As soon as Charles draws the Papaverine out of the bottle, Erik flees to the restroom. One would think he'd be less squeamish about this part, considering the needle is metal and the process thus involves not one but two of Erik's favorite things, but no: Erik never has managed to stick around for the actual injection, not once in all these years.
Rolling his eyes, Charles finds a likely-looking spot at the base of his penis, swabs the area with an antiseptic wipe, and injects himself slowly. He recaps the needle and sets it on the bedside table, to be disposed of whenever he finds the sharps disposal container he's quite certain he packed, then calls, "It's over. You can come out now, you big baby."
Erik emerges naked from the bathroom. Charles' breath catches at the sight of him. It's not that he ever forgets how beautiful Erik is, but it's been awhile since they got to be together like this, and there's always a certain newness to it, no matter how long or how short Erik's absence.
Absence. Charles has always known how foolish he is to frame it in such a way. As if Erik's presence is the norm, when it never has been, except for a handful of months fifty years ago.
But then, they each have a brand-new ring on their finger. There will be no more absences, no more long months or years apart. Perhaps he's not so foolish, after all, but simply early.
"You're not going to cry again," Erik says dryly, as if he weren't the one who started that scene down at the Clerk's Office in the first place.
Charles rolls his eyes again. When Erik settles beside him on the bed, he reaches for him and says, "I may." They kiss. "I probably will." Erik's skin is warm under Charles' hands. Erik is solid and real and here. Erik's not going anywhere. "Almost certainly."
A few more kisses, and then Erik reaches under Charles' hand. Squeamish he may be, but he's always enjoyed this part, massaging Charles' cock to help spread the medicine around. He likes to take the credit for the results, too. For his part, Charles enjoys Erik's smugness, his satisfaction as it grows and stiffens in his hand. He enjoys Erik's anticipation, his eagerness to open himself up on Charles' cock, to ride him with such enthusiasm that he'll be able to feel it into next week.
Next week, when they're in—
"Wait." Charles pulls away, touches the back of Erik's hand to stop him. "Hold up. New Mexico? Please tell me you don't think we're moving to New Mexico."
"Aren't we?"
"Er, no. I am not moving to New Mexico. No. Whatever gave you the idea that I would?"
Erik's eyes narrow. "You went along with the rest of it."
"You never said anything about moving to New Mexico! We've had this conversation, Erik. You cannot expect me to pick up on every thought you have. If you want me to know something, you need to talk to me about it."
"Then let's talk," Erik says. "New Mexico is nice. You'd like it."
"I would not! New York City alone has four times as many people as live in New Mexico. I am not moving to a wasteland."
Erik has the nerve to look affronted at this. He's nostalgic about New Mexico, evidently. Something about living there with the Brotherhood for a few years back in the seventies. Not that it matters, since Erik's lived so many places that he's nostalgic for just about everywhere except wherever he happens to be in the present. "It would be better on your lungs."
"You know what would be better on my lungs?" Charles starts out intending to say 'being able to walk,' but stops himself just in time. He realized a few years ago that he was doing that far too often, using it as his trump card every time Erik gave him any kind of opening. It's not the way he wants to win arguments. He's been trying to control his mouth instead of letting it control him. "Flu shots. That's what. I don't have allergies, and even if I did, I am not moving out to the desert to live in some sort of underground bunker."
"We could live in a house," Erik says.
"My life is in New York. Everything I care about is in New York. My life's work is in New York. How am I supposed to manage the school if we move to New Mexico?"
From the look Erik gives him, Charles knows the answer even before Erik says, "You're going to keep working?"
Charles stares at him. For a moment, he's stunned. Then: angry, the kind of visceral anger that starts out as heat flaring up in his belly, that makes him start to shake before he can even recognize it for what it is. "I didn't realize that, by agreeing to marry you, I was agreeing to quit my job, move halfway across the country, and uproot my entire life. For what? So you could have me all to yourself? So you don't have to share me?" Erik flinches, and opens his mouth—but Charles isn't done, not when he can tell from the tenor of Erik's thoughts that that is exactly what he was after. "No. No. You're wrong to expect me to do that. You're wrong to ask. I'm not going to make my life small for you. If I'd known that was what you wanted, my answer would have been very different."
Erik snaps his mouth shut. He rises from the bed without a word, goes back into the bathroom. When he comes back out a minute later, he's dressed again. He gives Charles a cold look and heads toward the door.
"I wasn't finished," Charles says. "Where are you going?"
"Out," Erik snaps.
