Work Text:
In the end, the distress from the bedroom is too much to allow Charles to take more than the most cursory of showers. He dries himself off and struggles into his pajamas, still damp. When he rolls back into the bedroom, the expression of relief on Erik's face would be comical under other circumstances, and Charles would have smirked if not for the continued wails of the baby in Erik's arms.
"Having some difficulties?" Charles asks. Erik eyes him for a moment, a longer and more heated look than Charles thinks he intends. Normally, Charles sleeps in nothing but his boxer shorts, but for the sake of decorum, he's been wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top while sharing a room with Erik. The tank top, just a touch too tight, might have been a deliberate choice in order to expedite the tangled mess in Erik's head whenever he looks at Charles for too long.
"Can't you just see what he wants?" Erik pleads. The baby has barely stopped crying since they found him, wailing for nearly an hour now. Charles had hoped that by the time he finished his nightly bathroom regiment, Erik would have calmed the situation, but perhaps that was overly optimistic.
"I know what he wants," Charles says, exasperated. If Charles is exasperated, Erik is halfway to wild, his eyes wide, his hair in disarray, the poor baby's fingers wound tight into his turtleneck, pulling it askew. "I told you before--he's tired, he wants to sleep but he won't let himself. He doesn't know us, he doesn't know this place, it's overwhelming for him." He rolls close enough to smooth his hand over the crown of the baby's head, shushing him gently. Though he's clinging to Erik, his little body is arched away as he struggles to get out of Erik's arms. He's terrified, the poor thing.
Erik continues to bounce the child, frowning. His veneer is starting to crack. Charles would probably be enjoying this more if the soundtrack was better.
"Can't you just..." Erik starts to say, then trails off and makes a waggling motion with his fingers, a few inches away from his temple, imitating Charles's usual gesture. "Make him sleep?"
"Do you know anything about infants' brains, Erik?" Charles asks, pinning Erik with his best disapproving professor look. "They're not like adults'. They're growing, changing, learning at an incredibly advanced rate. If I did anything to this boy, I'd risk damaging him permanently."
The light in Erik's eyes extinguishes once his idea is tossed aside, and Charles sighs. He's beginning to become worried about the state of the metal in this hotel room if Erik's frustration level continues to climb. He looks at Erik holding the baby one last time, at the rigidity of his spine, the stiffness in his arms, the hand awkwardly patting the little boy on his back. Charles holds out his arms expectantly.
"One would think you've never held a baby before," he says lightly, and the haste with which Erik deposits the child in his hands all but confirms that. Charles rearranges the boy in his arms, letting the baby curl naturally against his chest. He must not have been abandoned for long, for he's still plump and perfectly healthy, as far as Charles can tell. He has ginger peach fuzz on the top of his head, and when Charles holds him close, he catches a whiff of that unmistakable scent of a tiny baby, soft and warm and new.
Erik is watching him cautiously, but Charles focuses on the baby.
"Hush now, darling," he says soothingly, rocking the baby against his chest. "It's alright. You're safe here. We'll take care of you, I promise. Hush. Sleep."
It takes a few moments, but the baby's cries eventually calm. Charles rubs his back as he lets out the last of his sobs and then quiets to a whimper, his face pressed against Charles' shoulder, drooling mostly on Charles' skin, the strap of his tank top wrapped in the baby's tiny perfect fingers.
"It's okay," Charles murmurs still, a continuing, automatic string of soothing whispers. "You're okay. That's a good boy. Get some sleep lovely. You're so tired, I know you're tired, it's okay...."
When he looks up again, Erik is staring at him. The reprieve was clearly enough to allow him to slip his usual mask back into place. There's a heaviness to his gaze, but Charles is too exhausted to interpret it and still too wary of Erik's strict need for privacy to dig in and suss it out of Erik's head. There's just a flicker, as Erik sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, of what's lurking underneath. Surprise, admiration, exhaustion, and just a touch of the affection that always sneaks through when Erik lets his guard down.
