happy birthday <3
So....back from the dead. Sort of. I keep meaning to start posting here again and then...not. I was going to use the December meme as an excuse, but then I got all tied up in Secret Mutant, etc...
But that's for another time.
SO, this weekend it was pearl_o's birthday! And I'm kind of burnt out from Secret Mutant and working on another thing I want to get done by next week, so I wasn't going to write her a reeeaaaaal thing, but I wanted to do something because she always gets the shaft since her birthday is during Secret Mutant every year. I decided to write a couple scenes from this AU we've been texting back and forth--basically, Charles' first teaching job after he gets his PhD is in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and it's really difficult for them to adjust after living in New York and Boston and it's super hard for Erik to adjust, having lived his whole life save for college in New York and being utterly unprepared for small town life, especially when there aren't a ton of mutants and there are almost no other Jewish people.
I didn't write an actual fic, I just wrote a bunch of loosely connected scenes--a day in the life of this Erik--and I didn't want to post it on AO3 because I don't think it makes a lot of sense without 230948902384902 texts worth of backstory? But I want to put it somewhere other than GDocs and I hate posting fic on tumblr--it's useless and awful and terrible to read over there--so....here we are.
Here's like, ~5700 words of Erik struggling with small town life.
***
Erik's work space is downright spartan, which is usually the first thing people notice when they come into the room. He likes it that way-it scares the undergrads, for some reason, and keeps a certain air of mystery. Most of the administrators have desks full of knick-knacks and photos and comic strips with gags related to their field. Erik thinks that makes them seem human and approachable, which is the last thing Erik wants. He wants the students to fear him-he wants them to know that if they fuck something up or don't follow his directions, he won't get sentimental and soft and let them wheedle deadline extensions and assistance out of him.
Plus, the less he puts on his desk, the less there is to pack up when they finally leave this godforsaken place. There's no need to make himself at home here-this isn't going to be their home. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, as dim and unpromising as it may be.
So his walls remain bare, his desk remains empty, save for his inbox and outbox, and his bookshelves are clear of everything but the textbooks, binders, and manuals that came with the office and the job. The only two things in the office that are truly his rest on the file cabinet between his desk and the wall-an old, chipped mug with the logo of the coffee shop his mother runs back in New York, and a photo of him and Charles on their wedding day. The mug has been with him since he was fourteen and his mother started working at the shop, putting in long hours baking sweets and experimenting with coffee recipes, working her way up the ladder to where she is now. It makes that light at the end of the tunnel a little brighter than it normally is.
The photo, on the other hand, reminds him of where he is now-stuck in the middle of nowhere, miserable and frustrated, sure, but with Charles, for Charles. Charles has made innumerable sacrifices for him, and if he really wants to be with Charles for the rest of his life-and he does-then it's his turn to make this sacrifice on Charles' behalf.
***
"I don't know," Charles said in April. "If I get the job, I don't know that we'll have time for a wedding before we go, do you?"
He'd looked beseechingly at Erik as Erik's mother and Raven sat hopefully around the table with them. Erik didn't know what to say. It was true-if Charles was hired by this university in Iowa, they'd be moving out there near the start of July, just weeks after Charles officially received his PhD. To add wedding planning to that seemed to spell disaster, even though the hard part-the dissertation and defense-was finished.
Getting married made sense, though. They didn't know where they'd be living for the next few years and legally it would make sense to do while they were living in a place where they could to ensure they had all the rights they needed to have should anything catastrophic happen. More than that, though, just thinking about Iowa was already making Erik vaguely sick. Best to have a reminder why he was willing to do this-to leave the city he loved, his home, to live in a place with more cows than people.
"You could double it as a going away party," Raven suggested. "Neither of you has ever wanted a big fancy wedding anyway, right? Just-rent a place, get dressed up nice, cater some food, invite all your friends. I'll help-let me know where and when you want it, what you want to eat, and who you want to invite, and I'll take care of everything else."
"You won't even have to handle the food," Erik's mother told them firmly. "I will make you a cake myself and there are enough chefs in this city who owe me favors to handle the rest."
They'd been engaged for months-it was almost a year since a long walk through the National Mutant History Museum and dinner at their favorite tiny restaurant in the Village had turned into Charles' proposal. There was a difference, though, between the giddy feeling of knowing they would be married one day in the future and the new, sharp awareness that marriage was imminently approaching. By the end of the summer, he would be Charles' husband. Practically by the end of the semester.
At least, as long as-
He looked over at Charles, whose eyes were wide with gratitude. He licked his lips and looked back at Erik. Hesitantly, he said, "Are you okay with this?"
He let his smile speak for itself and pushed his nerves about the future dissolve into his excitement, at least for the afternoon.
***
A monkey could do Erik's job at the university, which is mostly filing, making sure professors are on top of their scheduling for the next semester, keeping track of requirements and syllabi, scheduling for the three professors in his department, and answering student questions. Keeping professors on time and in line is like herding cats and the students are all whiny and entitled, but none of it is actually hard. He almost wishes it was. The monotony of the day is almost worse.
If nothing else, he supposes, he has plenty of time to knit and blog.
The blogging started in August, before Charles managed to get him a job at the university. Erik spent those days alone in their house which was always too quiet, no matter how loud he cranked up the television. He called his mother more than he should have, probably, because it wasn't long before she started to spend every call worrying about him-what he was doing, if he was getting out, if he was making friends. He started the blog to update her periodically, but also as an outlet for his frustrations. Their little town was overwhelmingly white, quiet, and Christian. He was, he suspected, one of the only Jews for miles and probably the only one not employed by the university (yet). While he didn't consider himself particularly religious, in New York City and even in Boston, where he did his undergrad, he didn't have to be. The Jewish community was fairly large and fairly diverse, and though it was still a minority, if he said "I'm Jewish," in response to a comment, it was usually met with a casual nod or acknowledgement.
Iowa is different. At least, this tiny slice of it is.
So he started a blog to rant and to post pictures of the recipes his mother sent him to try. On a whim, he picked up knitting, and very quickly got the hang of it-now it's something he can do hands free in the background while he watches television or stares at the computer at work. Finished knitting projects go on the blog as well, interspersed with diatribes about mutant politics and longing for the streets of New York.
(Charles has the URL, but he doesn't read it regularly. He claims he gets to taste the food and use the knitwear and hear Erik's rants in person, so he doesn't need it. Erik thinks, however, that he sometimes needs to remove himself from Erik's ennui. Erik doesn't mean for it to be a reminder that he's stuck somewhere he hates because of Charles' career trajectory, but he can see how it might hit Charles in that place anyway.)
