A/N: Helloooo anyone's who's still reading! I'm caught up with a couple other fics I'm doing so Mutti is officially on the backburner for sure. I'm not super sure if it'll ever get finished, actually. This is the last chapter I have written and my other fics are taking up literally all my time. There's just nothing left to write Mutti with! I suppose once I finish those fics I could come back and finish Mutti but I guess we'll see. Sorry to all five of you who are put out by this lol. I hope you're not upset!
He let Charles have the window seat on the train, to take in a full quarter of an hour's worth of landscape.
The week had gone by faster than he had ever anticipated and it was already Monday, too early in the morning to be exactly comfortable in regards to waking up and also temperature. The sun hadn't had time to thaw anything yet and it was a relief to get into the heated train even though it meant leaving his mother on the platform. He hadn't cried, but it had been extremely close, and he suspected he was only saved from wet eyes by his tear ducts being frozen shut.
His mother had had it harder: she'd fallen so in love with Charles it was like sending two sons away on the train to Paris rather than just one. Still, she hadn't been distracted to the point where she couldn't load them down with tupperware, threaten Erik into eating more, and force a passing maintenance man to take their picture together. She had only barely pulled her tears back when Charles said, in his precious German : "Ich liebe dich, Mama. Ich werde dich vermissen." and she started sobbing all over again, wrapping her arms around his waist like she'd changed her mind and decided not to part with him. It made Erik nervous that maybe he'd hit the nail on the head.
"Mama, give him back. He can't stay here," he warned, dragging his boyfriend back into his arms where he belonged.
"Maybe if he doesn't want to live with you he could come live with me," she sobbed hopefully.
"Don't say that!" Erik balked, jolting, and Charles gripped him consolingly even though he didn't know what he was consoling against.
"What?" he gasped. "What did she say?"
"She's contemplating stealing you from me. Quick, get on the train before she makes another go of it." And Erik started pushing him up into the train car.
He allowed them all one more kiss goodbye, caught Edie trying to shove money in his pockets ("in case you get hungry on the train"), and made their escape final before she could try anything else.
She called him immediately on his handy.
"Frag ihn!" she hissed, and hung up after yet another rushed 'I love you'.
But that was ridiculous because it was only fifteen minutes till they switched trains in Mannheim-the trip was too short to even justify taking off their jackets, much less putting life-altering queries to the younger man.
"It'll be strange to be able to speak the language again," Charles hummed, taking his mittens off. His mother had knit them for the man and they were obnoxiously adorable, with a bright red cord to string them over Charles' shoulders like a child.
"You seemed to get by okay. By the end I'm pretty sure you and my mother were having purely telepathic conversations."
"Oh we were-didnt' I tell you? I'm a telepath now." Charles turned to him seriously, putting two fingers to his temple and staring into Erik's eyes so deeply he could see every fluctuation of blue. It was more attractive than unnerving, having Charles so close to him, even though he did have a secret big enough at the moment for him to dread Charles suddenly becoming a mind-reader. "Why, Mr. Lensherr!" Charles balked, sitting back in his seat and smacking Erik's shoulder teasingly. "What on earth gave you the idea that I'm that sort of boy? Fuck you in the storage room, really! Maybe once we switch trains."
But when they dragged all their luggage to their new train Erik didn't give himself the opportunity to get manhandled into the storage room and debauched. For once he had more important things on his mind.
"Charles," he started, distracting the Brit from the window as they passed Mannheim city limits.
"You ready?" the man beamed back, slipping out of his jacket, his sage-green henley tight over a simple white tee and making Erik's mouth water. He swallowed hard and stilled Charles with a chaste grip to his knee.
"I have something to ask you," he persevered. Charles' eyes glinted at him. Oh god, the man thought this was all part of the game, didn't he?
"Anything you want, darling, don't be shy," he hummed, attempting to slip forward and seduce Erik by proximity. He shifted his elbow to catch under the man's stark collarbone and fend him off.
"Charles, will you move in with me?" he asked in one quick rush, like pulling off a bandaid. But the scrape never simply stared back at him the way Charles was doing.
