Anote: Tried to make a little longer for one of my reviewers and to answer your question if I just use their first or last name, then those are just supporting characters to the story eg. Matt, Ned, Officer Pratt and if I give both first and last eg. Hank McCoy, then you know they are from the Xmen–verse.
I also have major work deadlines but I will post as soon as I can. Thanks to everyone who has favourited and put my work on their story alerts.
Chapter 4- Date night
With a pleased sigh, Erik crossed his last T with a dramatic flourish and looked at the clock on the wall.
Damn it!
He was seven minutes over the time.
God…he was going to fail.
Ridiculous! He had never failed anything in his life.
As he sat there twirling his pencil in between his fingers, he realized that wasn't completely true but he pushed the thought quickly from his mind. After years of practice, he could side step that particular memory without too much effort. Dwelling on those thoughts were for when he was alone when no one else was there to watch.
Speaking of being alone, Erik once again looked at the closed door of the library. Charles was late.
Almost two weeks had past since they started their sessions. The professor's enthusiasm had thankfully calmed down to something easier to deal with but it had been replaced with a quiet sort of sadness and after a while, Erik seriously began to wonder if something was wrong. He had tried to exert himself in the sessions to ask interesting questions and sometimes that seemed to reanimate the young Englishman but too soon the man would relapse into his own thoughts. It is not that Charles didn't speak but the connection that had flared so brightly on their first meeting wasn't there any more.
Erik was surprised to admit even to himself that he felt as though he had misplaced something important. Since he needed to move around from place to place very quickly and unexpectedly this feeling was completely out of character for him.
Focus Lehnsherr, he berated himself.
The prisoner closed his books for a moment and retrieved a large folder from his bag. So intently was he studying the contents that he failed to hear his teacher until Charles placed a small hand on his shoulder.
'S. Shaw?' the young man asked with a curious smile.
Very calmly Erik closed his folder so as to not attract suspicion.
'Research for a book I am writing,' he lied easily as he stood to hold out a chair for the other man.
Charles took the seat with a quiet thank you.
'Fact or fiction?' he pressed energetically, bright blue eyes eagerly staring at the material in Erik's hand as if willing it to pop open.
The professor had an uncanny gift of zeroing on matters that Erik wished he wouldn't.
He pushed the folder back in his bag without replying. The older man could see Charles wilting under such an obvious snub and he was sorry to be the cause of it this time.
'I am sorry to be so late, but I got held up in a meeting,' the young teacher offered as way of explanation when it became obvious that his student was not going to share any further information. He had already snagged the question paper that Erik had been working on and was perusing it with a furrowed brow.
'Still a little too wordy,' he criticized gently. 'Did you run out of time again?'
The way Erik uncharacteristically slouched over the table gave him his answer.
'What the devil is that?' the taller man suddenly asked incredulously, staring at his Professor in some surprise.
The young man groped for a pen in his jacket pocket. 'My apologies, it's just my stomach protesting my decision to skip lunch.'
Erik scowled as the disturbing, odd, gurgling sounds rumbled again, this time more loudly perhaps sensing that they had a found a more sympathetic audience to their pleas.
'I will get something tonight,' the younger man added absentmindedly, crossing off the unnecessary paragraphs in the answer page.
Startled, Charles jumped as Erik ripped the paper from his hand. 'Get up. This is not a discussion.'
He made a quick grab for his belongings as it appeared that his student was quite prepared to bodily pick him up and march him from the library, if he moved any slower.
'ERIK! Can we just walk around like this?' Charles exclaimed anxiously, glancing around sure that a gaggle of security guards was going to come pounding down the corridor at any moment.
This elicited a snort of derisive laughter from the taller man.
'You watch too much television Charles,' he replied with a curl of his lip. 'This is a minimum security prison.'
The Englishman hugged his briefcase to his chest with a little huff. How was he supposed to know?
'We even have shuffleboard every other night,' the older man offered in a sneering can-you-believe-it tone of voice.
As was in his nature, Charles was busy looking around at everything and everybody that was on their path. If not for Erik's firm grip on his elbow, the man would have unknowingly stumbled five or six times and walked into a dustbin before they reached their destination. He observed curiously as various inmates tried to say hello but Erik was like a man possessed.
Finally they stopped.
'And what do we have here?' the woman who was obviously one of the cooks, inquired with a frown over her steaming pots and pans.
Charles swallowed hard and tried to hide behind his student as she folded her massive arms across an equally large chest.
Mercilessly Erik dragged him forward.
'Charles Xavier, specialist in human genetics, my volunteer teacher and quite possibly the nicest man on the planet,' Erik deadpanned.
'ERIK!' his companion exclaimed with embarrassment and a bright blush.
'What? You are,' the taller man responded in all seriousness. 'Millie, do you have any of the dinner already started? The genius skipped lunch.'
