Erik meets Charles at a party. They're both really drunk, and Charles, for some reason, is trying to pick people up by loudly declaring that he enjoys sex. Telepathy is not sex, he tells everyone who will listen, which is pretty much no one except for Erik (possibly because other people's keys keep getting really inexplicably hot in their pockets whenever they get too close to Charles. Not that Erik would know anything about that. What do all these other drunk people need with car keys, anyway? If he were doing anything to them, it would be a public service). A telepathy fetish isn't sex, either, says Charles. He doesn't want to be inside someone's head amplifying and sharing the sensation as they wank themselves off; he wants to be wanking them off himself. He doesn't want to fuck on the astral plane; really, he prefers to do that in a bed. Or on a couch. Or in his chair. Really, he's not picky.
'I like sex too,' may not be Erik's best line ever—it's worse than most of his—as he'll come to learn, it's worse than most of Charles'—but it does get Charles to take notice.
Unfortunately, mutual noticing is all that really happens that first night. By the time Erik gets home from Waffle House after the party, he's exhausted and he's had way too much coffee. He's also starting to get way too sober to deal with his headache or to be happy about the fact that it's getting light out or that he's not going to be able to sleep for another three or four hours—but considering he's also got Charles' number programmed into his phone, he's grimly determined to count it as a win.
***
They go on a few dates, but don't actually manage to have sex on any of them for awhile. Erik would feel weird about that, because he usually has sex with some guy whose name he doesn't know and then never sees him again, but, well, he already knows Charles' name and has already seen him twice by the first time they don't have sex on a date, so the weirdness goes deep enough that it's not really all that weird that they don't then.
They do make out, always, after dinner or a movie, or dinner and a movie, or deciding to skip both of those in order to argue over the news before heading to the couch. Charles' couch is a lot more comfortable than anything Erik's ever owned, and they spend massive amounts of time making use of it. Charles may have been lying about liking sex—since they haven't had it yet, what else is Erik supposed to think—but he wasn't lying about liking physical touching more than telepathy. He keeps that reined in the whole time, or at least Erik never notices him using it, but he doesn't exactly keep his hands reined in. Well, he does, since they mostly stay above the waist, but they're also mostly under Erik's shirt, stroking up and down his back gently during those long, agonizing kissing sessions.
Erik's not really sure how far he's supposed to go, so he sticks to the basic stuff. Kissing Charles' mouth. Sucking on his neck. That kind of thing. He doesn't even really think about Charles' ears, not until their fifth or sixth time on that couch, when he nuzzles Charles' ear on the way over to his neck, and Charles says, "Really?"
A few seconds later—he's sort of on a time delay when he's this turned on, especially when he's spending a lot of mental energy on trying to keep from humping Charles' leg with his really embarrassingly obvious boner, which he figures Charles would probably notice whether or not he has sensation on that particular part of his thigh—Erik says, "Uh. What?"
"Don't play with my ears unless you're serious about it," Charles says, sounding affronted. "You keep doing that, and it's driving me crazy. You're such an—ear tease. I'm serious. Don't you dare laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing," Erik says, and he's not. No, he's planning. Thinking on his feet is what he's good at, and he waits for Charles to relax and start kissing him back before he nuzzles him again, this time just below his ear.
This time, Erik knows what he's aiming for, and Charles' ears are his main target, not just a random something on the way to something else. This time, he's teasing on purpose when he nuzzles or nibbles Charles' ear and pulls away. Charles doesn't stop him, doesn't tell him to stop, doesn't say anything about it at all; and the harsher Charles' breathing gets, the slower his hands move on Erik's back, and by the time Erik's sucking on his earlobe seriously, Charles isn't even trying to do anything more than hold onto him.
The harder Erik sucks Charles' ear, the more he uses his teeth, the harsher and louder Charles' breathing gets, until he goes rigid underneath him, then sags bonelessly into the couch.
"Okay, okay, that's enough. You can stop," Charles says, and Erik lets go of his ear, which is now really red, shiny with Erik's spit. "Give me a second, would you?"
Erik's even slower now, all of his attention narrowed down to his erection. It's throbbing, he's so hard it hurts, there's no way it's going to go away if he thinks about it hard enough, but that's okay, because as soon as Charles' breathing slows down a little, he reaches for Erik's belt buckle. Erik's so distracted he forgets to help with that even though his belt has a metal tip, but by the time Charles' hands go to his fly, he's paying enough attention for his zipper to go down by itself.
"What should I be doing?" Charles asks, and there's not much question of what he means, considering he's pulling Erik's underwear out of the way, then shoving pants and underwear down as he says it.
"I told you before, I like sex," Erik says, and Charles laughs, a little breathless still, as he wraps his fingers around Erik's cock. His hand is dry and warm, and very real.