They're near enough, with Erik sitting on the bed, for their knees to nearly touch. Erik is still staring at him expectantly.
"Hm?" Charles asks in between shushing noises, raising his eyebrows.
"I...." For one wild moment when Erik sways forward, hand raised, Charles is sure Erik is going to kiss him. The moment stretches out for long seconds during which Charles' heart climbs into his throat. The moment passes, though, and Erik merely touches the baby's back, awkward and hesitant, then stands up.
"I suppose I'll...take my turn in the bathroom," Erik says.
"That's fine," Charles says, and watches him move swiftly to his suitcase and then into the en suite, closing the door behind him.
Charles stares at the closed door for longer than he'd like to admit, until the baby begins to fuss again and once again captures Charles' full attention.
***
The whole trip had been Raven's idea. Of course it had. It made some amount of sense--mutant registration was so newly overturned that mutants were still understandably wary of being singled out. Add to that the rise in anti-mutant sentiments that had predictably sprung up in reaction to the series of pro-mutant SCOTUS rulings in June and a public recruitment campaign seemed likely to put a target on all their backs. If they wanted to recruit for their newly formed, newly legal mutant school, they would need to do so cautiously and quietly.
Charles, obviously, was the first choice for a recruitment team--as the headmaster and only person with an actual teaching certification of any kind, his youthful good looks and cheerful disposition made the perfect face of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. But there were going to be recruits who didn't respond well to Charles' multiple PhDs and multi-million dollar trust fund.
"You need someone they can relate to," Raven insisted. "Someone with an edge who takes no shit and doesn't look so shiny and clean."
"You?" Charles asked hopefully.
"Erik," Raven corrected.
And while it was a good idea in theory, Raven couldn't hide her gleeful secondary motive. Charles had known the second he was pulled into Erik's mind in the water outside the Shaw protest that Erik was...special. Something in Erik called to something in him, and once they had gotten out of the ocean and back on the boat and Raven had finished screeching at him about abandoning his wheelchair to just plunge into the water sight-unseen, Charles had taken a long look at Erik and figured out at least part of what that something special was. The attraction hit him like a brick and he knew there was mutual interest there as well. He saw the way Erik looked at him.
Over the months that followed, meetings and investigations and court appearances and Congressional hearings, he and Erik got closer. Very close. Moira and Raven mocked him ceaselessly, and while it felt good natured to start, it's been over a year now and Erik's done nothing but look. They play chess and they argue and they stay up all night talking. They work perfectly side-by-side. Erik takes care of him in a way that avoids the infantilization that's overcome most of his last few attempts at relationships--Erik brings him meals when he's working and reminds him to go to bed and bathe and pace himself not because of Charles' disability, but because he thinks Charles is a ridiculous human being who would rather work than sleep. They're at the point, now, where there are times they manage to finish each other's sentences.
But for all of that, Erik won't make a move. When Erik looks at Charles, he feels the same bone-deep attraction that Charles feels when he looks at Erik. When Erik jerks off in the shower, Charles can't help but hear the echoes of thoughts that are most certainly about him. When Erik touches Charles, he gets the same whole-body buzz that stays with Charles for hours. But for some reason, he's still hesitating. For some reason, Erik won't let himself reach out and take this last step.
If it was because of Charles' paralysis or because of some kind of internalized homophobia, or something else distasteful, Charles could easily put some distance between them and move on to someone else. But it's not that simple. Whatever's standing between them is something about Erik himself, something only he can understand, and Erik has to be the one to bring it down.
And so here they are, zig-zagging their way across the country based on a list of Cerebro coordinates, spending days together in hotel rooms and hours together on the road and in the jet, with this simmering tension between them.
And now they have a baby to contend with as well.
