Charles is at his desk, working late again. He doesn't realize Erik is there until his office window snicks open and the man himself floats in, accompanied by a chilly November draft.
"Erik," Charles says, not a little chagrined that he let himself be snuck up on. "Hello. What are you doing here?"
Not that it's not obvious. If Erik shows up at the crack of dawn, he wants to spirit Charles away for a few days or a week; if it's the middle of the night, he's expecting a quickie.
Turning back to the stacks of ungraded papers on his desk, he adds, "I can't tonight. I'm not in the mood. And I haven't showered. And I have a headache. Anyway, I'm very busy."
"I can see that," Erik says. "You're up late."
Charles glances at the clock on the wall. He thought it was around midnight, but it's actually closer to two. Fantastic. "I have a lot of work to catch up on."
Erik doesn't take the hint. Instead of leaving, he closes the window, cutting off the draft. "You look like shit." That's easy for him to say; where Charles has lost all his hair and grown a bit top-heavy over the years, Erik has remained lean and elegant, his silver hair just as thick now as it ever was when he was younger. "Are you sick?"
"No," Charles says, which is true so far as it goes, even if he has spent the past several days half-convinced he feels another urinary tract infection coming on. At least the bottle of cranberry juice he's been working on all day made it into the trash before Erik showed up. "Just busy. Swamped, really." He pulls a tissue out of the box of Kleenex on his desk and drops it into the trashcan. As a cover-up, it's perhaps a bit more obvious than most, but it'll have to do. "To tell you the truth, this month has been completely hellish."
Erik doesn't ask, not in so many words, but he comes up behind Charles and lays his gloves down on the desk, then places his thankfully warm hands on Charles' shoulders. He doesn't comment on how tense they are, but Charles still imagines he can feel Erik's frown deepening as he begins to massage Charles' neck and shoulders.
"We've lost three teachers in the past month," Charles continues, taking Erik's silence as a request to go on. "Well, technically two, I suppose. The first of the three is on a leave of absence to look after her mother, who had a stroke last month. I have no idea when she'll be coming back to work.
"Out of the other two, I had to fire the one for coming to class drunk—repeatedly. You know, that's the first time I've ever had to let anyone go? It was awful. He cried." Charles might have cried, if he'd been even slightly less angry at the time. But then again, maybe he wouldn't have; he lost patience for those sort of tears by the time he was thirteen. "But it had to be done.
"As for the third, he dropped dead of a heart attack. Also in class." That was two weeks ago. Charles has spent so much time counseling traumatized teenagers since then that he's hardly had the opportunity to process it for himself. He feels like he should probably emphasize that so he doesn't come off as callous, but he's too tired to bother. Anyway, this is Erik. "So, yes. We're down three teachers, and all their classes need to be covered until I can hire replacements. I have double the class load I had a month ago."
Erik's hands still for a second, then continue to work the knots out of Charles' shoulders. "You can't get someone else to teach the extra classes?"
"No." Charles sighs, leans his head forward into his hands. He closes his eyes, partly so he can better focus on what Erik's hands are doing, but partly because he really does have a headache, a dull, throbbing thing he can no longer seem to ignore. "Believe me, everyone else is doing what they can. I'm not going to try to push anyone into doing more. The last thing I need is for people to start quitting on me." When Erik makes a scoffing sound, Charles adds, "They're my employees, Erik, not my minions." It's a point he's had to make a few times over the years. Their management styles are different, to say the least. Teachers tend to stay on here until retirement, whereas the Brotherhood has a turnover rate comparable to McDonalds.
"Anyway," Charles continues, "in addition to that, I also have to hire two new teachers. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find anyone who's not only qualified to teach and good at it, but suitable to interact with mutant youth? The phrase 'needle in a haystack' comes to mind. It's the worst time of year to be looking, too. Almost everyone worth hiring already has a job, but I still spend every free moment of my day sifting through applications and making phone calls. I have never gotten the hang of that. I hate phones. What the hell is someone's voice supposed to tell me? For that matter, what is someone's resume supposed to tell me? Someone's references? People lie all the time. I have no hope of telling for certain unless I have access to their mind—but for that I need to figure out from everything else who's worth inviting here for an interview."