The man stopped trying to attack him and so he could bring his fending arm down, the better to fidget with. He stared steadfastly at the back of the seat in front of him and continued into the terrifying silence.
"You don't have to answer right now. I just wanted you to think about it. I'll leave you alone now," he said, clearing his throat and got up to hide in the dining car with plenty of beer. He wasn't sure what it meant that Charles didn't try to stop him.
He was on his third pint and about shaking with nerves an hour later, still alone in the dining car. His fingers were already tapping on his handy, wondering if he should call his mother and bitch her out for making him believe that asking Charles this question would ever ever ever be at all a good thing. This was stupid. He should have let well enough alone. His boyfriend loved him, had been ready and raring to go on a tryst in the storage room-and he had had to go ruin it asking if the jerk wanted to live with him.
Why should he want to complicate a beautiful situation? Sure maybe it would be great, be amazing, to see Charles' toothbrush sitting in the holder next to his-his real one, not the backup he left there just in case. Maybe it would blow his fucking mind to hand over all of his wall space for Charles' photographic love-murals. Maybe he'd sell off bits of his hardly-used soul to wake up to those bleary blue eyes and rumpled brown hair every single day and fall asleep with it every night. But what he had was pretty god damn good too. Was a hell of a sight better than nothing, which was what he would have if Charles didn't want to live with him. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow or next month, but a 'no' was still an eventual death to everything he had with Charles right this moment.
It would mean saying goodbye to the kisses that always seemed to get out of hand no matter what, to the way the man reached out to fit their hands together like an afterthought that was anything but, to the idyllic love notes the man hid in his coat pockets waiting for them to be found. To the arch and writhe of that body beneath his. The kissed-red swell of his lips. The gleam of a bright-blue eye that was more pupil than iris and gorgeous for it.
Erik had about frightened himself into a panic attack with all the imagining of things he wouldn't be able to do with Charles once they inevitably broke up and his hands were shaking when Charles burst angrily into the dining car.
Everyone stared at him, his hair mussed up on one side, his eyes blazing and his cheeks pink with exertion so that Erik had the mad idea that the Brit had somehow gone about the tryst in the storage area without him. But then the man caught sight of him at the bar and settled back into his regular self. He coughed nervously into his fist, crumpling a sheath of paper in his free hand, scuffling his feet on the carpet before shuffling his way anxiously over to the bar.
Erik turned back to his drink, too nervous to even look at him. He stared at the shelves of drinks instead as Charles ordered a faint double whiskey on the rocks.
Charles didn't drink whiskey. Well, he drank everything, really-but he didn't seek out whiskey. When the bartender got him his drink Charles didn't attempt to chat the man up at all, not even in the slightest, even though there was decent chance the man could speak English, or maybe French. He tipped back half his drink in one go, hissing, and then was silent again.
Erik didn't say anything. He didn't have the slightest clue what to say. He wracked his brain trying to come up with something, anything, but then Charles was speaking and his brain could only focus in on those words, the bearers of his fate.
Maybe Charles would simply beg for more time, put it off. Erik could do that-he'd much rather do that than get a flat 'no'.
It wasn't looking like he'd have that kind of luck, though, when Charles said, wavery and insecure, "I haven't been completely honest with you, Erik."
His heart went silent in his chest, wanting to hear every word as much as the rest of his body. What did that mean? Erik's mind, freed up from background noise like breathing, sped: Charles was having an affair, Charles was secretly married, he was an alien, he had a baby stashed away somewhere.
"I can't...I can't live with you...until you know..." Charles took a ragged breath to admit and the first part of his sentence was enough to send Erik's body into paroxysms of trauma, as if every part of him had suddenly started flailing and screaming. And yet he didn't make a sound, his hand was shaking but capable as it brought his beer up to chug.
"I'm not actually a tidy person," the Brit gasped out in one breath, downed the rest of his whiskey at once and ordered another.
Erik just stared at him, and Charles fidgeted under his gaze, blushing hot but not meeting his eye.
"What?" he murmured.
"I know that my place is always nice when you come over, but it's a sham. I'm horribly messy. I mean, just really awful. I hate doing dishes and there's always clothes all over the floor, or books or dishes forgotten everywhere...I just wanted you to know before you really asked me to live with you."