He slams the door behind him, leaving Charles all alone in the hotel room with an exceedingly friendly grade four erection he no longer has any use for.
*
This is the way they fight, the way they've always fought. Erik decides he doesn't like something Charles says. He walks out. (Sometimes he levitates out.) Eventually, he comes back. The first time—after Cuba—it took him five years, and he showed up on Charles' doorstep naked and bleeding. Since then, his return tends to be decidedly less dramatic, and he usually comes back within an hour or two after storming off. Still, Charles fears Erik might head back to the airport or to the nearest train station this time, and keeps tabs on his location so it won't take him by surprise if Erik does actually leave.
After his erection subsides a bit, Charles dresses and exits the hotel room as well. He's never sat around waiting for Erik in the past, and he's not about to start now. Not after that. It would be the worst thing he could do.
He goes out to dinner by himself. He tamps down his natural inclination to flirt with the waitress. To his great surprise, she doesn't try to flirt with him, either. Upon further investigation, he realizes it's because he's wearing a wedding ring, and he grins at the thought of telling Erik. Then he remembers their fight, and though there's not a thing wrong with his meal, he can barely stomach any of it.
He supposes an annulment would be rather disingenuous, considering the hundreds of times they've had sex prior to eloping. If they can't work this out, it'll have to be a divorce. Or maybe they'll stay married and see one another every month or two, the way they usually do. But Charles doesn't want to do that—then it really would be just a sheet of paper, wouldn't it? It wouldn't change anything, when it was supposed to change everything.
After dinner, he heads to the bookstore down the street, buys a book almost at random, then parks himself at the front of the store to read. Determined not to go back before Erik does, he steadfastly continues scanning over the same two pages until he senses Erik headed back. He gives it a few minutes, then heads that way himself, arriving back at their room several minutes after Erik does.
Erik's sitting on the bed, waiting for him. He's staring down at his hands. He doesn't look at Charles. He looks tired.
"Well?" Charles says when the door closes behind him.
"I'm sorry," Erik says. If Charles has learned to control his mouth on occasion, Erik has learned to apologize once every decade or so. "I shouldn't have assumed. I shouldn't have tried to—we can stay in New York."
"Thank you," Charles says. Something loosens inside; he'd been so sure Erik would refuse to budge, or that he'd go the other way entirely and suggest they move to South America.
"I don't want to move into the mansion, either," Erik continues. "I don't want to live at a school. I wouldn't like it. I want us to have a house. Something that's just ours."
"But I don't want to move at all," Charles says, a little stricken. As much as he hated the house on Graymalkin Lane during his childhood, that's how much he loves it now, after fifty years' worth of mutant adolescents have found sanctuary there. He can't imagine moving. In every daydream he's ever had of he and Erik coming together again, they've always lived there.
"I didn't realize compromise worked like that," Erik says. What makes it worse is that Charles has said the exact same thing to him on more occasions than he can remember, much less count.
Charles swallows, hard. "Right. Sorry." He looks down at his hands, then back at Erik. "How would you feel about Westchester?"
Unsurprisingly, Erik feels rather nostalgic about that possibility.
*
They end up in bed with Charles' laptop, perusing real estate listings online. Charles is primarily concerned with his commute and whether or not he knows anyone in the neighborhood, while Erik seems chiefly interested in how large the kitchen is and how run-down the house is in general. Apparently, he would like nothing more than to gut everything and rebuild the place from the inside out. As long as he can do that, he's not at all picky about what house they get.
"Really, I'm not sure whether I should condemn your destructive tendencies, or applaud the more constructive ones," Charles says. For his part, he's starting to get excited. He loves car shopping; house shopping is going to be even better. And the more he thinks about it, the less he minds the idea of a home life with Erik that is a little smaller and more intimate than what he's used to at the school.
After an hour or two, all the listings start to look the same. Erik closes the laptop, sets it aside, and kisses Charles on the neck, then the cheek, then the mouth. Charles pulls him closer, sighing into Erik's mouth with more than a little relief. They're always so close to the edge—this time he thought for sure they might have fallen over.
It's too soon for another injection, but there are other things they can do, and they're going to spend their wedding night together, the way it should be.
*
"Are you going to threaten to divorce me every time we fight?" Erik asks, a little while later.
"I didn't," Charles says, then realizes that, yes, he may have implied that earlier. "—I hope not. I'll try not to." He reaches about for a change of subject. "Say, did I mention the waitress didn't flirt with me when I went out to eat earlier? It was because of my wedding ring. Isn't that funny?"
"Good," Erik says. "Why do you think I gave you that ring?"