The blog has picked up some traction-at first, he's pretty sure his only readers were his mother and the women in the synagogue's ladies' auxiliary, but he's a regular commenter on a few mutant rights and cooking blogs, and people have wandered over to his from those places. He has a modest amount of regular readers, now, all of whom are fairly respectful, if only because he has no problem banning anyone who tries to raise hell or who complains about the frequency of crafting and cooking posts versus mutant and Jewish issues.
(The most people he ever banned in one swoop actually dealt with neither of those things-he'd made an ill-conceived post complaining about The Iowa Situation, as he calls it, which put Charles at fault for the whole mess. While he understands that his readers were just trying to be sympathetic, the only people who get to call Charles an asshole are Erik and Raven and anyone else who tries is certainly not welcome on Erik's blog.)
He still calls his mom at least once a week under the guise of giving her an update on how they're doing and getting more recipes, but he feels at least slightly less desperate when he does it, and planning his blog posts, bookmarking new craft projects to try, and answering comments fills the long hours of his work day.
Well, that and being a building away from Charles.
He checks the time and then locks his computer and waves a hand to summon his keys, wallet, and phone. He grabs the lunch bag next to his desk and heads out, locking the door behind him. It's already starting to get chilly, but it's just a quick sprint from the Humanities building to the Natural Sciences building next door-hardly enough time to get truly cold. He jogs down the hall and turns a corner just in time to see Charles wheeling into his cramped office in the back corner.
***
They married in early June, not long after campus cleared out and Charles packed up the last of his belongings from the office he'd used as a graduate student. By then, the nominally good news had come-the university in Iowa had extended Charles an offer, a one year contract that would be re-evaluated based on need next year. He'd be teaching a few sections of 100-level bio and genetics courses to undergrads, one 300-level on mutant evolution, and working on a research project on mutant manifestation. He was nominally happy-nowhere near all of his graduating classmates had found teaching jobs. Erik understood that and he tried very hard to be happy, too. He was proud of Charles. He knew how hard Charles had worked, how badly he wanted to make a name for himself. He knew that this was an excellent development for Charles' career, that the better Charles looked on paper, the more established schools would want him to teach, the more likely it would be that they could come back closer to home, or at least closer to civilization.
It was hard to get excited about Iowa, though.
"I think you're being unduly harsh on the Midwest," Raven said the night before the wedding, once Edie had swept Charles away to help her with something in the kitchen.
"I have no issue with the Midwest," Erik said. "I have issue with this particular patch of nowhere that I'll be forced to inhabit for a year."
And it really was nowhere. Erik accompanied Charles on one of his interviews and drove around while he was on campus, trying to find anything worth doing. The options seemed bleak, an observation he didn't share with Charles, cheerfully optimistic about his interview, when Erik picked him up.
The wedding went well, though-they both cried more than they expected and the food and cake and music were perfect. They managed to see most of the friends and family they wanted a chance to see before they left and everyone had a great time. The magic of it, too, lifted Erik's spirits. He never really expected, as a teen, that he'd be able to get married, really married, in his lifetime. That he was not only married, but married to a person he loved in ways he could hardly fathom-well. It was a good feeling. His mouth hurt from smiling, his chest bursting with emotion he couldn't put into words.
He was reminded what it was he had agreed to go out to Iowa in the first place. He was reminded that a life with Charles, even in the middle of nowhere, was better than a life without him, even for a year.
They had no time for a honeymoon, really, or at least not the two weeks in a tropical locale that Erik had been imagining. What they did instead was almost better-a week in an upscale Manhattan hotel, spent seeing all the touristy sights in New York that they hadn't seen in years and all their favorite places they were going to miss. It was perfect-it was both an efficient way to spend some of their last remaining time in New York and stupidly romantic. It felt like a present from Charles, a gift acknowledging how much Erik had sacrificed.
"I can't imagine doing this alone," Charles admitted softly on their last night in the hotel, curled up together on the bed and staring out at the lights of the city through the windows.
"You don't have to imagine it, because you'll never have to," Erik promised. It was a vow to himself as well-they were in it together. He couldn't back out now, no matter how far from home Charles' life took him.
***
By contrast to Erik's own, Charles' office is full of reminders of everything waiting for them back in New York. He has several photographs pinned to the edge of his corkboard, below the important reminders and information regarding his work. He has more framed on his desk, and stupid souvenirs from around the city, largely purchased on their honeymoon. He, too, has a mug from Edie's coffee shop, though his is only a few years old, complete with the new logo. His own books are stacked on the bookshelves, and hanging on the wall are his diplomas and the same photo from their wedding day that Erik has on his own desk.
"I have lunch," Erik says unnecessarily, following Charles inside. The office is only slightly bigger than Erik's own-it can only just barely accommodate Charles' wheelchair.
"Oh, marvelous," Charles says. "I was just thinking about you." He smiles up at Erik when he says it, sweet and happy and Erik has to smile back, even though he tries to avoid doing so on campus, if only to keep up his cred.
Erik unpacks their lunch-leftovers from last night-and uses the stainless steel containers to heat the contents before setting it in front of each of them. Charles thanks him with a little push of psychic gratitude, and they dig in.
Lunches are usually mostly silent-an hour spent together without needing to be anywhere else, doing anything else, just appreciating each other's company. As much as it pains Erik to admit that anything about Iowa is better than anything about New York, he does enjoy the time they spend like this, just sitting together, sharing a meal, without having to rush around. They rarely had quiet moments like this in New York, or maybe they just didn't make the time for them. While there are times that Erik misses the noise and movement and energy of the city, he won't let himself take this for granted, either.
"I think this is possibly even better reheated than it was when you made it last night," Charles says.
"You say that every day," Erik says.
"That's because it's true," Charles insists. "If nothing else, I'm glad this Midwestern exile has pushed you to pick up your mother's cooking habits."
Erik rolls his eyes and pretends he's sick of the compliment, but he doesn't think he ever will be. It turns out that he loves cooking only slightly more than Charles loves watching him in the kitchen and eating whatever he makes. He feels closer to his mother when he's reading her recipes, even if they're sanitized and typed up and not directly out of her ancient cookbook. He can still see her handwriting in his mind, still hear her voice murmuring tips and suggestions as he works.
It's good that he likes cooking, too, because their takeout options are limited and their delivery options are non-existent. Pizza is, of course, out of the question, as nothing produced in this tiny town hundreds of miles from the pizza of his youth will ever measure up to real New York pizza. There's a passable Chinese restaurant and a decent Indian restaurant. They learned quickly to give the Italian restaurant a wide berth, and the cutesy retro diner near campus can be counted on for breakfast food and little else. Of all the things he'd feared about moving, oddly the loss of food as comfort object hadn't been one of them until the end of the first week, when he'd called his mother and had her recite some of her recipes over the phone while he typed them at the dining room table.