It's only when he gets to the end of this that he realizes how much louder and shriller he's gotten over the course of it. "At any rate, so that's what I've been dealing with for the past few weeks. It's been rather stressful. Obviously."
Charles stops talking. It takes Erik a minute to speak, his fingers still working out the knots in Charles' shoulders. "When's the last time you ate?"
"Ah," Charles says. "I had a bagel this morning."
It's half true. He did indeed eat a bagel, sometime in recent memory. He's just not sure if it was this morning, last night, yesterday morning...feeding himself is one of those things that tends fall by the wayside as soon as he gets busy.
"You need to eat," Erik says. There's a note of accusation in his voice, not quite enough to bristle at. "You need to sleep. You should take better care of yourself."
Erik's scolding him, Charles realizes. He's scolded Erik often enough over the past few decades, every time he comes here with new and alarming scars; he can't remember the last time Erik scolded him that didn't have to do with Why You Are Wrong, Charles, about this political stance or that one. He's not exactly the fussing type.
"Yes, well. I have a lot to do. As I just explained at some length."
"It's late. You need to go to bed," Erik says, far more of an order than a suggestion.
"No," Charles says, though in truth there's nothing he'd rather do than go to bed and sleep for twenty hours or so; he's been running on four hours a night for weeks. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but no. I need to finish grading these essays before I can do anything else."
"Essays."
"That's what I said, yes."
"You can't just give everyone an A for turning in the work? You've done it before."
Yes, Charles has done it before, generally on occasions when he's in a hurry to leave with Erik for somewhere else, or when they're already somewhere else and he's in a hurry to drag Erik back into bed. "These are a little too important to do that."
They are, in fact, worth twenty percent of the students' grade for the semester. They're also written in French, which has never been Charles' strong suit.
"Then they're too important to grade when you can barely keep your eyes open," Erik says, sounding smug because he's right and knows it. It's the same way he always sounds when he's wrong and thinks he's right, but in this case he's probably right.
Charles can't remember anything about the essay he was in the middle of grading when Erik showed up. It's possible, even likely, that he'd been staring at it blankly for a while before that. Knowing he'd have to start reading it all over again is what ultimately pushes him into agreeing. "Yes, fine. Have it your way. I'll go to bed."
So saying, he pushes himself back from his desk.
Erik lets go of his shoulders and steps back, frowning at him. "Aren't you going to eat something first?"
"No," Charles says. "I really don't feel all that hungry."
It's true. He probably should be, but he stopped feeling hungry some time ago. The thought of eating actually makes him feel slightly nauseated; the thought of making a detour all the way down to the kitchen makes him want to cry.
Erik frowns further. "Go," he says. "I'll be up in a few minutes."
He sweeps out of the room ahead of Charles, turning right toward the kitchen instead of left toward the elevator. Charles can guess what he's doing. He only hopes no one else wants a midnight snack while Erik's in there. He doesn't have the wherewithal to deal with histrionics at the moment.
By the time Charles gets out of his bathroom, having spent half his time in there dithering over whether or not his urine looks cloudy (he comes to the conclusion that he's going to call his doctor as soon as the office opens tomorrow; if he's not sick yet, he can tell he's getting there, and better to head this off at the pass), Erik still isn't back. No one seems to have raised any alarms, so Charles gives a mental shrug, undresses, and gets into bed. He props himself up against the headboard to wait, arranges his blankets to his liking, and heroically manages to keep his eyes open for the next few minutes.
Erik shows up eventually, carrying a large, steaming mug in both his hands. Charles didn't realize he owned a mug like that, more like a bowl except for the handle on one side.
"Took you long enough. Did you get lost?" Charles asks.
"Yes."
"Oh."
Erik crosses the room and hands the mug to Charles. "Careful. It's hot."