***
Charles is attempting to feed the baby when the waitress returns to their table. She refills their coffee cups, both his and Erik's, despite his escape to the restroom, and then rests a hand on her hip, watching Charles silently. Charles is coaxing the baby into eating bits of mashed banana and applesauce, his own omelette sitting ignored. When he looks up at her, she smiles widely at him.
"I just wanted to say, he is utterly adorable," she says. "Feisty, but so cute. What's his name?"
Charles opens his mouth to reply, but he's not sure what he's going to say. He and Erik found the baby yesterday evening when they stopped for gas. It was a fluke--he was far too young to be on their list of potential recruits, but Charles felt his mind while stretching his powers out in an effort to shock himself awake. The poor thing was in complete distress and Charles was able to wade through the tangles of his infant mind to glean that there were no parents around and no one coming to his rescue. He led Erik on a half-mad race through the back alleys of the podunk town they had stopped in until they found the baby in a secondhand carseat next to a library that was closed for the day. The note stuffed in next to him said, My pa would kill me if I brought home a mutie.
On the boy's back were small buds, right over his shoulder blade, the clear makings of wings.
They hadn't had to discuss it, not even in one of the short telepathic exchanges that were becoming more and more frequent between them; they picked him up and brought him with them to the car. In other circumstances, Charles might have insisted on taking him to the authorities--he had, in fact, railed for a solid ten minutes about leaving a baby abandoned in the heat outside a closed library in a state with safe haven laws--but they were in the middle of nowhere and the risk of anti-mutant actions against them or retaliation on behalf of the girl's father were too great. They couldn't involve the police--it was best to just take the baby with them back to New York. He'd texted Raven immediately to set up a nursery and managed to speak with her on the phone once the baby had finally fallen asleep last night, filling her in on the situation and their accelerated timeframe for getting back to the airport in St. Louis where the jet was waiting for them.
Still, neither Charles nor Erik had thought to consider the question of his name. Charles says the first thing that occurred to him. "His name is Brian."
"Hi, Brian," the waitress cooes, her voice artificially high-pitched. The baby presents her with a grand, open-mouthed smile in return, showing off the banana remains still in his mouth. "Oh, I can see the family resemblance," the woman continues. "He's going to look just like your husband when he gets older."
Charles forces a smile and tries not to choke on his coffee. He's noticed a distinct difference in the way people have treated he and Erik since the addition of a baby to their traveling party. In the past, when they checked into a single room for the night, the general assumption was that Erik was his caretaker in some way. Most waiters and hotel clerks and store attendants didn't say as much out loud, but Charles could see it plain as day in their thoughts. He shouldn't have been surprised--being seen as sexless certainly wasn't new, and Erik was quite a sight to behold. It was hard for most to imagine someone that beautiful in a sexual context with someone confined to a wheelchair, Charles knew from experience.
The baby, though, has changed things. The new default assumption is that they're a vacationing family. The clerk at the hotel last night had fallen all over herself to get them a room as quickly as she could so they could calm their son down. The cashier at the grocery store had told them their baby was beautiful. The man who sold them onesies and blankets and bottles at Target had commented that parents had enough of a hard time traveling with all the TSA regulations without having to worry about lost luggage.
He hasn't worked out how he feels about it, yet. If Erik has any feelings on the matter at all, they're locked up tight in his own mind.
As if summoned, Erik chooses that moment to reappear at the table, taking the seat across from Charles.
"Excuse me," he says to the waitress gruffly, "could we please get two coffees to go?"
"Of course," she says, and leans over to grin at the baby again. "Enjoy your breakfast, little guy."
Charles watches her walk off and returns his attention to feeding the baby, who's beginning to become more interested in smearing the banana on the table than eating it.
