my loathsome lover (cherik fanfic)

chapter 5

"Seems like there's always someone who disapproves,
they'll judge it like they know about me and you,
and the verdict comes from those with nothing else to do,
The jury's out, and my choice is you..." (taylor swift, ours)

Erik woke up later than usually, glancing at the clock - 10:30 a.m. Suddenly he jumped out of bed, only to realise that it wasn't even his room he was sleeping in. Then he heard a noise coming from the bathroom as the door opened.

"Oh, you're finally up," Charles commented slightly amused. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

The metal bender was still pretty confused about what was going on and therefore sat back down on the bed. He also feared that he might faint or possibly even puke from the hungover if he moved too quickly, since he was already starting to feel dizzy. "What," he mumbled. Right now he didn't even remember how he ended up sleeping in Charles' room, but he was trying very hard to remember.

"We may have had a little bit too much to drink last night. I suppose that means our 20s are officially over," he chuckled. They wanted to prove to each other who was the better drinker. Let's just say: it was neither one of them. "Anyway, I convinced you to stay here and sleep in the bed, while I slept on the couch."

Erik started nodding - some of the events of last night were slowly coming back to him. Charles on the other hand remembered everything with fine detail due to his abnormally strong mind, but he assumed Erik would rather never speak of it again, so he intended to keep quiet about it.

"I figured you might join us for breakfast, since you missed your usual time," Charles offered with a smile. One of the reasons why Erik got up so early in the morning on every other day was to eat breakfast in peace and not encounter anyone else. He didn't really mind being alone - or maybe he just got used to it by now.

Charles wanted everyone else to see a different side to Erik, but that was difficult to achieve, when the man purposefully tried to isolate himself from the group. Now the thought of having to attend breakfast and actually interact with others gave him even more of a headache. "Do I really have t-," he complained in protest as something from last night replayed in his mind and he suddenly stopped talking.

He was horrifyingly intoxicated and kept asking Charles one question - 'I can't get it out of my head. What were you so distracted by during chess when we were talking about Peter?' He never would have answered honestly if it weren't for the alcohol in his system. 'You remember when you said that I rejected you on Cuba? I can't help but wonder what you meant.' The same thing applied to Erik, so the man just straight up answered truthfully. 'I wanted us to be together - like actually together - and you refused.' Thankfully he passed out shortly after that, before he could embarrass himself any further, and Charles forced him to stay in bed for the rest of the night.

Of course the telepath knew what was happening right now, although he didn't quite know how to respond to it, so he went with the safe option: "Forget this ever happened." The man always assumed his romantic advances would be rejected, especially from his life-long frenemy.

Erik needed a little bit longer to process everything and put 2+2 together, until he finally spoke up again. "No, no, you're not getting out of this now, my friend. What were you going to say? I want to know what you would have said if I didn't pass out."

"I was going to say-" that I should have said yes. Knowing what Erik said last night he felt more confident in saying the things he wanted to say, especially since the metal bender apparently didn't want to pretend like nothing ever happened - which was also fine by him.