Erik threw his head back and laughed.
"Are you kidding?" he cackled mirthfully.
"What?" Charles balked, still nervous. He supposed laughing wasn't a good response to such a heartfelt confession, it was just...
"I've been to your office, Charles-I know you're second only to Logan in your lazy housekeeping."
"I'm a sight better than Raven," Charles argued back, offended.
"You're exactly as bad as Raven, you just make an actual effort to hide your mess."
"That's not all," Charles persevered bitterly, checking his paper to be sure that wasn't all. "I...I watch...damn it, I watch reality TV okay?"
Erik watched him carefully as he nursed his second whiskey, not sure if the color to his cheeks was embarrassment or tipsiness or both.
"What like...cooking shows?"
Charles glared at him quickly from the corner of his eye as if he was being purposefully naive.
"Like American's Next Top Model. I mean like the really trashy reality TV. You have no idea how hard it's been to date you and miss The Bachelorette every week. I have to watch it at work and erase my search history."
"But you're not an idiot!" Erik gasped.
Charles' lips twitched, not into a smile, but into a miserable frown. He sank into his whiskey. "I understand if you don't want to live with me anymore," he muttered in a small voice.
Erik grinned, still staring.
"What else is on your list?"
Charles finished his drink, got yet another, before he checked. At this rate he was going to be well and truly drunk in just a couple more confessions. He could handle his liquor very well but not at this speed.
"I'm an awful sick person. I mean you're going to really hate me when I get sick, and I get sick at least once a year."
"We've been dating for over a year and I've never seen you get sick once," Erik countered.
Charles blushed and scratched the back of his neck nervously.
"Do you remember in July when my friends and I went to the lake house but you couldn't get away because of work?"
"And you decided to stay an extra week?"
"I was sick out of my mind. Logan was so fed up with me by the end of it he threatened to drown me. Or call you."
"He should have. I would've taken care of you," Erik assured passionately, petting Charles' hair. The brunet sighed sadly, shaking his head.
"You don't understand. There is no taking care of me in that state, there's not even any appeasing me. It's like I stay mostly good-natured over the course of the year and then use up all of my assholishness in one week. I'm a tyrant; I'm Idi Amin. All you can do it try to not be driven to murder me. I'll make a full week of your life as miserable as it's capable of being."
Erik just smiled back, still petting. "Well, you make the rest of my life pretty blissful, so a week of misery is very doable."
When Charles looked at him it was with a faint smile, and he didn't look so nervous when he glanced at his paper again.
"I listen to pop music."
Erik slapped his hand on the counter.
"I knew it! I knew Raven didn't preset the dance station to your car's radio! You cheeky liar!"
"I'm sorry," Charles wailed. "But you always gag when they play it at the grocery store or wherever and I just couldn't cop to it!"
"So you played it off like that trash was your sister's fault?"
Charles gasped, scandalized, and huffed back, "Lady Gaga is not trash! And if you live with me you're going to be hearing a lot more of her!"
Erik grimaced unhappily. Could he tolerate pop music and reality TV for the love of his life?
"Okay, okay, move on-what's next?"
A check of the paper and Charles was ready with the next article on his agenda.
"I'm going to jerk off."
It was impossible for his brain to deal with a sentence like that. It just made a shrill humming noise as all units went temporarily offline and he stared at his boyfriend abjectly. Did the man mean like...right now?
"Whu?" he said.
Grinning, Charles smacked his arm. "I mean if we live together. I mean, it's not anything against you, it's just a fact and I want you to have all the facts beforehand. My libido just runs higher than yours, and it's unrealistic to think that we're both going to be in the mood at the same time all the time. At some point we're going to be on different schedules or something and it's going to happen and I just don't want your feelings to be hurt when it happens."
Erik nodded gamely. Before Charles, he had rarely jerked off just because he didn't seem to need it as often. With Charles his libido had skyrocketed simply to try and keep up, but it was still rare that he felt the need to take care of anything himself. The only times it happened really was when Charles was out of town or when the man specifically directed him to do it. He doubted Charles needed to worry about getting his feelings hurt by Erik seeing to himself, but he was glad to be warned against the possible situation in general.
