and there is blood dripping on the front page

Wednesday

After the fighting trio left the next day, Erik, having gained some courage, sits beside his new mutant friend. Strictly on the back of the bench.

Charles squints, then manages to say: "I appreciate your interest in talking to me, but we've been doing that in the lunch breaks these last couple of days, and I'm slightly behind with my studies..."

Erik smiles. He thinks: not that you couldn't catch up in ten minutes. He says: "Study then."

This time, it's a comfortable silence. Erik, between two puffs of his cigarette, watches with a soft look as Charles browses through pages, scribbles comments on the margins or his messy notebook, and every now and then mumbles some words with confusion that make little to no sense to Erik.

Suddenly, the realization strikes Erik with overwhelming force that somehow, for some reason, at some point (with his nose in a book? with his fingers on his forehead? ridiculously jumping around puddles?) he fell in love with this guy. Closely followed by this, fear strikes him too because Charles might be hearing this, so he desperately tries to find something, anything, that can replace this realization.

"Do you understand my thoughts in German?"

Charles is still deep in his reading.

Erik clears his throat. "Charles?"

The boy jerks his head up. "Yes, dear?"

His heart dumbly skips a beat.

"Do you understand my thoughts in German too?"

"Sadly I don't understand them in any other languages. However, instead of concrete words, thoughts are often visualized as pictures, symbols, feelings..."

Erik grins. Just to tease the boy, he thinks as hard as he can that he's going to have only German words in his mind from now on. Charles raises an eyebrow, and Erik feels like he's seeing right through him.

The boy asks, batting his long lashes theatrically: "What could you possibly have to hide?"

"Nothing from you, honey."

With a raised brow, Charles stands his glare for a while (he could simply drown in those ocean blue eyes any time), then he looks back at his book and sighs.

"I think that's enough studying for one day." He glances at his watch, then up at Erik. "What do you think about chess?"

So it happens that Charles pulls out the board which miraculously fit in his bag, and they start a game.

"I've only played alone until now," admits Charles at some point. His voice sounds gloomy.

Erik looks at the boy who is eyeing the board and chewing his lip, and he goes soft. He wants to reply with something kind.

"I hope I'm a worthy opponent," he says at last, and he feels he didn't succeed.

Charles downright glows at him. "I don't consider you an opponent."

Or maybe he did succeed.