Chapter 13- Friends and or lovers part2

He gave up trying to fall back asleep about an hour after Charles finally left.

Placing his laced fingers over his stomach, he stared listlessly at the ceiling. After spending two years in prison it would take some time before he could fall asleep in a perfectly silent room again. He should get the younger man to set up a radio for him or perhaps a television set for the times when he was absent from the room. However, it had been the first time since he had arrived that Charles had left his side for so long. The room felt cold and unfriendly even though the sun was now fully up.

He hoped the professor's meeting was going well.

His eyes fell on the comfortable wing backed chair that the young man usually occupied when he was in the room and he snorted loudly at the unusual paraphernalia that made up the man's life. This included for instance piles of unmarked, short answer student essays stacked in a neat semicircle on the floor, a wooly plaid blanket draped on the chair back, a half finished cup of tea from his hurried breakfast this morning, and of course; a portable chest set, an ipod, one mug of marker pens, two open packs of jelly beans, the complete works of Tolkien with a few star trek novels mixed in for variety and approximately five different scientific papers.

With a despairing shake of his head, Erik wondered if Charles' bedroom also resembled this cosy rat's nest of junk.

He stretched out a hand to grasp the blanket. It was warm and fuzzy and a little thread bare in some places and he could faintly smell Charles' cologne on the material. The smell made him miss the man even worse than before. As he spread the blanket over his arms and chest he wondered curiously if it was an heirloom. Next he reached for the box containing the chess pieces and retrieved his king. Charles had politely offered him the choice and he had selected to play the black.

It might be a touch overdramatic to say but he believed that chess had saved their friendship.

At first, Erik had been eager to comply with Charles' request, pleased that he could positively respond to something that the other man wanted. A quarter hour of tutorial and Erik was playing his first game of chess. After awhile he soon found that he couldn't wait for Xavier to put down his student's work so that they could play again.

He hadn't won any games as yet and normally that wouldn't sit well with him but chess was a game of logic, strategy and intuition and he found no shame in losing to someone of Charles' obvious skill. His eagerness to master the game had caused them to play hour after hour until he couldn't keep his eyes open. Naturally, that also meant they spent hour after hour in each others company that they normally might not have done given the strained circumstances. As a result, time had eroded the hastily built protective walls Charles had erected and had softened the tension that thrummed through Erik's chaotic jumble of thoughts and feelings.

It had been the first time Charles had smiled in his direction in many days.

In the meantime, Erik had placed a few of the chess pieces on his stomach and was moving them around in some of the new patterns he had learnt when a curious scratching noise came from the closed door.

He didn't react the first time because he was sure that he had imagined the sound. But there was no mistake when the sound came again.

'Hello there! Is there someone at the door?' he called out.

A shaggy crop of hair that he hadn't seen since he had first arrived cautiously came around the door.

'I'm awake. Did Charles get there on time?' Erik asked, closing the chest set and putting it away on the professor's chair.

The tall, athletic man strode into the room, 'Yup, with time to spare. He wanted to me come in here and tell you thanks for organizing that travel mug of tea for him. You're his new super-hero.'

'Logan, right? What kind of chauffeur are you? Xavier didn't want to go with you at all. He says you drive like a maniac,' Erik informed in a harsh, unforgiving tone of voice.

As was his habit it would seem, the other man grabbed a spare chair and turned it so he could straddle the back.

'The professor thinks anyone who drives five miles over the speed limit drives like a maniac,' he retorted dryly. 'And I am not really the chauffeur. I only take him out in the town car when he has to represent the family at charity events, balls and all that other rich people stuff. Otherwise he normally drives himself'

It would appear that the Englishman had a whole other life that Erik didn't know anything about; one in which he wasn't a socially inept scholar. Not that Erik could really make a protest, as he wasn't ready to share all the parts of his life either but he had to wonder why the professor didn't talk about this aspect of his life more. It was almost like if Charles wished it didn't exist. So deep he was in his thoughts that it took him a moment to realize that Logan had been curiously studying him. 'Sorry, did you speak?'

'No,' he rumbled. 'But this came for you in the post.'

The other man reached into his jacket pocket and held out a postcard.

