting him vengefully on the arm. The brunet gave a wet laugh and caught Erik's arm, slipped down on the floor to climb pitifully into his lap.

"The truth isn't as fun to admit: I'm an idiot."

Erik reached around and spanked the man hard enough to make him yelp and stare with offense.

"I told you a long time ago what would happen if you talked about yourself like that to me!" he said defensively. "Now, without being a dick, tell me what happened."

"It's too melodramatic to talk about now. I'll tell you later," Charles sighed, and tried to stand up but Erik wouldn't let him.

"I forced my mother to make winter beverages in order to hold you while you sobbed uncontrollably on the first night of Hanukkah: you can damn well tell me now," Erik insisted and Charles knew that insistent voice enough to recognize the fact that he wasn't getting out of this bathroom without appeasing it.

"Do you remember when we first started dating? I mean really dating, like cuddling up on the couch every night instead of going on actual dates because we're a lazy couple? Do you remember what you told me?"

"Nope, no idea."

"You said it was going to take some time for you to get used to being a real boyfriend, to have someone want to be around you more often than not and to want that in return, to miss someone, to...well even to love someone."

Erik blushed. "Yeah I guess I remember saying something like that. But what does that have to do with secret bathroom sobbing?"

"Do you remember, around the same time, when you found out you were listed as my emergency contact and cried so hard you got a bloody nose?"

Erik glared at him for bringing that up. They had sworn they would never bring that up.

"I vaguely remember something along those lines," he growled.

"It was just shocking for you to not have anyone love you like that for a long time and then to suddenly have it, right? You weren't sad and you weren't especially happy, you were just surprised and not particularly used to it all the way yet."

Erik didn't feel like admitting he still wasn't used to it, having someone love him as intensely as Charles did and feeling the same way in return. Now was not really the time nor the place.

"So you're surprised that I love you enough to bring you to Hanukkah, that's what this is?"

"No," Charles sighed, sucking on his bottom lip woefully. "I'm fully used to you loving me, it's never been a problem for me to know that men love me. I'm surprised that your mother loves me."

Erik pulled back, staring wide-eyed, but Charles was avoiding his gaze, cheeks pink with embarrassment.

He opened his mouth to speak but someone was knocking on the door.

"Is Charles alright? Does he need a doctor?"

"Nein, Mama," Erik called back through the door. "We're fine; we'll be out soon."

"I'll go pour your hot chocolate," Edie said, trying for joviality over her apparent anxiety.

Charles climbed out of his lap and helped him to stand and once they were both upright he held Charles' face in his hands and kissed him gently, brushed his hair back, hugged him tight.

"Tonight, after my mother goes to bed, I'll come climb into bed with you and we can finish this then," he murmured, making his words sounds more like a promise than a threat.

"I'll try not to sob hysterically," Charles said self-deprecatingly.

"Hey," Erik said, gripping into his hair softly and gazing into his eyes. "Do you remember what I told you last time?"

Charles nearly shivered in his arms. "I don't think I'll ever forget what you told me," he murmured.

"I'm strong enough to lean on, if you need to. I'm in this for the long haul."

"I love you, Erik," the brunet sighed, hugging him tightly. Erik grinned and caressed his hair.

"I love you too, Heulsuse**."

Charles pulled back glaring at him suspiciously. "Is that like some kind of crying reference?"

Erik just shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about. Now wring out your handkerchief and let's go watch my mother cry as hard as you when she opens her gift."

My terrible German translations!

*Was soll's: What the hell/heck.

** Heulsuse: Crybaby