(The blog is helping with that, too. He wrote a post a few weeks ago about the different foods he and Charles miss and not a day later, overnighted from New York, was a box of snacks from the women of the ladies' auxiliary, including a securely wrapped and tightly packed New York pizza. Charles has already written a huge donation check for the synagogue in thanks.)
"There's a big dance tonight," Charles says as they finish up lunch. After so many years together, Charles knows better than anyone that Erik is at his least confrontational on a full stomach, even if his least confrontational is still rather sharp.
"No," Erik says automatically.
"It's the Harvest Dance? Or something along those lines. It's a big deal. The whole school will be there and nearly the whole town," Charles continues.
"No," Erik repeats.
"I want to go, just for a little while," Charles says. "It might be fun. You never know."
"I do know," Erik says, and he almost believes it isn't a lie. "It won't be. You don't even dance."
He hadn't, even, when he could walk, not really. Raven had sent them dozens of videos of wheelchair dancing before the wedding, trying to wheedle them into doing some sort of display on the dance floor. They'd both passed on the idea.
Charles pauses for a moment, his expression the careful blankness that Erik recognizes as Charles collecting his thoughts before he speaks to make sure he doesn't say something too offensive.
"I'm trying to see what the fuss is all about with some of these local traditions," he says. "Before I dismiss them out of hand."
Which is code, of course, for You should try these things before you make fun of them.
"Then I'll see you when you get home," Erik says.
Charles isn't pleased, but he's not going to fight it either, which is a relief. Erik busies himself putting away the lunch things.
"I do some things with you," he says without looking up. "I went to the fair. I went to one football game."
The fair, though Erik won't admit it, was a mild success. He'd enjoyed himself, at least, and Charles did too. The football game was a disaster, but Erik didn't expect anything less.
"I know," Charles says. It sounds like he wants to add something else, but Erik remains focused on packing up lunch and Charles keeps quiet, both in Erik's head and out of it.
He stands up and stretches, then leans over to kiss Charles goodbye.
"I'll see you tonight," he says. One for dinner means he can just heat up last night's leftovers again.
"I love you," Charles says. Erik isn't sure if it's meant as a reminder to Erik or himself.
"I love you too," Erik says.
One more kiss and it's back to the Humanities building and to his desk and to his work for the rest of today and tomorrow and the day after that for days and weeks and months to come.
***
On their first day in Iowa, the department administrator for Charles' program met them at their new house. She came prepared with a packet of information about the school, the surrounding area, the sights, and the local activities. They let her talk most of the way through the lunch she brought with her, enthusiastically endorsing the fair and the local library and the combined bowling alley/indoor mini golf course one town over. She finally began to wind down over dessert.
"And during the late summer and fall there's a farmer's market," she said. "It's really, really excellent--there are so many farm-to-table options out here! The Episcopalian and Lutheran churches set up big tents and they're heated in the fall and everything. Which reminds me--you definitely won't be lacking for churches. I don't know what denomination you are, but we've also got a Baptist and Methodist church nearby and a Catholic church a couple towns over and a Unitarian church near the college that does a great non-denominational service. For more information, you can check the packet I gave you."
Charles nodded, smile plastered in place.
"What about synagogues?" Erik asked. The woman's smile faltered for a moment.
"I don't--oh! You know, I think there's a synagogue about thirty-five minutes away," she said. "Check the packet!"
Erik tried not to roll his eyes and took the packet from Charles, flipping through to the part on religious institutions. He scanned the page and frowns.
"That's an Orthodox synagogue," he said. "I'm Reform."
The young woman stared at him blankly.
"Like you have Protestant and Catholic and--whatever the thing you are," he said, motioning to Charles.
"Atheist?" Charles suggested with a raised eyebrow.
"You know what I mean," he said to Charles. To the woman, he said, "There are different kinds."
"Oh," she said. "Um--"
Charles took his hand and squeezed it.
"It's fine," he said. "I'll google it."
"Well, okay then!" she said. "I'm sure you'll find something!"
After she left, Erik pulled out his laptop and did a quick search. The nearest Reform synagogue was almost an hour away.
"Shit," he muttered. He couldn't tell if Charles heard him or merely picked up on his psychic disgruntlement. Either way, he was soon back in the dining room next to Erik, rubbing his back.
"Your mother normally has to drag you to temple," Charles said. "You're not telling me you've found religion in the past few weeks, are you?" His tone was light and cautious--it was one he had taken more and more in the weeks leading up to the move, as if he was afraid he'd say the wrong thing and Erik would run back to New York.
"No, it's not--I didn't start--it's not the religious part of it," Erik admitted. "It's just...rituals and traditions, right? They're...comforting. And I thought it would be nice to have that here and I guess I thought--even if I don't believe in god, I guess I want our kids to be raised Jewish. If it's okay with you, I mean. We haven't really talked about it, but I'd like them to have those traditions and rituals, you know?"
Charles smiled, his cheeks going pink, his hand still rubbing Erik's back absently.
"I know it's inevitable, but I guess I'm only just getting used to being married, so 'our kids' is just..." He trailed off, still grinning. "But you know we're not here forever. I think kids are still a little further down the line for us. It's just a year."
"Unless they really love you and you can't find anything else and then it's two years," Erik says. "Or you do get another offer, but it's in Nebraska or Utah or Mississippi or some other place where there's nothing around for miles and there's a church on every corner." He turned slightly and captured Charles' hand, the one that was rubbing his back. "This is our life now, this unpredictability. Not putting down roots, not being in a community of our own--Jews, but mutants, too. What's the mutant population of this town?"
"Abysmally small," Charles said, "But Erik--I'm so, so happy you're here with me. I'm glad you came. But you can always--it's just a year. You can go back to New York. You can live with your mother--"
"No," Erik started to say.
"--and get your old job back and--"
"No."
"--we can visit at holidays and--"
"No," Erik said more firmly, taking Charles' other hand as well and squeezing them both. Charles closed his mouth. "No," Erik repeated gently. "I saw what that did to my parents. Living long distance like that--it killed my father."
"I think," Charles said with a wry smile, aiming for light, "that cancer killed your father."
Erik rolled his eyes.
"Plus," Charles continued, "Iowa is much closer to New York than Germany was. We could make it work."
"No," Erik said again. He raised one of Charles' hands to his mouth and kissed his knuckles, right over his wedding ring. "We talked about this. You're my husband, now. That means something. It would be different if I had a career tied to a place, but I don't. I promised you that you wouldn't have to do this alone. I promised you I'd be here with you. It's just--it's going to be hard."
"It is," Charles said quietly. "And I'm sorry."
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Erik said. "It was my choice, too. We'll get through this. We've seen worse."
"We have," Charles agreed. "And it's just a year--I promise you, it will just be one year."
