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 172/?

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” Charles says disapprovingly when he catches sight of the pie in Erik’s hand, but it’s half-hearted at best. He tests his hands, finds he can move them again, and unfolds from the chair to go to the kitchen, stretching his arms up high above his head as he goes to fetch them a couple of forks from the top drawer. After a moment of consideration he pours two tall glasses of milk and brings those, too, pads barefoot across the wooden floor to Erik’s side.

Erik puts the bowl down on the table with a soft clink of china. “It won’t be as good if we reheat it.” He takes his glass from Charles and reaches up with his other hand to loosen his collar, undoing the hook at the top that keeps it close to his throat, high and formal. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

The twist of Charles’ mouth is wry and knowing, self-mockery in the dimpling of his cheek. “Who would I tell?” he asks, and sits down, dragging his chair in toward the table with a scrape of wood on wood that makes Erik’s teeth ache.

It’s awful.

Even after five years, Charles still cannot stop prodding at their situation, like a tongue in the gap where a missing tooth once sat, probing at the empty socket. For Erik it’s more like being stabbed in an old wound, a knife that has been left there twisted once again by a hand that cannot leave well enough alone. He winces around his first mouthful of pie, but when Charles glances up at him with a questioning raise of his eyebrows Erik only says, “It’s hot.”

“Liar.” Charles scoops up a thick glob of custard onto his fork, closing his mouth around it and letting his eyes slide shut with a rapturous groan. “God, I’ve missed custard. Did you get a new cook?”

It’s an easy out, one Charles has practically handed him, and Erik pauses for a long moment, torn between letting it slide and not letting it go. He drags a hand back through his hair, resists the urge to pull. Maybe it’s time to revisit the reasons why Charles has to stay here, because even though Charles knows them, agrees with them - or says he does - sometimes the human finds it hard to think rationally about it, and that’s when he gets restless, starts asking and asking and asking again, pushing at the boundaries in ways that can only get him killed. Erik does understand, he does, but he’s only one man, and after five years -

After five years, Erik is tired, and just for once he wants to eat his pie and not think about Charles being unhappy about being here with him.

“I don’t know,” he settles on, finally, slumping down in his chair once the silence has become awkward and even Charles with his steady, unflinching gaze has glanced back down at the table. “I brought the latest Annal of Genetics for you.”

Beast had dropped the journal off with Rogue earlier while Erik was in meetings. There are two papers in this month’s edition that he thinks Charles might be interested in, and a third has used his work - without his name attached, but then Beast has always declined to use his own, either, instead publishing it as a joint project of the ‘Mutant Genetics Research Team’. He’s been looking forward to giving it to Charles all day.

He wants, more than anything, for Charles to be happy.

“Oh! Hand it over, then,” and the moment breaks as Charles makes a grabby gesture at him with his free hand, filling his fork again with the other and shovelling pie into his mouth as though the two are mutually exclusive. “I want to see if anyone called out Gorodovsky on his blatant misappropriation of Werner’s theory.”

“Exciting,” Erik says, dry and amused, suddenly, wonderfully. There’s a great wash of relief he cannot quite hide as he passes the glossy journal into Charles’ waiting hand; he’s sure it shows on his face, but Charles isn’t looking.