round 3 overflow post

[starkmodistries.livejournal.com]

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")
--- Link to the prompt
--- Text of the prompt

--- Link to the fill
OR
--- Entire text of the fill

EXAMPLE:
Prompt: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=1038472#t2038174

Charles/Erik -- Charles is a bakery owner whose most frequent customer is Erik.

Fill: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=0139482#t4502942

Charles started off the morning the same way he always did...

Comments

FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 165/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

It would be easy to catch him by the wrist, to draw Charles back in and ask him what’s wrong, but instead Erik lets him go, follows more slowly back to the living area and lets Charles gesture for him to sit on the couch. He turns on the wireless with a flick of his finger at the dial and smiles back when Charles shoots him a delighted glance. The human has never gotten over the simple pleasure he gets from Erik’s power, the edge of it never dulled despite all the little ways Erik uses it every day for the most banal of tasks. It’s made him think about it - more than ever before - as a gift rather than a tool, as something to enjoy instead of just something he uses to further his plans, for workaday and ordinary purposes. It’s easier to find it wondrous when Charles’ eyes are shining with guileless enjoyment of Erik’s abilities.

Charles reaches for the chess set, ready to drag the table it’s set up on close enough to the couch for a game, but Erik shakes his head, leans back into the cushions and lays his legs out long in front of him, barefooted and relaxing slowly. “Not tonight, if you don’t mind. There’s going to be quite enough strategising and calculated movements tomorrow.” He sighs, inhales again slow and steady until his chest is taut and full of air before releasing it. The lessening of tension feels good, too. “Can’t we just sit?”

“What do you think I do all day?” Charles asks, but he comes over to sit beside Erik obligingly enough, before twisting around to lay his head down in Erik’s lap, stretching out along the length of the couch. His head is a welcome weight on Erik’s thigh, which fits into the curve of Charles’ neck as his eyes focus up at the ceiling, fingers lacing together over his belly. “Are you worried? About tomorrow?”

“It’s not been a popular decision, letting them come.” Erik moves his hand to stroke Charles’ hair slowly, lets Charles take his free hand and pull it down to rest with his on his sternum, tracing the valleys between Erik’s fingers and the callused rises of his knuckles, the roughness of a life spent putting them to good use.

“Hmm.” Charles turns their hands over, draws abstract patterns in Erik’s palm with his nails, a soothing scratching feeling like the nib of a pen. “Well, I think you’ve reached a point where they seem determined not to like anything you do, so you might as well just do what you feel is necessary and wait for them to calm down. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but wait for people to stop winding themselves up and get bored of it. It’s not elegant, but there you go.”

Erik snorts, lets his eyes slide shut so he can concentrate more fully on the sensations in his hands, one soft, one sharp. “You make them sound like toddlers.”

“It worked with you,” Charles says, and laughs when Erik cracks one eye open to give him a shirty look, turns his face into Erik’s stomach and rests it there, the firm line of his nose brushing against the fold of Erik’s hip and groin, the curl at the corner or his mouth still clearly visible. “There’s no point in worrying, Erik. All it accomplishes is tiring you out and making you too stressed to deal as well with the situation as you would if you didn’t bother. It’s always better to stay calm and in control, that’s when you can look for ways to reach the best possible outcome.”

“Is that what you do?” Erik wends his fingers around the back of Charles’ ear where he knows the skin is tender and sensitive, strokes back and forth in the valley between the shell of Charles’ ear and his scalp.

The only answer he gets is a hum of approval, and it’s hard to tell if Charles is genuinely nodding off or just avoiding the question, because his eyes are closed and his expression is hidden in Erik’s shirt, but the smile from before has loosened, lost its depth.

“Don’t worry about me,” Erik says, and bends awkwardly to press his lips to Charles’ temple, smooths back the hair there and breathes in, out, before sitting upright again. It’s too uncomfortable to stay furled up tight like that for long, an awkward C-shape around Charles. “I’ll have Raven with me, she could scare anyone into submission. And you can watch it all on television.”