round 3 overflow post

[starkmodistries]

Round 3 Overflow Post

This post is for Round 3 fills only. We ask that when a round hits 8500 comments, fillers begin moving their fills to this post.

Format:SUBJECT LINE -- Round #, short description of fic (ex: "Alex/Hank, lab partners

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FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 122/?

[tahariel]

XVIII

The textbook gives him an idea, though, and the next day he goes over to the building across the street from central command to get what he needs. The other cast-iron blocks around that one original apartment block have been taken over one by one as their government grew and established itself, the occupants either moving out of their own accord or being paid to move if not. Most have been converted now to offices and labs and training spaces. It’s a good location, and Magneto sees no reason for them to move to another place, seeing as they are working well where they are. The White House and Washington are long gone, with all of their purpose-built grandeur and pomp, so SoHo suits their purposes as well as anywhere would.

It’s not too difficult to persuade McCoy, who vacillates between anxious babbling and energetic enthusiasm like a metronome, slowly distracting himself from his nerves and getting more eloquent and impressive before suddenly remembering who he is speaking to all over again and seizing up until he can barely string two words together without an ‘um’ in the middle. At the very least it means he doesn’t ask too many questions. In the afternoon Magneto has a meeting with the West Coast District leaders in Seattle, so he slips back into the apartment as unobtrusively as possible in the short window he has before his rendezvous with Azazel downstairs. He waves Charles back to his work when he makes to get up, tells him it’s just a flying visit and leaves the cardboard box on the table where Charles will find it sooner rather than later.

“Can’t you stop for lunch?” Charles asks, and it takes Erik a moment before he can say no to the look on Charles’ face, not quite begging for the company but certainly not neutral, either.

“I would if I had time,” he says instead, has not even taken off the helmet or the cape, stands by the elevator doors and lets his hand hover over the call button, not quite able to push it. “I’ll be back later.”

Charles smiles, but even Erik can tell it’s not a happy expression. “See you later, then.”

“I love you,” Erik says just before the elevator arrives, steps inside and does not wait to see if Charles says it back, because if he doesn’t know, then there is an equal chance that he did as that he didn’t. That little bit of uncertainty keeps him warm through his meetings, lets him congratulate the team on their excellent work in difficult circumstances and if he doesn’t think about it then it’s easy to be sure that Charles would have said it, if Erik had waited.

XIX

When he walks back in that evening the living room is a sea of paper.

“Erik, where did you get all of this?” Charles asks from where he’s sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a graveyard of half-finished mugs of tea, an opened scientific journal in either hand and a third in his lap, laid open across his thigh like a wilted flower. It looks like a library exploded, though with less charring and bits of librarian.

He looks for places it is safe to stand; there aren’t many places where the floor is still visible and so in the end he walks across the paper to reach Charles, taking off his shoes first so that he won’t leave bootmarks and obscure the type. The rustling carpet slip-slides against itself, rumpling and drifting around where his feet disturb it and sending pages floating off against one another to land in drifts against the couch. “I commandeered it.”

Charles looks up at him when Erik bends a little to peer at the journals he’s holding, and pauses, biting his lip suddenly and frowning. “Oh - they were for me, weren’t they? I just assumed - ”

“Yes.” Erik interrupts him, and slowly reaches out to rest his hand on the nape of Charles’ neck, rubs a thumb across the soft skin there and is rewarded by Charles leaning into the touch instead of away. “Yes, they’re for you.”