"Got it. Anything else I need to know?"
"You know how social you think I am?"
"...Yeah..."
"I'm actually like twenty-five percent more social than that."
"You're already running at one hundred percent, how can you get twenty-five percent more than that?"
"Do you remember that science club I go to every Thursday?"
"Yes..."
"That's actually kind of my date night with my friends. We go to concerts or movies or bars or any stuff like that."
"But you hang out with your friends all weekend as it is!"
"Only one night of the weekend! You can't expect me to only see my friends once a week!"
Erik had fully thought that he could and was worried to find out that he couldn't. When he had imagined Charles living with him he had mostly imagined their books mixed together on his shelves, Charles' expensive sheets on his bed, Charles cooking in his kitchen and Erik doing their dishes. He had not thought of Charles' shit TV programs on his TV or his awful pop music on his stereo, or his near-constant socializing. His worry apparently bled through to his face because Charles commented.
"Maybe you should rethink this," the Brit murmured softly.
Erik did rethink it. His rethinking mainly focused on the fact that he was less than perfect as well and that if he was lucky enough for Charles to agree to look past his imperfections and live with him then he could certainly return the favor.
"I'm disgustingly lazy. I mean you will be physically disgusted by how lazy I can be."
"I knew you were lazy! I mean, for the number of times you insisted that sitting with me on the couch all night was the most romantic possibility available, I rather assumed..."
"Well I'm sorry, I didn't have the opportunity to come up with a list of surprising things to warn you against," he complained. "Although in my defense I'm actually lazier than you think I am. I've probably left my house more since dating you than I have since I bought it."
"We should discuss technicalities as well," Charles suggested anxiously, sipping his whiskey again. He really was going to get well and truly drunk.
"What like...what you'll bring?" he asked, heart fluttering, because discussing technicalities was discussing the future. This conversation he fucking loved: he would finally be able to actually visualize what his house would look like. He'd find out if Charles meant to bring that gorgeous couch of his or if Erik would have to continue using his shitty one, he'd discover whether his bedroom would now consist of Charles' dark teak bedframe or his own metal one.
But instead Charles decided to absolutely demolish his bubble.
"I want to pay the mortgage. Or at least the property tax."
Erik grimaced with disgust. "No."
"Then I can't live with you. I'm sorry but I don't want this to be like a free ride, I want shared responsibility. I'm an adult, not your rent boy and not your child. I get to help care for us or I'm out."
Erik glared but Charles was too tipsy for it to have any effect.
"What about me? I don't want to be your gutter-boyfriend getting his house paid for by his sugar daddy."
"That's not what this is!" Charles balked.
"Then how come you want to pay my whole mortgage instead of going halves with me, hmm? Because you're rich and I'm just measly middle class."
"No!" Charles argued, but he didn't have any argument beyond that.
"I can pay my mortgage just fine without a rich boyfriend. I've been managing fine for the last fifteen years or so, you know."
"I know!"
"Then you'll stop with this pay-poor-guy's-mortgage-for-him crap?"
Charles collapsed, deflated, and pouted into his drink, nodded.
"But I want to pay for something," he begged. "I want us to be equal in this thing."
Erik shrugged. "You can buy groceries, how's that?"
"And the property tax?"
Erik grumbled.
"Part of the property tax?"
Rolling his eyes, Erik finally agreed.
Technicalities got them through another half an hour and got Charles deep into a state of sloppy drunkenness (mostly due to the tearful realization that, no, Raven could not live with them).
"S'ya really wanna?" he slurred, collapsing sideways into Erik's lap and apparently doing his best to topple both their barstools despite the fact that they were bolted to the floor. "Y'really wanna live with me?"
"I really want you to live with me, Helligkeit," Erik assured with a grin.
Charles beamed back up at him, cheeks luminous pink in their alcoholic blush.
"Oh god, wow, Erik, you've just gotta fuck me now."
Erik didn't really think he could get away with fucking his boyfriend on a train-it took too long, you had to get too naked, and it caused too much mess. But they were nearly in Paris by now, and Paris was the city of love...hopefully that included love-making as well.