Chapter Text
“Tell me the problem’s solved or you’ll regret it, Summers.”
Summers cringed. Erik was late, but incompetency reflected badly upon him and there was a deadline, Friday night or not. A Stark contract did not come easily. Potts worked on weekends. He looked at the window at the late afternoon sky, sighed, and texted his new ETA.
He arrived almost two hours later than they had planned. He didn’t make it before sunset which had the quality of light they wanted, but Charles took one look at him and asked, “Dinner first? Or later?”
“You’re going to feed me before I get my clothes off?” Erik took off his jacket. “I seem to remember you worrying about me gaining weight.”
“That was almost twenty years ago,” Charles muttered as he headed toward the sideboard instead. “Heroine chic was in.”
“Yes, how could I forget the drug references,” Erik said, stepping out of his shoes then started unknotting his tie. “I had a late lunch. I’m not going to faint on you.” He unbuttoned his shirt and then his trousers before hanging them up. His robe was on its usual hook, but the loft was up and it was warm tonight. In bare feet, he stepped carefully over the paint supplies. Charles’ living room was his studio. He had another apartment on Park Avenue where there were actual couches and a kitchen big enough for a team of caterers, but the loft was where he painted and lived most of the time and where Erik saw him most often.
“Will you fall asleep if I ask you to lie down?” Charles asked. He had poured two glasses of wine. He handed one to Erik than swept his eyes warmly down Erik’s nude body. And Erik couldn’t help it, he preened under the gaze, as he had when he first came to New York, one of the innumerable wide-eyed young graduates seeking their fortunes while crammed four to a tiny apartment when Charles, native New Yorker, though slightly younger, was already rich and well-connected, a promising artist facing his first major creative crisis.
Erik laid back against the strategically placed cushions on the rolling wooden platform with its moving blocks while Charles moved around him, adjusting the lamps. Erik turned his head and tugged a silky bit of fabric further down his thigh before Charles could suggest it. It might seem that the long partnership had engendered a sort of telepathy but in truth, Erik thought it must’ve always been there for them to work as well as they do.
He looked up at Charles biting his lip as he fiddled with a tricky bit of lighting mechanism above him. Charles was still handsome, even if his hair was a little gray. The years had only improved his looks- his slender face was less elfin while his eyes were still that clear impossible blue, his mouth vibrant and red.
More importantly, Charles was not the young man who criticized cultural aesthetics by depicting them- the hypocrisy of the art world continued to amaze Erik. Charles, when Erik had met him, had been earning his accolades, rather, selling his paintings by how he came across—an English Snow White from an old New York family— as much as by his art.
Yes, Charles F. Xavier, twenty years later, had improved, an improvement Erik noted with some satisfaction that Erik initiated. They had met on that proverbial dark and stormy night with a plot that proved more promising than a trite beginning. Erik had been illicitly lighting a cigarette- a habit he had picked up to stave off the need for meals, staring through the glass at one of the many small galleries in New York. Something about one of those paintings seemed to speak inside his mind, reminding him of home-
Then Charles Xavier had turned and stared at him through the glass, shocked and delighted all at once. He had come running out, dragging Erik in from the pouring rain.
“I can’t believe you’re real,” he had started babbling, “I was looking for you,” then offered a thousand dollars then and there for Erik to do a sitting of a portrait for him. Erik remembered a rather surreal conversation with Charles about what a “sitting” meant and taking his wet shirt off while Charles sat cross-legged on the floor and began sketching. Charles’ agent, Moira MacTaggert, had looked so incredulous at the development that she hadn’t even stopped Charles; she did, however, drew out few condoms from her purse before leaving with a rather amused gallery owner.
Of course, she liked the result. Apparently Charles had been agitating about going into the sciences and never picking up another paintbrush until Erik’s timely presence. Over the years, Moira and Erik had developed, if not a friendly relationship, at least an understanding that worked to their mutual benefit.
It probably should seem strange that Erik had a longer and more amiable understanding with a woman who thought he was rentboy when they first met than any of his ex-wives. Just as well he didn’t have kids. Magda had ignored him completely when he saw her last time at a conference.
“Is Moira back yet?” Erik asked. “I can’t believe she’s leaving you alone for so long.”
“She’s busy putting together the exhibit and probably looking for another young talent to nurture.” Erik snorted. Charles continued from behind his canvas. “Can’t exactly stop her now that I’m going over the pond after this show. She mentioned someone named Dane. Moira told me she intends to do everything perfect this time and not repeat the mistakes she made with me, though she did say that she was glad I never dyed my hair green.”
“You’re perfect,” Erik said. “I can’t imagine a better career.”
“Wouldn’t have been without you,” Charles said. “My world would’ve been entirely different if you hadn’t showed up. Actually, I think I would’ve thought much less of the world. You’re all about possibilities. So when am I getting my hovercar?”
“When the roads are magnetized and Summers gets a firmer grasp of physics. How do I look?” Erik asked. An hour had passed, he really wanted to stretch out his left leg.
Some artists wanted their sitters silent, but Erik had only sat for Charles. An early attempt by another artist to engage his services had ended badly- a bloody nose and threats of a lawsuit that never materialized when Erik had showed up at Charles’ place with bruised knuckles. Then Erik learned just how powerful an ally he had made in being Charles F. Xavier’s muse and more importantly, his friend. Sebastian Shaw never had another exhibit on the eastern seaboard.
“Never more beautiful, darling,” Charles answered over his canvas. “Relax now, I’m just doing your shoulder. I know you’ve your Stark presentation planned sometime that week but you’ll come, right?”
“When have I ever missed one of your openings? Though I still think Days of Future Past is somewhat a ridiculous title. I know we came up with it, but more than three bottles of red wine also had their imput.”
“Moira said Logan liked the idea of an edgier sounding sort of retrospective. Just don’t without sleep for three days just so you can make your deadline and make it for mine.”
“I’ve minions now, Charles. They’ll be the ones going without sleep while I attend.”
“If you fall face-forward into punch again, I’ll claim I don’t know you.”
“A bit difficult, as you seemed to have designed the show around me.”
Charles had moved as he painted. Erik could now see his smile, the mouth soft and graceful. If Erik had more poetic inclinations, he would’ve written odes. It always seemed a pity to Erik that he couldn’t draw to save his life. Lehnsherr enterprise’s precision engineering blueprints mostly had designs originated from his hand, but Erik had never been able to find a mathematical function that would be able to describe the curve of Charles’ mouth or his brow. No photograph could capture Charles’ genius or talent.
Some things only lay in the realm of art.
After dinner, Erik and Charles fell asleep while talking. He startled awake when the front door opened but it was only Raven.
“Why are you here?” she asked, surveying the scene. She had on makeup that glowed in the dark.
“What does it look like?” Erik hissed, wishing he had worn a robe over pants and t-shirt. “What are you doing here?”
Raven retreated and took something from Charles’ desk. “My plus one invite,” she said, then disappeared out of the door again.
Erik squinted at the bright screen of his cell phone. The traffic should be mostly gone by now.
He shook Charles awake. “Charles, I’m leaving. You need to get to bed. Raven came and took an invite.”
“Yes.” Charles replied fuzzily, fitting his cheek into Erik’s palm. “You’ve beautiful hands.”
“I know, you told me,” Erik said, amused. “Goodnight.”