Charles didn't realize how cold his hands were until they started being warmed by the mug. It makes a shiver pass through his entire body, and he just sits there holding it for a minute or two. It's obviously chicken soup, but then he takes a closer look at it and says, "Is this Campbell's?"
Erik gives him a flat look. "If I'd known you were starving yourself, I'd have brought something better with me."
"I wasn't criticizing. Calm down." Charles looks at it for a few moments more, then blows on the surface of the soup and lifts the mug to his lips. The first sip makes his stomach turn, as does the second. The third sip, however, tastes like food, as though his taste buds have conferences with his stomach and come to the conclusion that he's allowed to be hungry again.
"Not too fast," Erik murmurs. He pulls off his shoes and climbs into bed, insinuating himself under the covers while Charles is otherwise occupied. When Charles has drained most of the liquid, Erik hands him a spoon.
As Charles eats, his headache recedes a bit, though not entirely. When it's half as bad as it was, he can reach out with his telepathy without causing himself additional pain. He does so without really thinking about it, out of habit, and the first thing he touches on is Erik's concern for him. He should have realized that it was there behind the gruffness, but though he would have known if he'd given it any consideration, he didn't think about it at all prior to being hit in the face with it telepathically.
He's never figured out why concern from other people is so much more difficult to handle than annoyance or curtness, and spends several minutes longer than necessary sifting through the last dregs of the soup. He doesn't look at Erik, can't; he needs to compose himself, and bursting into tears would not help with that.
When he does manage to finish, he sets the mug on his bedside table, then says, simply, "Thank you, Erik."
"You're welcome. Go to sleep."
Charles pulls his alarm clock toward him. It's nearly three, now. After some thought, he sets it for seven rather than five; two hours of sleep won't do him any good at all. Recent experience has proven that isn't all that much better, but he really can't sleep any later, considering his first class starts at 8:05.
Though Erik frowns at him after he puts the clock back, he doesn't say anything. Charles more than half expected an argument, but he's glad not to have to fight about it. The more time he spends fighting about how late he sets the alarm, the less time he'll have to actually sleep.
Once he's lying on his side and in a relatively good sleeping position that won't kill his back, he says, "Would you turn the light off on your way out?"
This isn't one of the times he left the light on on purpose just so he could see Erik do something small and harmless with his gift, so although Erik mutters something and the lights go off, Charles misses out on the part with the hand gesture. He's always liked that part.
He's still waiting for the sound of the window or door opening when Erik comes up behind him and drapes his arm over Charles' middle. His front is warm against Charles' back, and although waking up in the morning to find Erik gone is always worse than having watched him go in the middle of the night, Charles can't regret that he's still here now.
For the first few minutes, Charles lies there awake, no longer feeling the least bit sleepy. This lasts long enough that he starts to worry he's not going to manage to get to sleep after all; that he'll lie here like this for the next four hours, counting minutes and continuously calculating how much sleep he would get if he fell asleep right now.
*
Charles wakes up slowly, which is strange for a weekday. His alarm clock is loud and obnoxious by design, meant to wake him up brutally so he's less tempted to hit snooze twenty times before getting up.
It's much too bright for seven in the morning, and when he glances at his alarm clock, the display reads 1:06 pm in accusing red numerals. He's been asleep for ten hours, and missed all his morning classes. He's currently in the middle of missing his second class of the afternoon.
Although part of Charles is panicking about how he's going to have to play catch up on Monday, there's a greater part of him sighing in relief. He's been dreading his classes lately in a way he never has before; he loves teaching, but not like this. He hates this. Things can't go back to normal quickly enough for him. Maybe, instead of rushing to catch his last class of the day, he'll put in some more time on the phone instead. The sooner he hires new people, the sooner things will get better.
He pushes himself up in bed. The other side of the bed is empty, as expected. The shower's running in the bathroom, which isn't.
