Chapter Text
The diner is almost deserted; they both slept later than usual this morning, and by the time they made it out of the hotel and out toward breakfast, the morning rush had ended. There's no hurry, though, since they're not meeting up with Angel again for hours yet, giving her time to sleep and pack and tie up loose ends before they shepherd her off to the others. There's plenty of time for the two of them to sit here, lingering over eggs and toast.
The coffee is terrible, but Erik loads it up with sugar to make it palatable, in quantities that still provoke a raising of Charles's eyebrows, even after all the mornings he's witnessed Erik's habits. It tastes better this way; why take it bitter if it's no more cost or effort to have it like this?
Charles is cheerful and talkative this morning, full of vim and vigor. Erik can read in his movements the soreness and stiffness he's still feeling from last night, but it's not nearly as much as he would have expected. He doubts, really, that anyone else would notice.
It could be just as if it had never happened at all, Erik muses, sitting back against the torn vinyl of the booth as he listens to Charles expound upon his point.
Except—even as he's thinking it, Charles happens to make a particularly expressive gesture with his forkful of eggs. The dramatic movement of his arm causes the fabric of his sweater to slide down his forearm an inch or so, just far enough to expose his wrist, which is completely mottled with bruises all across the pale skin.
Erik can't even remember making those bruises last night. Was it from when they were in bed together? Or earlier, holding Charles in that alleyway? He can't pin it down.
But either way, they're there, and they're real; they exist even here and now, in public, in their life that goes beyond those confined spaces, and Erik…
Erik finds he doesn't mind. He likes seeing them, likes the tangible knowledge that he's made a mark on Charles as undeniable as anything Charles has done to him.
"Are you even listening to me, Erik?" Charles says.
"Not really," Erik admits. "Though in my defense, you do talk quite a lot, Charles. I'm not sure you can blame me for drifting off occasionally."
Charles snorts and shakes his head, though Erik can tell he's not annoyed as he'd like to pretend. "If you're done nursing your swill, let's pay and get back on the road."
Erik bows his head in acknowledgment, and as Charles rises from their booth, Erik swallows down the rest of his mug and then stands to follow Charles out and into the morning.