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“We were rather hoping that you could...take us all the way."
Erik is fighting not to roll his eyes at that line, but it is akin to trying not to run when a grizzly bear is coming at you. Sometimes he isn’t sure if Charles is aware of how cheesy he can sound with a line like that, and whether it is intentional or not. It is hard to tell with Charles, who is good-natured enough to poke fun at himself most of the time, and it is just one of the several maddening things about the man that makes it so hard for Erik to dislike him.
Dammit.
“That’s a six hour drive,” the man is saying matter-of-factly, and Erik can tell that his frown is slightly creased with suspicion.
“Then it will give us plenty of time to talk,” Erik says, and with the barest flick of the wrist, down comes the meter flag and up goes the driver’s eyebrows.
Erik knows Charles is trying not to smirk.
***
It doesn’t take six hours to sell Darwin on joining the CIA’s new mutant division. After the first hour, Darwin has already agreed to sign up and now he and Charles are chattering away excitedly about their respective gifts. “What a marvellous mutation you have,” Charles is saying, leaning forward in his seat in fascination and completely ignoring Erik, and Darwin modestly waves a dismissive hand at Charles, saying, “Now being able to read people’s minds, that’s one cool deal,” and Erik wishes his mutation is being able to appear as though he is not being bored to tears.
Somehow, Charles must have heard his thoughts, for he is sinking back in his seat again, eyes bright and amused on Erik’s. “Are you bored, my friend?”
Erik shoots him a glare. Stop reading my mind, Charles.
Charles’s lips – rather red now, must have been that all excessive talking – quirk up into a knowing smile. Erik, it doesn’t count as mindreading when you’re broadcasting about how much you want to gag.
Erik gives up; it is hard to fight with someone who will just keep giving you this delighted, indulgent smile as though your every word fascinates him. Maybe this is what Charles means by a pacifist approach: throwing a basket of flowers and puppies at your enemy and stunning them into shocked silence.
He’s mortified when Charles starts chuckling behind his hand, burying his face in Erik’s coat as he shakes with laughter. “Really, Erik, flowers and puppies?”
Dammit.
“Hey, fellas.” Darwin is waving at them in the rear-view mirror. “I’ve got to stop at the next gas station and take a leak, okay?”
“Can’t your bladder adapt to holding it in for six hours?” Erik says dryly, and this time Charles explodes in laughter as Darwin grins at both of them in the mirror.
***
They’ve stopped for dinner somewhere, and Charles is on a public pay phone to Moira, telling her about the recruits they have so far and how fascinating their mutations are. For all his cheesiness and corniness, there is something comforting about Charles that soothes Erik. For someone who genuinely believes that his lines would work on unsuspecting women (and certain men) everywhere, he must not be reading their minds enough to know that they definitely don’t work. And that is so much less threatening, in a way, than someone who knows exactly how to push your buttons and make you tumble into bed immediately.
Erik fancies that he is a lot more subtle at the art of flirting. Where Charles cheerfully barges in with his unfortunate bag of clumsy, corny lines, Erik believes in the importance of the shared gaze, the subtle quirk of the lips into a knowing smile, using his hands to draw attention to his lips, or his eyes, or the sensitive area beneath his throat where he likes to be bitten. The words, too, have to be subtle. No groovy mutation or take us all the way in the Lehnsherr dictionary: Erik knows a simple come here or you’ll be mine is enough, provided he says it with the right amount of confidence.
He can see Charles talking excitedly on the phone from their booth while Darwin studies the menu. At that moment, Charles turns and catches his eye, and he gives Erik a thumbs-up. Erik gives him a slow smile in return, rubbing his chin thoughtfully before dragging a finger under his bottom lip, tracing the curve. He observes Charles, letting his finger trail down to tug slowly at the stretchy fabric of his turtleneck, exposing his throat.
Darwin looks up at Erik, mouth open to ask what he wants to order, then he turns and follows Erik’s gaze to where Charles is standing. “Oh,” he says, looking confused before shrugging it off and staring down at the menu again.
Erik snaps out of his daze. “What is it?” he asks, scooting further into the booth because Charles has hung up and is now walking back towards them.
“Nothing,” Darwin says. “For a minute, you looked as though you had seen a really beautiful woman walk in.”
“What?” By the time Erik has managed to come up with some sort of scathing reply, Charles is already back and squeezing into the booth beside him, their thighs pressed together.
“Moira was so happy to hear about you, Darwin,” Charles says with a grin before picking up his menu. His blue shirt is open at the collar, and Erik is suddenly, irrationally angry with him for undoing that one button and showing him a glimpse of pale skin that is making him think irrational thoughts.
Before Charles can pick up on those errant thoughts, Erik quickly drowns himself in the menu, letting Charles and Darwin continue their chatter.