"I could take over, if you'd like," Erik says in a tone of voice that makes it clear he knows Charles won't take him up on that offer. Erik tried to feed the boy dinner last night and they both ended up covered head to toe in sweet potato puree, simmering in frustration. Charles has known Erik for over a year now and has seen him crack complicated codes, speak multiple languages, and perform stomach-turning acts of violence. Erik is brilliant, competent, confident, and unflappable. Charles has never seen him so much as flinch at anything the world has thrown at him up until this point. It is unfathomable to Charles how completely and utterly all of these traits have deserted Erik when faced with an infant. If Charles didn't know any better, he would think Erik was terrified.
"I'm fine," Charles assures him, and wipes the baby's mouth before managing to feed him another spoonful of banana. "Eat your breakfast. I can always eat in the car."
"If you say so," Erik says, and returns to his eggs.
***
Charles counts slowly to ten in his mind and then finally puts his book down and allows himself to intervene.
"Honestly, Erik, you're going about that all wrong," he says, moving towards the table and swatting Erik out of the way. The baby is fussing loudly, kicking and wriggling as Erik tries and fails to get a diaper on him. "It's a three step process, how can you bungle it so badly?"
"Well, maybe if we'd used the old fashioned diapers with pins," Erik huffs, crossing his arms and glowering down at Charles and the baby.
"Do you want to wash out reusable diapers?" Charles asks with one perfectly arched eyebrow. Erik looks away and mutters to himself in response.
Once Charles is situated in front of the baby, it's not hard at all to slide the clean diaper underneath the dirty one, roll the dirty one up, wipe the baby down, and secure the clean diaper into place. He moves fluidly through the actions, with Erik at his shoulder. Erik hasn't backed away at all, still hovering close enough for Charles to feel his body heat and hear him breathing. It's a moment on the razor's edge of intimate, but it's an edge they've been perched on for months now. Charles is used to the itchiness of unresolved tension, the pull towards Erik he always feels when they're this close.
"There," Charles says, and has to clear his throat when the words come out rougher than he intends. He fusses with the baby for another moment, straightening the diaper as he gets his wits back around him. He picks up the baby and tucks him against his body, then pivots his chair. He offers the baby to Erik, who is surprised enough to take him immediately, despite the wide, panicked look on his face.
"It might make more sense for you to--"
"Nonsense," Charles says crisply. "You're doing perfectly fine. Stop panicking. People have been dealing with babies forever, and they turn out alright, for the most part. Just stop holding him like a sack of flour, don't drop him, and you'll be fine."
"I'm not going to drop him," Erik replies, almost absently. He's gazing into the baby's eyes, an old-fashioned staring match.
Charles smiles to himself and returns to the table by the window, picking up his book once again.
***
It's late morning, and they've been on the road for a few hours, the last of this stretch of their journey. They'll reach the Lambert-St. Louis airport soon enough and be back on their way to the school to figure out what to do with the baby and what next steps to take. The baby has spent much of the time sleeping in the backseat and Erik is quiet, not interested in chatting, but rather driving with single-minded focus. It's not an unpleasant silence--Erik is concentrating on the road, the feeling of the car's metal parts all around them, the very few occasional other cars they come across. It's soothing for Charles, a steady background hum to keep him from feeling too restless as they drive.
The peace breaks all at once. Instead of the gentle buzz of metal and driving and mechanics, Charles is assaulted by pain and fear and confusion and desperation so strong he arches forward in his seat and cries out.
"Charles?" Erik looks to his side, shocked. Charles tries to find his voice to assure Erik that he's okay, but he must look as bad as he feels, because Erik just repeats, "Charles!"
"Hell," Charles says, clearing his throat. The baby is crying again, finally breaking through the fog of pain he's inflicted on Charles, and Charles has collected himself enough to suss out what's wrong and why.
Erik pulls over to the shoulder of the road and shuts off the motor. He turns in his seat, leaning over Charles and into his personal space, his concern rolling around him like stormclouds. "What is it? Are you hurt?"
Charles shakes his head. "No, I'm sorry, I'm fine. The baby is teething--I wasn't expecting it."