Erik fully believed that Charles meant the promise--Charles isn't a liar, at least, not intentional. But he promised everything, all the time, without thinking it through. Charles promised what he wanted to be true and then hoped with all his heart that things worked out that way. Erik loved that about him, but it did make it hard to take the promise at face value.
It was as close a timeline as he was going to get, however, so he steeled himself and set his mental clock.
One year.
***
He has to admit, when he gets home that night, that there might be something to be said about the space out here. They're living in housing provided by and subsidized by the university and it's larger than anywhere Erik has ever lived in his life. They have a whole house with a yard-with more than a yard, really, because the next house feels like it's a mile away and he's only exaggerating a little. It's only one floor, in deference to Charles' wheelchair, and they had apologized for the size over and over again in the correspondence leading up to the move, but Erik's not sure why they were apologizing.
Their bedroom here is as big as their living room was in their apartment in Queens. There are two more bedrooms, which were meant to be offices but have mostly become storage. The kitchen gets amazing light and has plenty of room for Charles to move around. The counters and appliances aren't wheelchair height, but it was easy enough to move the microwave, coffeemaker, and electric kettle to a low table and god knows Charles shouldn't be allowed to touch the stove.
Their living room looks out onto a field of corn, or it did when they first moved on. It's been harvested, now, and the view is more melancholy now, but not uninteresting.
It's not New York, but it could be worse, he supposes.
The space seemed like a boon at first-they hadn't brought nearly enough stuff to fill it and weren't sure what to do with so many rooms to move through-but on nights like tonight, it seems like too much. Too much space, too quiet, too lonely. The sun is setting, Erik is alone in the house eating leftovers, and he might as well be alone on the planet.
Overdramatic and ridiculous, of course-his mother is a phone call away. He could turn on the television, open his laptop, or even just sent a psychic nudge to Charles and be reminded that he's not alone. He wants to indulge in it for just a moment, though, to let it settle down on top of him, to give into the frustration and misery for a fleeting few minutes.
It doesn't make him feel any better, but it doesn't make him feel any worse, either.
He forces himself, eventually, to fetch his laptop from the dining room table. He has a post scheduled for tomorrow, a few progress shots of the mittens he's knitting for Charles, his first attempt. That doesn't mean he can't add some additional content, though he may wait until tomorrow to give his feelings some time to settle and then re-read before posting.
Before we came to Iowa, my husband, our collective fifty-two boxes of books, and I shared a one bedroom apartment in Astoria, he types. Our biggest issue seemed to be space. When Charles was working or studying, he had to do so in the bedroom or I would inevitably distract him. If I wanted to take a nap or do laundry or clean, I had to work around wherever he had parked himself. We crashed into each other at least once or twice a week, which was a feat for a telepath in a wheelchair and a normally graceful former-swimmer who can manipulate magnetic fields like the kind surrounding a metal wheelchair.
We wanted more space. We didn't have the time to house hunt or move, especially when keeping mind the specifications we needed to accommodate Charles' chair, so we stayed put and grumbled about our lack of space, like every other person living in New York. I never imagined that we could have too much space, and yet here I am, half a country away, wishing I had a little less of it.
He writes about feeling suffocated by the expanses of sky and field and he writes about having nowhere to go even though everything around him is open space ready to be explored. He doesn't write about being abandoned for the evening by Charles, because he's learned his lesson there, but he does start to feel better about it anyway.
Charles will come home eventually. Even if he was home right now, they'd hardly be doing anything different. Watching television, maybe, or a movie. Reading in silence. Also, it's entirely possible he was an asshole about the Harvest Dance, though he's not sure he's ready to admit it.
It's just that for Charles-well, it’s not easy, not precisely. Charles misses New York, too, and his sister and Erik's mother and their friends. But Charles isn't like Erik-he doesn't rely on places. He doesn't have history, not the way Erik has history with New York. New York is Erik's home, but Charles isn't tied to a place. He holds no fondness for the huge house in the tiny town where he grew up. He loved living in Cambridge when they were in undergrad, but he had no problem leaving it for New York when he started at Columbia. He loves New York, but mostly for what it contains rather than what it is. He's not thrilled by Iowa, Erik knows-he's struggling to fill his time just as Erik is. He's more willing to try, though-he's almost eager to jump in, to see what there is to see, to find something worth loving in this speck of a town. He misses New York, but he doesn't feel it the way Erik does, an ache in his chest. The closest thing Charles has to a home is Erik, who's here with him, making things slightly easier to bear.
Erik needs to get himself in that mindset, he knows he does. There's every possibility that one year will stretch into more, or that, come July, they'll be moving not back to New York, but to somewhere else in the country. This is Erik's life, now, and he knew that when he signed up, but that doesn't make it any easier now that he's living it.
It's worth it, of course. They've been together for years and there are still moments when Erik looks at Charles and feels like his heart has stopped. He wouldn't do this for anyone else, but for Charles? It's the least of what he would do.
Charles gets in around eight, nose and cheeks pink from the cold, wrapped up in a scarf and hat Erik knitted for him.
"How was your dance?" Eriks asks.
"It was quite lovely!" he says, and his happiness is infectious, or maybe it's just that Erik's tired of sulking, tired of thinking about his loneliness when he could he reaching out and connecting to the one person that matters, the one thing he didn't leave behind.
He reaches out now, literally as well as figuratively, and unwinds Charles' scarf from around his neck, pausing to press his fingers to Charles' frigid cheeks.
"There were games and the music was good. An open bar and everyone was laughing and having a good time--it was a lovely room to be in, all of those good feelings bounding about," he says.
"I'll bet," Erik says. Charles always gets like this when he's happy, or rather, when he's been around a group of people who are so happy they can't keep it inside. Erik likes him like this more than he'll admit. "You look amazing."
He does--the pink cheeks and nose, the ecstatic smile on his face, his eyes bright and dancing in the light from the television.
"I missed you," Charles admits. His smile turns more private, almost shy, and Erik likes this look on him too. "I wish I made you go. I think you would have had a lovely time."
"I probably would have," Erik admits, which is more than he thought he'd do tonight. "Come here."
It's not Charles who goes, though--Charles raises an eyebrow, and it's Erik who moves, leaning over to kiss Charles, to wrap his arms around him. That's the story of their life, isn't it--because as much as being here is weighing on Erik, he would follow Charles anywhere. He would do anything.
Charles' arms loop around Erik's neck. His hands are like ice where they touch the nape of Erik's neck.
"You're freezing," Erik murmurs, pulling away with a jolt.
"Then you should warm me up," Charles says, tugging him close again. "Come with me to bed?"
Erik followed Charles halfway across the country to a town where he sticks out like a sore thumb, to a place where there's no one else like him. Follow Charles to bed?