'BEHAVE!' was the only sentiment that Matt, his former prison mate, apparently wanted to convey. Erik exhaled noisily and shook his head as he read the one word printed in bold capitals on the back of the card.

'What's that all about?' his visitor inquired companionably, as he searched his other pocket to pull out his packet of cigars.

'A friend is reminding me of a promise I made to him,' Erik replied quietly fingering the prison stamp abstractedly, 'I seem to making a lot of promises these days.'

'It happens,' the other man mumbled around his unlit cigar.

'What?'

'It happens,' he repeated rising to his feet, 'especially when you stay in one place for a time. Are you going to be staying in one place for a while Lehnsherr?'

Erik's built in survival mechanisms kicked in as Logan stood over him in a seemingly casual but very effective threatening posture. It was clear that the man had his doubts and was taking a cautious approach which he himself would have done if the positions were reversed. He was fairly certain that only Charles' presence had kept the other man from pitching him out of the mansion!

His disbelief didn't really faze Erik though. Truth be told, he found it reassuring that the professor had someone of Logan's competency watching out for him.

The handy man nodded his head as Erik maintained a stony silence. He was happy that he didn't have to draw out a picture for the man to explain the situation. Lehnsherr knew he didn't trust him and Erik had clearly responded without words that he didn't give a fuck what he thought.

They would get along just fine.

'It was good that we had this talk,' Logan added out loud, 'Do you need anything before I go?'

'One of those cigars would be nice,' the patient requested.

Logan raised a skeptical eyebrow but after a moment he reached into his inside pocket for the pouch he carried them around in.

'We can't smoke inside the mansion,' he warned, offering him the bag so he could make a selection. 'Especially in here. The professor would have our heads in a noose.'

Erik sighed as he caressed the much-longed-for cigar in his fingers. 'What's so special about this room?

'This is his study.'

The other man raised himself on his elbows, looking around him with fresh eyes. He didn't know what to say. Nothing Charles did could surprise him anymore.

'This entire floor is his apartment actually,' the man added with a sweeping gesture.

Erik lay back down on his bed with a frustrated sigh. He wasn't sleepy and now without any Charles to talk to and play chess with, he was restless and miserable.

'Here. You better take back your cigar. The temptation would be too great,' the patient admittedly truthfully.

'How do you feel about wheelchairs?'

Erik stared at him blankly wondering if this was some new way of changing topics.

'Xavier pulled out some relic from the west wing of the mansion and had me see if I could get it up and running again. I can put you out on the balcony for an hour or so if you think you can manage it,' the handy man explained.

The other man narrowed his eyes at such an unexpected friendly gesture. Just as he was weighing if to come straight out and ask the sometime-chauffeur what was on his mind or adopt a wait and see attitude, Logan sat back down on his chair with a graceless thud apparently having reached some decision that he had been wrestling with.

'Look. The professor was in no condition to drive this morning and I appreciate how you insisted that I take him. Sometimes it's really difficult for me to keep an eye on him in a place this size. With him living up here on the second floor and me always somewhere on the grounds….sometimes I don't see him for days.'

'He doesn't take good care of himself,' Erik stated more as a fact than an actual question.

'No, he doesn't,' the other man confirmed in aggravated tones. 'He skips meals and over extends himself with his work.'

'He told me that you want him to exercise more.'

Logan straightened in surprise, clearly shocked that Charles had even been listening to his concerns about his lack of physical training. He clenched his fists as if he badly wanted to pound on something.

'Doctor says he can't run but he CAN swim and he should be doing so everyday!' he blurted out in a worried rush before he could stop himself. Abruptly he realized he had been sharing a lot of personal information about his employer and friend to a practical stranger. In fact now that he thought about it, except for Charles, this was one of the longest conversations he had had with anyone in a long time. That's if you didn't count the horses.

Wordlessly Logan handed the man back the cigar.

What was he thinking?

Yes, he wanted help with the professor to whom who he owed so much and Erik DID appear to have an unnaturally strong influence over the professor's decision making process. But only time would tell if this stranger, who now seemed comfortably settled in their midst, would turn out to be a valuable friend or deadly foe.