Erik's returning look is flat and skeptical. "Teething?" Charles nods with a self-deprecating smile. "I find it hard to believe that a baby's slightly sore mouth is enough to make you almost pass out and project hard enough that I almost crashed the car."
Charles rolls his eyes and gestures towards the baby in the back.
"Get him out and bring him here, then look in my suitcase for the bottle of whiskey and bring that here, too," he tells Erik. Erik unbuckles his seatbelt and retrieves the baby from the back, but gives Charles a look that makes it clear he's still waiting for an explanation.
"It's okay, darling, we're going to help," Charles murmurs, cradling the baby close once Erik hands him over. He kisses the baby's forehead and then the crown of his head as he presses a finger into his mouth to probe at his gums. The baby sucks happily on his finger and Charles can tell exactly where the tooth is coming in, his own mouth throbbing in unison with the boy's pain.
When he looks up, Erik has returned with the whiskey. His expression is new to Charles and unreadable as always, his eyes focused sharply on where the poor child is sucking on Charles' finger.
"It wasn't a matter of how much pain he was in," Charles says, his voice soft and soothing, still, not wanting to startle the baby any further. "I told you, infants' minds are ... different than adults. Whatever he feels, it's all he's feeling. He doesn't know anything but that. He doesn't know why it's happening, or if it's happened before, or if it will go away, and he doesn't have any way to articulate those feelings. He's just alone. Alone and desperate with it."
He looks up again, just in time to catch Erik's gaze, heavy and knowing. He feels pinned by it, the rest of his words dying in his throat, everything falling away except for the warm body in his arms and Erik, mere inches from him, staring at him like that.
Erik finally looks away. Charles feels his face heating up and clears his throat again.
"He was projecting very loudly indeed, weren't you, precious?" Charles says, looking down at the boy and taking his finger out of his mouth to brush the last of the tears off his chubby cheeks. "I'm fine, really. Now, do you care to help me soothe his pain a bit?"
He forces a smile, and when he glances at Erik, the weight of the moment has passed and Erik is back to looking dubious and cautious, his default around the baby. He's holding the bottle of whiskey, and Charles nods at it.
"Take the cap off and get a splash of it on your thumb," he says. Erik, still dubious, does as he says, covering the opening with his thumb and then tilting the bottle forward, then back. "Now, slip your finger into his mouth and rub it along his gums on his left, your right."
"I don't think you're supposed to give them alcohol," Erik says doubtfully, but he does as he's told. The effect isn't instantaneous, but it starts soon enough. The baby relaxes, his gums numbing slowly, and Charles sighs with relief. His mouth has stopped hurting as well, and the tension drains out of his body.
"I could use a bit of that as well, if you don't mind," Charles says, holding out his hand to take the bottle. Erik starts to hand it over and then freezes. The impulse hits him so strongly that Charles feels the jolt, though he's not entirely sure what Erik means to do until he starts to do it.
He holds onto the bottle and covers the top with his thumb again, then tilts it to the side. Charles feels his stomach bottom out and he tears his eyes from Erik's hands to look at him. Their gazes meet. Erik is determined, if wary, and his hand doesn't shake as he extends it slowly, his other fingers cupping Charles' cheek tenderly. There's a cloud of feeling between them, all of the messy emotions that Erik has been trying to pick apart for the past year. Perhaps he's finally given up on making sense of them. Perhaps he's managed to decipher them after all. Charles doesn't care either way.
"Open your mouth," Erik says quietly, his voice rough, but Charles has already done it. He leans into Erik's grip, presses himself against Erik's hand, greedy for this already, even before Erik's thumb moves that last inch to push between his lips and into Charles' mouth.