Erik goes. Of course he goes. There's no question.
But that's for another time.
SO, this weekend it was pearl_o's birthday! And I'm kind of burnt out from Secret Mutant and working on another thing I want to get done by next week, so I wasn't going to write her a reeeaaaaal thing, but I wanted to do something because she always gets the shaft since her birthday is during Secret Mutant every year. I decided to write a couple scenes from this AU we've been texting back and forth--basically, Charles' first teaching job after he gets his PhD is in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and it's really difficult for them to adjust after living in New York and Boston and it's super hard for Erik to adjust, having lived his whole life save for college in New York and being utterly unprepared for small town life, especially when there aren't a ton of mutants and there are almost no other Jewish people.
I didn't write an actual fic, I just wrote a bunch of loosely connected scenes--a day in the life of this Erik--and I didn't want to post it on AO3 because I don't think it makes a lot of sense without 230948902384902 texts worth of backstory? But I want to put it somewhere other than GDocs and I hate posting fic on tumblr--it's useless and awful and terrible to read over there--so....here we are.
Here's like, ~5700 words of Erik struggling with small town life.
***
Erik's work space is downright spartan, which is usually the first thing people notice when they come into the room. He likes it that way-it scares the undergrads, for some reason, and keeps a certain air of mystery. Most of the administrators have desks full of knick-knacks and photos and comic strips with gags related to their field. Erik thinks that makes them seem human and approachable, which is the last thing Erik wants. He wants the students to fear him-he wants them to know that if they fuck something up or don't follow his directions, he won't get sentimental and soft and let them wheedle deadline extensions and assistance out of him.
Plus, the less he puts on his desk, the less there is to pack up when they finally leave this godforsaken place. There's no need to make himself at home here-this isn't going to be their home. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, as dim and unpromising as it may be.
So his walls remain bare, his desk remains empty, save for his inbox and outbox, and his bookshelves are clear of everything but the textbooks, binders, and manuals that came with the office and the job. The only two things in the office that are truly his rest on the file cabinet between his desk and the wall-an old, chipped mug with the logo of the coffee shop his mother runs back in New York, and a photo of him and Charles on their wedding day. The mug has been with him since he was fourteen and his mother started working at the shop, putting in long hours baking sweets and experimenting with coffee recipes, working her way up the ladder to where she is now. It makes that light at the end of the tunnel a little brighter than it normally is.
The photo, on the other hand, reminds him of where he is now-stuck in the middle of nowhere, miserable and frustrated, sure, but with Charles, for Charles. Charles has made innumerable sacrifices for him, and if he really wants to be with Charles for the rest of his life-and he does-then it's his turn to make this sacrifice on Charles' behalf.
***
"I don't know," Charles said in April. "If I get the job, I don't know that we'll have time for a wedding before we go, do you?"
He'd looked beseechingly at Erik as Erik's mother and Raven sat hopefully around the table with them. Erik didn't know what to say. It was true-if Charles was hired by this university in Iowa, they'd be moving out there near the start of July, just weeks after Charles officially received his PhD. To add wedding planning to that seemed to spell disaster, even though the hard part-the dissertation and defense-was finished.
Getting married made sense, though. They didn't know where they'd be living for the next few years and legally it would make sense to do while they were living in a place where they could to ensure they had all the rights they needed to have should anything catastrophic happen. More than that, though, just thinking about Iowa was already making Erik vaguely sick. Best to have a reminder why he was willing to do this-to leave the city he loved, his home, to live in a place with more cows than people.
"You could double it as a going away party," Raven suggested. "Neither of you has ever wanted a big fancy wedding anyway, right? Just-rent a place, get dressed up nice, cater some food, invite all your friends. I'll help-let me know where and when you want it, what you want to eat, and who you want to invite, and I'll take care of everything else."
"You won't even have to handle the food," Erik's mother told them firmly. "I will make you a cake myself and there are enough chefs in this city who owe me favors to handle the rest."
They'd been engaged for months-it was almost a year since a long walk through the National Mutant History Museum and dinner at their favorite tiny restaurant in the Village had turned into Charles' proposal. There was a difference, though, between the giddy feeling of knowing they would be married one day in the future and the new, sharp awareness that marriage was imminently approaching. By the end of the summer, he would be Charles' husband. Practically by the end of the semester.
At least, as long as-
He looked over at Charles, whose eyes were wide with gratitude. He licked his lips and looked back at Erik. Hesitantly, he said, "Are you okay with this?"
He let his smile speak for itself and pushed his nerves about the future dissolve into his excitement, at least for the afternoon.
***
A monkey could do Erik's job at the university, which is mostly filing, making sure professors are on top of their scheduling for the next semester, keeping track of requirements and syllabi, scheduling for the three professors in his department, and answering student questions. Keeping professors on time and in line is like herding cats and the students are all whiny and entitled, but none of it is actually hard. He almost wishes it was. The monotony of the day is almost worse.
If nothing else, he supposes, he has plenty of time to knit and blog.
The blogging started in August, before Charles managed to get him a job at the university. Erik spent those days alone in their house which was always too quiet, no matter how loud he cranked up the television. He called his mother more than he should have, probably, because it wasn't long before she started to spend every call worrying about him-what he was doing, if he was getting out, if he was making friends. He started the blog to update her periodically, but also as an outlet for his frustrations. Their little town was overwhelmingly white, quiet, and Christian. He was, he suspected, one of the only Jews for miles and probably the only one not employed by the university (yet). While he didn't consider himself particularly religious, in New York City and even in Boston, where he did his undergrad, he didn't have to be. The Jewish community was fairly large and fairly diverse, and though it was still a minority, if he said "I'm Jewish," in response to a comment, it was usually met with a casual nod or acknowledgement.
Iowa is different. At least, this tiny slice of it is.
So he started a blog to rant and to post pictures of the recipes his mother sent him to try. On a whim, he picked up knitting, and very quickly got the hang of it-now it's something he can do hands free in the background while he watches television or stares at the computer at work. Finished knitting projects go on the blog as well, interspersed with diatribes about mutant politics and longing for the streets of New York.
(Charles has the URL, but he doesn't read it regularly. He claims he gets to taste the food and use the knitwear and hear Erik's rants in person, so he doesn't need it. Erik thinks, however, that he sometimes needs to remove himself from Erik's ennui. Erik doesn't mean for it to be a reminder that he's stuck somewhere he hates because of Charles' career trajectory, but he can see how it might hit Charles in that place anyway.)
The blog has picked up some traction-at first, he's pretty sure his only readers were his mother and the women in the synagogue's ladies' auxiliary, but he's a regular commenter on a few mutant rights and cooking blogs, and people have wandered over to his from those places. He has a modest amount of regular readers, now, all of whom are fairly respectful, if only because he has no problem banning anyone who tries to raise hell or who complains about the frequency of crafting and cooking posts versus mutant and Jewish issues.
