Prompt Post: ROUND THREE

[oakenshields13]

ROUND THREE IS CLOSED

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FILL: Utopia 6/?

[takmarierah]

So, little secret: I've never actually written about kissing before. *cough* Who knew, right? Anyway I'm always nervous when I update, but this time I am really really nervous because a. did I mention this wasn't going to be a happy story? and b. omg, kissing, and other things about sex. D:

xi.
The memory came to him in sudden, astonishing detail, as if it had been waiting for that moment to pounce.

Wearing their new suits for the first time, ready to fly to Cuba, unaware, for the moment, of what had happened to Hank-Erik and Charles had lingered after the students in the lab, the other man fidgeting in his leather, Charles grinning.

“I look ridiculous,” Erik had grumbled, brushing his hands over his thighs in a covert attempt to retrieve the suit from where it seemed intent on migrating.

But Charles-standing not tall exactly, but standing, on legs he hadn’t yet learned not to take for granted-had thought they looked brilliant, all of them, in their sharp contrasting colors. He’d clapped Erik on the arm to distract the man from tugging at his suit buckles.

“You look good, Erik,” Charles assured him, “We’re lucky we didn’t lose Hank to Paris.”

Erik had stopped what he was doing, self-conscious of his self-consciousness, and smiled back, crookedly. “You’re not just saying that?” he asked, dark humor masking his sincere interest. He could, of course, probably still kill people while butt-naked and painted blue, but he had some measure of pride as well.

Charles had swayed into Erik to bump against his shoulder, chuckling; Erik’s hand caught onto his arm in reply. “You look more than all right, my friend,” he insisted, and Erik’s eyes were so startled and bright, the green in them caught by the laboratory lights, his mind such a fine point of contentment and anxiety-

-That Charles really shouldn’t have been surprised when Erik glanced around to check that the students were gone; when his hand moved from Charles’ shoulder up to the telepath’s cheek; when he closed that last bit of space between them and pressed his lips to Charles’ in a closed-mouthed but emphatic kiss, unhurried but not lingering, the tips of his fingers digging in behind Charles’ jaw.

Then Erik had pulled away, a pleased smirk warring with stark terror for control of his face, and Charles had searched his eyes and mind desperately for some clue that maybe this was just something that people from the continent did, just another one of those peculiar mainland European oddities where it was normal for one male friend to kiss another and-no.

Erik was in love with him.

Erik was in love with him, and Erik-who had not yet committed genocide, who still believed in that place between rage and serenity-deserved more than “it’s not you, it’s me.” Deserved to be unremittingly happy, and loved.

And so, with a shaky smile, still feeling the damp of Erik’s mouth evaporating cold on his skin, Charles had given Erik’s arm one last palsied squeeze and began, warmly, “Erik, my dear friend…”

Then Moira had ducked into the lab and asked, incredulously, what they were waiting around for, and weren’t they all supposed to be in a hurry, so Charles had promised Erik, “After; we’ll talk after.”

But there had never been an “after,” and in hindsight, if Charles could have changed-

Well, he would have changed a lot of things.