Erik doesn't stay overnight. He certainly doesn't stay long enough to shower in the morning, let alone in the afternoon; he's been to the house in the light of day only a handful of times over the past fifty years. And yet, as Charles transfers over to his chair, the shower turns off and Erik emerges from the bathroom naked and toweling his hair.
"Good afternoon, Charles," he says, smug.
"Good afternoon yourself," Charles says. "My alarm didn't go off. I'm sure you know all about it."
"Do I."
"You are insufferable." Before Erik can respond with 'Am I,' Charles adds, "Get out of the way. I need the bathroom."
The bathroom's full of steam even with the exhaust fan running, but Charles closes the door behind him anyway, though he'd normally leave it open. He brushes his teeth, uses the toilet, and takes a shower himself, frowning at how Erik's already gotten everything wet.
By the time he makes it back out, breakfast has appeared on his bedside table in the form of scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage links, and a glass of orange juice. Erik is sitting in the armchair beside the bed eating his own stack of pancakes, which as usual are coated so liberally with maple syrup that Charles feels ill just looking at them.
Just seeing all that food makes Charles realize he's ravenous. He doesn't even try to carry on a conversation while he's eating. When he finally surfaces, he says, "I appreciate this." He's not actually sure he appreciates Erik turning his alarm off, but he can't deny he feels more rested than he has in weeks. "Thank you."
He tries to think of a diplomatic way to say, 'I love you, but what I really need is for you to go away and stop distracting me so I can get some work done,' but before he can, Erik says, "Is there anything else I can do?"
"Not unless you'd like to grade those French essays for me," Charles says reflexively, more to get Erik's goat than anything, though he really does wish someone else would take on those essays for him.
Instead of acting annoyed, Erik looks thoughtful. "What's involved?"
Charles may not have Erik's willingness to dump every single little thing he doesn't want to do on other people who have enough on their plates already, but he's more than willing to delegate when there's an offer on the table. "I've been marking up spelling and grammar. That's about it, as long as they make sense and don't read like they've been run through Google Translate. It should be easy, for you."
*
Charles brings the French papers back to his room for Erik to grade, then heads back to his office and spends several hours making phone calls. By the time he's done, he has one interview lined up for this weekend, a handful more for early December. He's not sure how likely it is to come to anything, but at least it's done.
When he gets back to his room, Erik's near the bottom of the pile of French essays, which is promising. Charles will glance back over them later, but as long as Erik didn't get sidetracked by writing rejoinders to students' opinions, there shouldn't be a problem.
Later, Charles will probably be haunted by the memory of Erik marking up papers in bed with his reading glasses on, but for now he has far too much to do to get maudlin about it. At any rate, he has already decided to tell Erik to visit again over Thanksgiving next week, in addition to whisking him off to Miami over winter break the way he's already not-so-quietly planning to do.
"Do you know my birthday?" Charles asks after a moment.
"—It's not today," Erik says, giving Charles a flat look even as his mind scrambles to figure out how Charles' birthday in May relates to anything in November, and whether or not Charles expected a gift.
Charles laughs. "It wasn't a trick question. I was just wondering if you'd be willing to pick something up for me..."
Later, after Erik returns with a bag from CVS Pharmacy with a course of antibiotics in it, plus a few other things from a few other stores Charles has been meaning to get to for a while, Charles finds himself thinking how nice it is to have someone else running his errands. Maybe he really should consider hiring a personal assistant. Hank's been trying to talk him into it for years now, but he's been dragging his feet up until now. The rigamarole of hiring one has always seemed like too much work, even if it would lead to less work over the long run.
"That sounds like a good idea," Erik says when Charles mentions it to him, skipping the obvious minion joke in favor of saying, "You should come back to bed. You need more sleep."
It's not that late. Charles has plenty left to do; the less time he spends on it today, the more he'll have to do later. On the other hand, there's nothing he could do tonight that can't wait until tomorrow, and despite sleeping for ten hours last night, he's more than ready to get back into bed and sleep for ten more.
"Well, all right," Charles says, knowing he's making the right decision by virtue of the relief he feels at agreeing. "I suppose I could."