Dammit.
***
It is now dark, but Darwin is driving steadily as ever, humming along to the Righteous Brothers tune on the scratchy old radio. Erik is torn between exhaustion and that suspended state of alertness where you’re not quite sure if something out of the ordinary is going to happen but you want to be ready for it anyway. Charles is slumped against him, a comforting warm weight, and if Erik peeks downwards, he can see past the second button, at the expanse of Charles’s rising and falling chest.
Charles leans against him even more, his arm still around Erik. And just as he thinks Charles is asleep....Why, Erik, I had no idea.
Erik hates telepaths with a passion. Go to sleep, Charles.
It’s hard for me to fall asleep when you’re thinking so loudly about all those things you want to do to me, right here.
Erik steals another look downwards. Charles’s eyes are closed, but the serene, slightly amused smile is unmistakable. Also, Erik can feel a hand slipping under the hem of his turtleneck to press against his stomach, warm and heated.
Erik clears his throat, fighting twin pangs of desire and panic. Not here, Charles, the boy will see.
Charles’s lips quirk further up. Ah, then why are you imagining the two of us making out like teenagers in the back seat?
Erik lets out a little exhalation of breath as Charles’s hand starts to move, his thumb sliding into Erik’s navel. It’s all because of that damn line of yours. ‘Take us all the way’, really? Come on, Charles. He wants to sound frustrated and grumpy, but it’s hard to, with the way Charles’s damn thumb is moving in and out of his surprisingly sensitive navel.
I knew it would work. The triumph is evident even in Charles’s mental voice and it makes Erik want to fling him down on the backseat and splay his legs apart and fuck him hard.
However, it is now Erik’s turn to be triumphant as Charles releases a low moan at that image. Erik takes the opportunity to strengthen it, projecting at Charles the image of the two of them rutting in the backseat with their clothes still on, Erik fumbling to reach inside Charles’s trousers and stroke him to completion, and he smiles as he feels Charles shuddering against him.
“Anything wrong?” Darwin asks in concern, and Erik has to refrain from tearing the copper wiring out of the dashboard and strangling Darwin with it. “You fellas all right?”
“Just fine,” Erik says through his teeth, and to his disappointment, Charles sits up straight. The loss of his warm body against Erik’s is surprisingly disconcerting.
“Don’t mind us, Darwin, we’re just tired,” Charles says. Then he raises his fingers to his temple and frowns in concentration, and the concerned frown on Darwin’s brow smoothes away. Seemingly assured, he is now nodding happily at both of them and continuing to drive.
Erik watches suspiciously as Charles turns back to him, leaning in even closer now as he stares longingly at Erik’s mouth. Their lips are only a mere brush away when Erik thinks, What are you doing? He’ll see!
“No he won’t,” Charles says out loud, wiggling his fingers near his temple again. “All he is seeing right now is the two of us taking a well-deserved nap.”
Erik doesn’t know whether he is staring at Charles with admiration or just pure lust. Probably both. “You’re a terrible man.”
Charles’s eyebrows jump up. “Me? I’m the terrible one? I’m not the one who has been thinking a lot of rather unsavoury thoughts since we got into the cab.” Then his grin slowly widens. “Or throughout the whole trip, for that matter.”
Erik is sure that it is definitely admiration bordering on outright fascination, the kind one feels when one has been bested. “You telepaths are quite frightening.”
“Like I said, Erik, it’s not quite reading someone’s mind when they’re shouting their thoughts at you across the Grand Canyon.” Charles is settling back in a pose that Erik vaguely recognises as his Lecturing-Professor pose. “You see--”
His words are cut off because Erik has claimed his mouth, that red, clever mouth that won’t shut up, that always quirks up into a smile that is just this side of laughing with Erik instead of laughing at him, and instead of mumbo-jumbo Erik hears a breathless ‘wow’ in his head, and he smirks into the kiss as his palm wraps around the curve of Charles’s nape, teasing the soft dark hairs there.
Charles is sinking back into the cushion of the seat, which makes it easier for Erik to manoeuvre his head and deepen their kiss. He loses focus a little when Charles’s tongue slides into his mouth, and he huffs out a ragged moan when Charles starts to unbuckle his belt, then drags down the zipper of his trousers before palming the hot length of Erik’s cock.
Erik isn’t sure who is moaning now, and he doesn’t care, sliding his fingers into Charles’s wavy hair and tightening his grip. From the way his breath is hitching, he definitely likes to be manhandled. Erik saves that useful mental note for later, tilting Charles’s head up to kiss his neck, his hips arching up in short little thrusts into Charles’s clever hand. That damn blue shirt - almost the same colour of Charles’s eyes – is now tugged down roughly, one of the buttons popping open and flying off, but they both can’t bring themselves to care as Erik sucks on Charles’s collarbone.