(The most people he ever banned in one swoop actually dealt with neither of those things-he'd made an ill-conceived post complaining about The Iowa Situation, as he calls it, which put Charles at fault for the whole mess. While he understands that his readers were just trying to be sympathetic, the only people who get to call Charles an asshole are Erik and Raven and anyone else who tries is certainly not welcome on Erik's blog.)
He still calls his mom at least once a week under the guise of giving her an update on how they're doing and getting more recipes, but he feels at least slightly less desperate when he does it, and planning his blog posts, bookmarking new craft projects to try, and answering comments fills the long hours of his work day.
Well, that and being a building away from Charles.
He checks the time and then locks his computer and waves a hand to summon his keys, wallet, and phone. He grabs the lunch bag next to his desk and heads out, locking the door behind him. It's already starting to get chilly, but it's just a quick sprint from the Humanities building to the Natural Sciences building next door-hardly enough time to get truly cold. He jogs down the hall and turns a corner just in time to see Charles wheeling into his cramped office in the back corner.
***
They married in early June, not long after campus cleared out and Charles packed up the last of his belongings from the office he'd used as a graduate student. By then, the nominally good news had come-the university in Iowa had extended Charles an offer, a one year contract that would be re-evaluated based on need next year. He'd be teaching a few sections of 100-level bio and genetics courses to undergrads, one 300-level on mutant evolution, and working on a research project on mutant manifestation. He was nominally happy-nowhere near all of his graduating classmates had found teaching jobs. Erik understood that and he tried very hard to be happy, too. He was proud of Charles. He knew how hard Charles had worked, how badly he wanted to make a name for himself. He knew that this was an excellent development for Charles' career, that the better Charles looked on paper, the more established schools would want him to teach, the more likely it would be that they could come back closer to home, or at least closer to civilization.
It was hard to get excited about Iowa, though.
"I think you're being unduly harsh on the Midwest," Raven said the night before the wedding, once Edie had swept Charles away to help her with something in the kitchen.
"I have no issue with the Midwest," Erik said. "I have issue with this particular patch of nowhere that I'll be forced to inhabit for a year."
And it really was nowhere. Erik accompanied Charles on one of his interviews and drove around while he was on campus, trying to find anything worth doing. The options seemed bleak, an observation he didn't share with Charles, cheerfully optimistic about his interview, when Erik picked him up.
The wedding went well, though-they both cried more than they expected and the food and cake and music were perfect. They managed to see most of the friends and family they wanted a chance to see before they left and everyone had a great time. The magic of it, too, lifted Erik's spirits. He never really expected, as a teen, that he'd be able to get married, really married, in his lifetime. That he was not only married, but married to a person he loved in ways he could hardly fathom-well. It was a good feeling. His mouth hurt from smiling, his chest bursting with emotion he couldn't put into words.
He was reminded what it was he had agreed to go out to Iowa in the first place. He was reminded that a life with Charles, even in the middle of nowhere, was better than a life without him, even for a year.
They had no time for a honeymoon, really, or at least not the two weeks in a tropical locale that Erik had been imagining. What they did instead was almost better-a week in an upscale Manhattan hotel, spent seeing all the touristy sights in New York that they hadn't seen in years and all their favorite places they were going to miss. It was perfect-it was both an efficient way to spend some of their last remaining time in New York and stupidly romantic. It felt like a present from Charles, a gift acknowledging how much Erik had sacrificed.
"I can't imagine doing this alone," Charles admitted softly on their last night in the hotel, curled up together on the bed and staring out at the lights of the city through the windows.
"You don't have to imagine it, because you'll never have to," Erik promised. It was a vow to himself as well-they were in it together. He couldn't back out now, no matter how far from home Charles' life took him.
***
By contrast to Erik's own, Charles' office is full of reminders of everything waiting for them back in New York. He has several photographs pinned to the edge of his corkboard, below the important reminders and information regarding his work. He has more framed on his desk, and stupid souvenirs from around the city, largely purchased on their honeymoon. He, too, has a mug from Edie's coffee shop, though his is only a few years old, complete with the new logo. His own books are stacked on the bookshelves, and hanging on the wall are his diplomas and the same photo from their wedding day that Erik has on his own desk.
"I have lunch," Erik says unnecessarily, following Charles inside. The office is only slightly bigger than Erik's own-it can only just barely accommodate Charles' wheelchair.
"Oh, marvelous," Charles says. "I was just thinking about you." He smiles up at Erik when he says it, sweet and happy and Erik has to smile back, even though he tries to avoid doing so on campus, if only to keep up his cred.
Erik unpacks their lunch-leftovers from last night-and uses the stainless steel containers to heat the contents before setting it in front of each of them. Charles thanks him with a little push of psychic gratitude, and they dig in.
Lunches are usually mostly silent-an hour spent together without needing to be anywhere else, doing anything else, just appreciating each other's company. As much as it pains Erik to admit that anything about Iowa is better than anything about New York, he does enjoy the time they spend like this, just sitting together, sharing a meal, without having to rush around. They rarely had quiet moments like this in New York, or maybe they just didn't make the time for them. While there are times that Erik misses the noise and movement and energy of the city, he won't let himself take this for granted, either.
"I think this is possibly even better reheated than it was when you made it last night," Charles says.
"You say that every day," Erik says.
"That's because it's true," Charles insists. "If nothing else, I'm glad this Midwestern exile has pushed you to pick up your mother's cooking habits."
Erik rolls his eyes and pretends he's sick of the compliment, but he doesn't think he ever will be. It turns out that he loves cooking only slightly more than Charles loves watching him in the kitchen and eating whatever he makes. He feels closer to his mother when he's reading her recipes, even if they're sanitized and typed up and not directly out of her ancient cookbook. He can still see her handwriting in his mind, still hear her voice murmuring tips and suggestions as he works.
It's good that he likes cooking, too, because their takeout options are limited and their delivery options are non-existent. Pizza is, of course, out of the question, as nothing produced in this tiny town hundreds of miles from the pizza of his youth will ever measure up to real New York pizza. There's a passable Chinese restaurant and a decent Indian restaurant. They learned quickly to give the Italian restaurant a wide berth, and the cutesy retro diner near campus can be counted on for breakfast food and little else. Of all the things he'd feared about moving, oddly the loss of food as comfort object hadn't been one of them until the end of the first week, when he'd called his mother and had her recite some of her recipes over the phone while he typed them at the dining room table.