Charles feels hot all over, feels the pull of arousal in his gut. His skin gets tight and itchy, like it doesn't fit his body anymore. He shivers as he starts to suck, the taste of whiskey mixed with the metallic taste of Erik's skin. Erik closes his eyes, his head tipped slightly back, and Charles pounces on the chance to show Erik what he's been missing for the past year. He runs his tongue all over Erik's thumb, sucks it as deeply into his mouth as he can manage, grazes it with his teeth. He turns it into a promise, an invitation for more later, an IOU for everything they've missed over the past fourteen months.
Erik crooks his thumb to rub at Charles' tongue and Charles can't help the moan that escapes. It's enough to force Erik's eyes open--his pupils are blown, a small ring of green grey surrounding the wide black center of his eyes as he stares right back at Charles, cheeks flushed, and pulls his thumb back. Charles shivers and smiles.
"What are you looking at?" Erik manages to say. He sounds wrecked. If he sounds like this after just a moment, Charles wonders what he'll sound like in bed. He shivers again.
"You," he tells Erik. Telepathically, he continues, I'm looking at you. Do you know, it's been rather fun to see you out of your element like this, these past few days? He smirks, but Erik seems less pleased, his face darkening.
"Fun?" he says disbelievingly. "This has been fun for you? Watching this child make a fool out of me?"
Said child is beginning to squirm again, so Charles adjusts his grip and holds the boy more solidly in his lap, brushing his hair again and paying him the attention he's demanding.
"Yes," Charles says simply, looking back up at Erik. "It has. You're not so scary, you know. Not half as scary as you want people to think you are."
Erik looks away, down at the bottle of whiskey in his hand. He takes a quick swig and then puts the top back on it and stows it in the back.
"I'm dangerous, that much is true," Erik says. He looks everywhere but at Charles. "People I love...they get hurt. I'm a monster, and you shouldn't...I can't do that to you. I can't saddle you with me."
Charles looks down at the baby again. He's content, sucking on his own fingers and tugging at one of the buttons on Charles' shirt with interest. Slowly, Charles looks back up at Erik, whose gaze has shifted as well. He's scrutinizing Charles, his eyes intense and sharp.
"I think that I get to decide that," Charles finally says. "Don't you?"
Erik bites his lower lip. Here in the front of the car, cut off from the noises outside, forced into each other's space, Charles thinks they may finally tip over that edge of intimacy. He hopes, at least. Erik keeps looking at Charles like he's cataloguing him, looking for a hole in his argument, a reason to object.
"It's not that simple," Erik finally says.
"It is," Charles insists. "I'm stronger than you think."
"You're the strongest person I've ever known," Erik says, eyes wide and round, as if he's shocked that Charles has doubted that for even a second.
"Then trust me," Charles pleads. He adds, "If I can handle this infant that terrifies you so much, I'm sure I can handle you."
The sound Erik makes is somewhere between a laugh and a snort, and he leans forward those last few inches into Charles' space, placing a hand on his shoulder and pressing their lips together.
It's a short, chaste kiss with the child between them. It still manages to take Charles' breath away.
Erik clears his throat. "Are you ready to get back on the road?"
"I am," Charles says. "If you'll just put himself back in his carseat, I think we can head straight on to the airport."
Erik takes the baby from Charles, with one hand supporting his bottom. He frowns for a moment, then opens the door and ducks into the back, securing him in place.
"We might need to make a pit stop before we reach the airport," he says as he slides back behind the wheel.
"Do you need a bathroom break?" Charles asks, his lips curving into an amused smile.
"Erm, yes," Erik says, but he doesn't meet Charles' eyes. "And since I'll be busy with that, you can be on diaper duty."
Charles rolls his eyes. In the back, the baby gurgles loudly.
"I agree, Brian, your papa is a bit of a sneak," Charles says.
"Watch who you're calling a sneak," Erik says, but that's the only part he objects to, even if he's blushing bright red as he starts the car again and merges into traffic.
"Well, this has been a successful trip," Charles announces. Brian squeals again and smacks his hands against his car seat in agreement.
A rousing success. Charles doesn't even mind the diaper duty.