The sympathetic woman made tut tut noises of disapproval and quickly prepared a plate of whatever was already available.
Soon the young man was looking down at a mountain of food in silent horror, too flabbergasted to even move.
Erik, misinterpreting his companion's inaction, grabbed one of the plastic sporks from the container and stuck it in the huge mound of mashed potatoes where it comically stood at attention like a candle in a cake.
'What's wrong now?' Erik inquired exasperatedly, when the man made no attempt to lift the plate.
'There is no way I can eat all of this,' the smaller man admitted in a whisper to the other man. 'I am not even sure I can lift the tray.'
Erik breathed in deeply not wanting to say something scathing or hurtful to the smaller man. Holding on to his temper had never been one of his stronger attributes but Charles' expression seemed so much lighter and happier now, than in the last couple of times they were together. Erik wanted this change to stay for as long as possible.
Gesturing to the cook for an extra plate, the older man lifted the entire tray himself and nudged the professor towards a little two-seater just next to the little scraggly garden one of the inmates was trying to get started. Now that Erik had scraped away half the food, Charles felt his appetite return and he dug in with gusto.
'Do you even exercise?' his student asked curiously, observing him in a new light.
The professor swallowed some of his orange chicken. It was quite good, better than he expected for prison food.
'Of course I exercise!'
Erik raised a doubtful eyebrow at his defensive tone of voice.
'Well no, not really,' he replied truthfully this time. 'Can't seem to find a spare moment and I am a bit rubbish at most sports to be honest.'
Erik felt a little pang of unease, wondering if these prison visits were stretching the endurance of the younger man even more.
'A little fresh air and activity will open your appetite all the way. You're so thin I could snap you like a chicken bone,' he stressed forcefully trying to get his teacher to see reason.
Charles waved his spork vigorously almost nailing Erik with a glob of gravy, 'Don't say that. You sound like my grounds man.'
'Your what?'
'Grounds man, a person who tends the garden.'
Huh?
'You should fire him and do the work yourself,' the older man offered, folding his hands across his chest to lean back more comfortably in his plastic chair, 'instant solution.'
He wondered why the Englishman was smiling.
In the silence that followed Charles kept his eyes on his plate not wanting the other man to see the rush of pleasure on his face.
Who knew Erik cared so much?
Over and over he replayed the events of the last few minutes, committing to memory the way the other man had masterfully swept him along the path, worry and concern etched all over his handsome features. It had been wonderful being so close to him; to feel the heat radiating off his chest from where he had stood in the circle of Erik's open embrace as he was introduced to the cook. He could still feel the butterflies in his stomach and the heat skittering across his skin from their close encounter. It was just a harmful indulgence! He shushed the part of his brain that frowned at these fantasies.
Dare he sneak a quick peek just to see what his companion was doing? Was Erik watching him even now as he made his way through his vegetables?
'Hey Lehnsherr! Who's you're date?' an inmate yelled crudely from across the open space.
Charles naturally flinched and looked up quickly sensing danger.
He thought his heart would stop right there because Erik WAS looking at him as he ate. Their eyes collided and he couldn't bear to look away from the grey green depths. Would YOU look away if the cutest guy in the room was watching you?
As it was his student didn't seem at all fazed by the suggestive question and without breaking eye contact, Erik gracefully flipped the other man the finger, 'Jealously doesn't suit you, Cooper.'
These actions caused everyone within sight to burst into raucous laughter including Cooper.
'Don't be afraid,' Erik reassured him in a soft voice. 'They mean nothing by it. You are not in any danger.'
A shy smile full of wonder suffused the professor's entire face, 'Thank you for taking care of me.'
His student waved aside the statement, 'It's the least I could do for all you are doing for me. I am so grateful you are here because I needed you so badly.'
Unsurprisingly Charles blushed to the roots of his long brown hair.
With a curious look, Erik leaned forward and placed his elbows in the table, 'I don't mean to sound critical but you blush quite readily for a man.'
Well that was interesting. Erik was sure he had never seen a blush on top of a blush.
He pushed out his chair and pretended to tie his shoelaces so that Charles could have a moment to pull himself together and also so that he could hide his wicked smirk. He didn't want his teacher to throw up mental walls, which might happen if he laughed in the man's face because it was obvious to him now that his professor was a sensitive soul. It was endearing in an adorkable sort of way that Charles had such an open and trusting personality. Part of him wondered though if he was not secretly jealous. As a child Erik could remember being like that, more passionate and expressive but his experiences during the war had hardened his heart to the consistency of steel.
However, Erik was glad he had taken the time to school his features into an emotionless mask because as he rose up from under the table, the sight of Charles exchanging pleasantries with a clearly confused and curious Officer Pratt, would have most likely choked him to death