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Erik gets sick three weeks into their new partnership. His body is wracked with coughs as they bed down for the night. Fear grips Charles every moment Erik coughs, every second the other man shifts uncomfortably as the fever makes him feel the discomfort. He doesn’t know the man very well, except for the fact that he’s fairly certain the other man is like him, special. Still in the end of the world scenario, sickness usually means death. He’s seen three other people fall into sickness, something that wouldn’t have worried anyone before. But everything is dirty and illness is a one way ticket to the ground, only if the person isn’t cast off for being sick in the first place.
Erik doesn’t say anything though. He just pushes through, but Charles knows he is aching and he knows the fever is going to get worse until it takes his friend, and he can’t feel anything but fear as he perches next to him. What he wants it do is take the flushed face in his hands and press his lips to the sweaty brow. Erik’s eyes are glossy with the fever, but Charles knows he won’t stop, he won’t stumble until he falls down forever.
“You won’t really remember anything from tonight will you?” Charles asks him quietly. Erik laughs, but it turns into a cough. It’s rough and dry, thankfully not wet. With wet, Charles knows he’ll lose Erik. He presses his hand to Erik’s face and feels the heat prickle through him. He doesn’t even think as he kneels down beside the other man, his legs on their side of Erik’s hips. If he sits down he’ll be in Erik’s lap. Tilting Erik’s head down, he presses his lips to the warm brow. If it all goes well, if Erik remembers it all, he’ll just say that he wanted to give comfort. He’ll stomp on whatever feelings are budding for him and pretend. “I’ll be back. It’s safe here so you can sleep.” Erik looks up at him with glossy eyes. He doesn’t smile, but Erik never smiles so Charles isn’t put off as he packs his bag.
Erik probably thinks he’s being left, Charles muses as he tucks his cricket bat in his makeshift holster for it. He takes a shotgun, he needs something for crowd control. He stops, his entire body shudders. “I’ll be back,” he promises. Erik snorts. He twists his body away from the only door and Charles feels the pang of hurt. He won’t leave Erik though, not forever. But he remembers the clinic a few blocks back, yet he also remembers the infected being around the building in clumps. He spreads out his gift trying to find if they are there. In the end he only pings a couple, it’s a doable, he can fight two. He just hopes that there won’t be any more of the incredibly grotesque looking ones. The very ones that seem more dangerous especially if a person is alone, Charles keeps his gift spread. He trades the shotgun for his bat, it makes less noise and what he wants is the least amount of trouble.
He needs to survive for Erik.
In the end, he takes down the four infected without much of a problem, eventually he knows he’ll wonder if he needs to look at himself for how easily he seems to attack things that were once human, but for the moment he needs the medicine and he needs to nurse Erik back to health. Charles is almost inside the building when he realizes the alarm system is still up. Alarms mean the horde and the horde while he’s alone is complete and utter suicide. It’s only for a split second, but Charles curses the fact that he and Erik left a group not three days prior after they started looking at Erik like he was about to be strung up and left for the monsters.
Charles going with him seemed like the obvious choice. The others were already looking at him with some wariness like he was to be next if he toed out of line, and so he went off with a man who he barely knew. Charles closes his eyes and prays. There isn’t a god that he prays to; instead he just murmurs his hopes in surviving up towards the sky before he takes a deep breath and walks in.
There’s a delay. For five minutes he rushes to the isle, there is silence. Charles thinks maybe the alarm system is out of juice, but inside he knows that it won’t be that easy. Instead he dumps a half dozen meds into his pack not caring that he and Erik won’t be able to use most of them. One of packets or bottles will be enough, Charles tells himself. He pushes out the back just as the alarms rings. It pierces the air and Charles can feel as thirty and they forty minds rush towards him. Towards the building.
He runs.
His legs ache and he can feel them as they turn away from the building and catch sight of him. Charles feels the exact moment when they run for him. His chest begins to burn as well as he runs. With his powers spread so thin, Charles feels dizzy and off kilter, he sucks in a breath, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
It’s only two blocks, he reminds himself. Two blocks, he keeps chanting, but then noises of the special creatures start up. Charles tries to put an extra burst of power to his legs when he hears a crack in front of him before a creature right behind him falls back, tumbling almost catching onto his foot.
Charles looks up to see Erik listing against the doorframe, the rifle in his hands. Another crack sounds and Charles pushes forward. He nearly tackles Erik, but the second they clear the steel door it slams shut. He buries his face against Erik’s warm skin before he can help himself. They both smell like sweat, but Erik reeks of sickness as he wiggles a bit beneath Charles’ weight.
“I promised,” Charles whispers. Erik turns his head as another dry cough wracks his body, this time Charles feels everything.
“You did.” Erik’s voice is hoarse as he answers, and it’s that it takes to get Charles to scramble off of Erik and start digging for the medicine. He speeds over all the directions reading them as quickly as he can before he finds the box his wants and rips into it. Erik says nothing, but Erik, in their three weeks of knowing one another, isn’t the kind to talk much. His actions are what people need to pay attention to.
“Take this.” Charles hands over the tablets before he pulls out a bottle of water. Erik looks at both things warily before he follows Charles’ orders. He’s watching Charles like he can’t get a handle on him, and all Charles wants to do is dive into his mind to see exactly what Erik thinks. Just barely he refrains.
“Why?” Charles pauses, he won’t play dumb and ask Erik what he means by why, but he doesn’t know how to explain it. His mouth opens to tell the other man that he cares, but three weeks in their partnership seems a little soon even if it is the end of the world. So, instead he shrugs his shoulders and tilts his head down. He stares at the ground for the most part until Erik’s warm hand brushes over his skin and forces him to look. “Why?” Erik asks again.
“Because I don’t want to,” Charles pauses, “because I don’t want to be alone, and I think you’re the longest partner I’ve ever been with.” He doesn’t know why the admittance makes him blush, but it does. Erik lays back down, seeming to accept his words.
“Feeling is mutual.” Erik says before he rolls to his side. Charles watches him as he gets as comfortable as he can be, while the creatures are still on the other side of the door. He wonders exactly what Erik means by it being mutual, if Erik can feel whatever is between them but acknowledges that it would be a dumb idea to act on it, or if he buys Charles’ explanation.
Charles doesn’t ask, he just sits back and keeps an eye on Erik. In the distance he can hear the alarm and the sound of a tank wreaking havoc somewhere away from them. As he sits there, Charles allows himself a brief brush against Erik’s mind, just a small brush so he can take comfort from the connection. Erik’s subconscious welcomes him and almost envelopes him without any hesitation. Charles pulls back, feeling guilty, before he turns and places a hand gently on Erik’s shoulder. They’ll survive this, he tells himself.