(The blog is helping with that, too. He wrote a post a few weeks ago about the different foods he and Charles miss and not a day later, overnighted from New York, was a box of snacks from the women of the ladies' auxiliary, including a securely wrapped and tightly packed New York pizza. Charles has already written a huge donation check for the synagogue in thanks.)
"There's a big dance tonight," Charles says as they finish up lunch. After so many years together, Charles knows better than anyone that Erik is at his least confrontational on a full stomach, even if his least confrontational is still rather sharp.
"No," Erik says automatically.
"It's the Harvest Dance? Or something along those lines. It's a big deal. The whole school will be there and nearly the whole town," Charles continues.
"No," Erik repeats.
"I want to go, just for a little while," Charles says. "It might be fun. You never know."
"I do know," Erik says, and he almost believes it isn't a lie. "It won't be. You don't even dance."
He hadn't, even, when he could walk, not really. Raven had sent them dozens of videos of wheelchair dancing before the wedding, trying to wheedle them into doing some sort of display on the dance floor. They'd both passed on the idea.
Charles pauses for a moment, his expression the careful blankness that Erik recognizes as Charles collecting his thoughts before he speaks to make sure he doesn't say something too offensive.
"I'm trying to see what the fuss is all about with some of these local traditions," he says. "Before I dismiss them out of hand."
Which is code, of course, for You should try these things before you make fun of them.
"Then I'll see you when you get home," Erik says.
Charles isn't pleased, but he's not going to fight it either, which is a relief. Erik busies himself putting away the lunch things.
"I do some things with you," he says without looking up. "I went to the fair. I went to one football game."
The fair, though Erik won't admit it, was a mild success. He'd enjoyed himself, at least, and Charles did too. The football game was a disaster, but Erik didn't expect anything less.
"I know," Charles says. It sounds like he wants to add something else, but Erik remains focused on packing up lunch and Charles keeps quiet, both in Erik's head and out of it.
He stands up and stretches, then leans over to kiss Charles goodbye.
"I'll see you tonight," he says. One for dinner means he can just heat up last night's leftovers again.
"I love you," Charles says. Erik isn't sure if it's meant as a reminder to Erik or himself.
"I love you too," Erik says.
One more kiss and it's back to the Humanities building and to his desk and to his work for the rest of today and tomorrow and the day after that for days and weeks and months to come.
***
On their first day in Iowa, the department administrator for Charles' program met them at their new house. She came prepared with a packet of information about the school, the surrounding area, the sights, and the local activities. They let her talk most of the way through the lunch she brought with her, enthusiastically endorsing the fair and the local library and the combined bowling alley/indoor mini golf course one town over. She finally began to wind down over dessert.
"And during the late summer and fall there's a farmer's market," she said. "It's really, really excellent--there are so many farm-to-table options out here! The Episcopalian and Lutheran churches set up big tents and they're heated in the fall and everything. Which reminds me--you definitely won't be lacking for churches. I don't know what denomination you are, but we've also got a Baptist and Methodist church nearby and a Catholic church a couple towns over and a Unitarian church near the college that does a great non-denominational service. For more information, you can check the packet I gave you."
Charles nodded, smile plastered in place.
"What about synagogues?" Erik asked. The woman's smile faltered for a moment.
"I don't--oh! You know, I think there's a synagogue about thirty-five minutes away," she said. "Check the packet!"
Erik tried not to roll his eyes and took the packet from Charles, flipping through to the part on religious institutions. He scanned the page and frowns.
"That's an Orthodox synagogue," he said. "I'm Reform."
The young woman stared at him blankly.
"Like you have Protestant and Catholic and--whatever the thing you are," he said, motioning to Charles.
"Atheist?" Charles suggested with a raised eyebrow.
"You know what I mean," he said to Charles. To the woman, he said, "There are different kinds."
"Oh," she said. "Um--"
Charles took his hand and squeezed it.
"It's fine," he said. "I'll google it."
"Well, okay then!" she said. "I'm sure you'll find something!"
After she left, Erik pulled out his laptop and did a quick search. The nearest Reform synagogue was almost an hour away.
"Shit," he muttered. He couldn't tell if Charles heard him or merely picked up on his psychic disgruntlement. Either way, he was soon back in the dining room next to Erik, rubbing his back.
"Your mother normally has to drag you to temple," Charles said. "You're not telling me you've found religion in the past few weeks, are you?" His tone was light and cautious--it was one he had taken more and more in the weeks leading up to the move, as if he was afraid he'd say the wrong thing and Erik would run back to New York.
"No, it's not--I didn't start--it's not the religious part of it," Erik admitted. "It's just...rituals and traditions, right? They're...comforting. And I thought it would be nice to have that here and I guess I thought--even if I don't believe in god, I guess I want our kids to be raised Jewish. If it's okay with you, I mean. We haven't really talked about it, but I'd like them to have those traditions and rituals, you know?"
Charles smiled, his cheeks going pink, his hand still rubbing Erik's back absently.
"I know it's inevitable, but I guess I'm only just getting used to being married, so 'our kids' is just..." He trailed off, still grinning. "But you know we're not here forever. I think kids are still a little further down the line for us. It's just a year."
"Unless they really love you and you can't find anything else and then it's two years," Erik says. "Or you do get another offer, but it's in Nebraska or Utah or Mississippi or some other place where there's nothing around for miles and there's a church on every corner." He turned slightly and captured Charles' hand, the one that was rubbing his back. "This is our life now, this unpredictability. Not putting down roots, not being in a community of our own--Jews, but mutants, too. What's the mutant population of this town?"
"Abysmally small," Charles said, "But Erik--I'm so, so happy you're here with me. I'm glad you came. But you can always--it's just a year. You can go back to New York. You can live with your mother--"
"No," Erik started to say.
"--and get your old job back and--"
"No."
"--we can visit at holidays and--"
"No," Erik said more firmly, taking Charles' other hand as well and squeezing them both. Charles closed his mouth. "No," Erik repeated gently. "I saw what that did to my parents. Living long distance like that--it killed my father."
"I think," Charles said with a wry smile, aiming for light, "that cancer killed your father."
Erik rolled his eyes.
"Plus," Charles continued, "Iowa is much closer to New York than Germany was. We could make it work."
"No," Erik said again. He raised one of Charles' hands to his mouth and kissed his knuckles, right over his wedding ring. "We talked about this. You're my husband, now. That means something. It would be different if I had a career tied to a place, but I don't. I promised you that you wouldn't have to do this alone. I promised you I'd be here with you. It's just--it's going to be hard."
"It is," Charles said quietly. "And I'm sorry."
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Erik said. "It was my choice, too. We'll get through this. We've seen worse."
"We have," Charles agreed. "And it's just a year--I promise you, it will just be one year."