Charles’s desperate groan is lost in the strains of the Four Tops now on the radio, and Erik hopes to dear God that Darwin is still blissfully unaware that there are two men making out in his backseat.
“Want--” Now Charles is pushing him down to fully stretch out on the backseat, and Erik gives him the quickest of kisses before he obeys. He wants to take off his clothes but he’s afraid that Charles’s concentration might be jarred at any moment and Darwin would end up getting an eyeful of the two of them. Besides, Erik doesn’t intend for this to be the last time. When they get back to Richmond, he’s not going to give a fuck about any debriefing, he’s going to drag Charles straight back to his room and then ride him until they’re both too sore to walk.
“Erik.” Charles is now crawling on top of him, the bangs of his hair hanging down and getting caught in his eyelashes. “Too sore to walk, really?”
“Dammit, Charles.” Erik lifts a knee to rub at the bulge in Charles’s trousers, and he watches those blue, blue eyes flutter shut as Charles bites his lip. His crisp blue jacket is in disarray, and his shirt is hanging open, and Charles looks every bit the debauched professor that Erik has had the fantasy of fucking in the library or his dusty old office. He knows when Charles has cottoned on to these fantasies, because those eyes open again and they’re now almost black, ringed only with a thin circle of blue.
The kiss is now lewd, wet and sloppy as Charles fucks Erik’s mouth with his tongue, his hand sliding back into his trousers to continue stroking Erik’s pulsing erection. Erik is alternating between bites of those red lips and “Charles” and letting Charles suck on the tip of his tongue and “Mein Gott” and he growls when Charles breaks away from the kiss, a naughty look in his eyes. He crawls down the backseat, lifting the hem of Erik’s turtleneck and letting his tongue lap at Erik’s navel, soliciting a deep groan.
“Damn tease,” Erik growls as he tangles his fingers in Charles’s hair, and Charles must have taken it as a challenge, because he is raising an eyebrow, then undoing Erik’s trousers and letting that tongue slide down, leaving a wet trail until it is licking at the slit, making Erik struggle not to thrust up and get his entire cock inside that wonderful mouth. “Charles, oh God--”
“My nanny always taught me not to talk with my mouth full,” Charles says, and before Erik can swat at him, Charles’s hot, wet mouth is sliding down over Erik’s cock and Erik has to throw a sleeved arm over his mouth before he shouts and wakes Darwin from his spell. He risks a look to see Charles’s head bobbing up and down, and he almost loses it when he realises Charles is stroking himself through his trousers as well, the outline of his erection visible even in the low light of passing street lamps.
As if it can’t get any more intense, Charles is now humming and the vibrations around Erik’s cock are too much to bear, and Erik kicks off a shoe, letting his sock-covered foot rub against Charles’s thigh. The strangled moan this elicits from Charles is worth it, and Erik sighs as he lets his foot rub against the bulge in Charles’s trousers. Every stroke he manages earns yet another moan from Charles, and the fact that Charles is so noisy during sex is a fact that thrills Erik to no end and makes him eager to find out just how noisy he can get.
Now Charles is sucking harder, faster, and Erik’s hands tighten in his hair before he spurts in Charles’s mouth, and if it’s possible, the little surprised noise Charles makes turns Erik on even more. Boneless and loose, Erik musters enough energy to drag Charles up so their mouths are level again, and the kiss now is slow and languid as he tastes himself in Charles’s mouth. Charles’s belt fly off and his zipper slides down with a quick snap of the fingers, and Erik is now biting down on Charles’s neck as he reaches in to stroke Charles quick and fast, the way he likes it.
“Ah, Erik--” Charles is now biting his lip, and every time he does that, it makes Erik want to suck that luscious bottom lip into his mouth, which he does, and it muffles Charles’s wanton moans. Erik quickens his strokes, imagining what it would be like to have Charles inside him tonight, and Charles clenches his fists with a groan, his forehead pressing against Erik’s, and he comes with a shaky moan, ducking his head down to bury himself in the crook of Erik’s neck.
They lie there for as long as they dare, the sweat on Erik’s brow cooling as his heartbeat slowly returns to normal, and he fishes out a handkerchief to help Charles clean up. As they’re zipping up again, Erik can’t resist one last kiss before pulling away with a grin, and it makes Charles shake his head at him in amusement. You’re insatiable.
As they settle into a sleeping position before Charles removes the illusion from Darwin’s mind, Erik has one last thought which he throws at Charles: Maybe next time, you’d better rethink your awful pick-up lines.
Charles’s reply is still irritatingly cheerful. Not when they work. But the way his hand folds over Erik’s makes him smile anyway.