Erik fully believed that Charles meant the promise--Charles isn't a liar, at least, not intentional. But he promised everything, all the time, without thinking it through. Charles promised what he wanted to be true and then hoped with all his heart that things worked out that way. Erik loved that about him, but it did make it hard to take the promise at face value.
It was as close a timeline as he was going to get, however, so he steeled himself and set his mental clock.
One year.
***
He has to admit, when he gets home that night, that there might be something to be said about the space out here. They're living in housing provided by and subsidized by the university and it's larger than anywhere Erik has ever lived in his life. They have a whole house with a yard-with more than a yard, really, because the next house feels like it's a mile away and he's only exaggerating a little. It's only one floor, in deference to Charles' wheelchair, and they had apologized for the size over and over again in the correspondence leading up to the move, but Erik's not sure why they were apologizing.
Their bedroom here is as big as their living room was in their apartment in Queens. There are two more bedrooms, which were meant to be offices but have mostly become storage. The kitchen gets amazing light and has plenty of room for Charles to move around. The counters and appliances aren't wheelchair height, but it was easy enough to move the microwave, coffeemaker, and electric kettle to a low table and god knows Charles shouldn't be allowed to touch the stove.
Their living room looks out onto a field of corn, or it did when they first moved on. It's been harvested, now, and the view is more melancholy now, but not uninteresting.
It's not New York, but it could be worse, he supposes.
The space seemed like a boon at first-they hadn't brought nearly enough stuff to fill it and weren't sure what to do with so many rooms to move through-but on nights like tonight, it seems like too much. Too much space, too quiet, too lonely. The sun is setting, Erik is alone in the house eating leftovers, and he might as well be alone on the planet.
Overdramatic and ridiculous, of course-his mother is a phone call away. He could turn on the television, open his laptop, or even just sent a psychic nudge to Charles and be reminded that he's not alone. He wants to indulge in it for just a moment, though, to let it settle down on top of him, to give into the frustration and misery for a fleeting few minutes.
It doesn't make him feel any better, but it doesn't make him feel any worse, either.
He forces himself, eventually, to fetch his laptop from the dining room table. He has a post scheduled for tomorrow, a few progress shots of the mittens he's knitting for Charles, his first attempt. That doesn't mean he can't add some additional content, though he may wait until tomorrow to give his feelings some time to settle and then re-read before posting.
Before we came to Iowa, my husband, our collective fifty-two boxes of books, and I shared a one bedroom apartment in Astoria, he types. Our biggest issue seemed to be space. When Charles was working or studying, he had to do so in the bedroom or I would inevitably distract him. If I wanted to take a nap or do laundry or clean, I had to work around wherever he had parked himself. We crashed into each other at least once or twice a week, which was a feat for a telepath in a wheelchair and a normally graceful former-swimmer who can manipulate magnetic fields like the kind surrounding a metal wheelchair.
We wanted more space. We didn't have the time to house hunt or move, especially when keeping mind the specifications we needed to accommodate Charles' chair, so we stayed put and grumbled about our lack of space, like every other person living in New York. I never imagined that we could have too much space, and yet here I am, half a country away, wishing I had a little less of it.
He writes about feeling suffocated by the expanses of sky and field and he writes about having nowhere to go even though everything around him is open space ready to be explored. He doesn't write about being abandoned for the evening by Charles, because he's learned his lesson there, but he does start to feel better about it anyway.
Charles will come home eventually. Even if he was home right now, they'd hardly be doing anything different. Watching television, maybe, or a movie. Reading in silence. Also, it's entirely possible he was an asshole about the Harvest Dance, though he's not sure he's ready to admit it.
It's just that for Charles-well, it’s not easy, not precisely. Charles misses New York, too, and his sister and Erik's mother and their friends. But Charles isn't like Erik-he doesn't rely on places. He doesn't have history, not the way Erik has history with New York. New York is Erik's home, but Charles isn't tied to a place. He holds no fondness for the huge house in the tiny town where he grew up. He loved living in Cambridge when they were in undergrad, but he had no problem leaving it for New York when he started at Columbia. He loves New York, but mostly for what it contains rather than what it is. He's not thrilled by Iowa, Erik knows-he's struggling to fill his time just as Erik is. He's more willing to try, though-he's almost eager to jump in, to see what there is to see, to find something worth loving in this speck of a town. He misses New York, but he doesn't feel it the way Erik does, an ache in his chest. The closest thing Charles has to a home is Erik, who's here with him, making things slightly easier to bear.
Erik needs to get himself in that mindset, he knows he does. There's every possibility that one year will stretch into more, or that, come July, they'll be moving not back to New York, but to somewhere else in the country. This is Erik's life, now, and he knew that when he signed up, but that doesn't make it any easier now that he's living it.
It's worth it, of course. They've been together for years and there are still moments when Erik looks at Charles and feels like his heart has stopped. He wouldn't do this for anyone else, but for Charles? It's the least of what he would do.
Charles gets in around eight, nose and cheeks pink from the cold, wrapped up in a scarf and hat Erik knitted for him.
"How was your dance?" Eriks asks.
"It was quite lovely!" he says, and his happiness is infectious, or maybe it's just that Erik's tired of sulking, tired of thinking about his loneliness when he could he reaching out and connecting to the one person that matters, the one thing he didn't leave behind.
He reaches out now, literally as well as figuratively, and unwinds Charles' scarf from around his neck, pausing to press his fingers to Charles' frigid cheeks.
"There were games and the music was good. An open bar and everyone was laughing and having a good time--it was a lovely room to be in, all of those good feelings bounding about," he says.
"I'll bet," Erik says. Charles always gets like this when he's happy, or rather, when he's been around a group of people who are so happy they can't keep it inside. Erik likes him like this more than he'll admit. "You look amazing."
He does--the pink cheeks and nose, the ecstatic smile on his face, his eyes bright and dancing in the light from the television.
"I missed you," Charles admits. His smile turns more private, almost shy, and Erik likes this look on him too. "I wish I made you go. I think you would have had a lovely time."
"I probably would have," Erik admits, which is more than he thought he'd do tonight. "Come here."
It's not Charles who goes, though--Charles raises an eyebrow, and it's Erik who moves, leaning over to kiss Charles, to wrap his arms around him. That's the story of their life, isn't it--because as much as being here is weighing on Erik, he would follow Charles anywhere. He would do anything.
Charles' arms loop around Erik's neck. His hands are like ice where they touch the nape of Erik's neck.
"You're freezing," Erik murmurs, pulling away with a jolt.
"Then you should warm me up," Charles says, tugging him close again. "Come with me to bed?"
Erik followed Charles halfway across the country to a town where he sticks out like a sore thumb, to a place where there's no one else like him. Follow Charles to bed?
Erik goes. Of course he goes. There's no question.