Title: Learning Curve
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Rating: PG
Length: ~1500
Content notes: None.
Author notes: Thanks to pearl_o for beta and handholding. Part of a non-powered college AU.

Summary: Erik takes a trip back to campus to visit a despondent Charles and does his best to offer comfort.

It's weird to be back on campus, even after only a few weeks away. The first few days it was Cambridge that was weird--the city felt too big and so did his apartment. He missed the familiar roads and buildings and faces of New York, and as glad as he was to be out of undergrad and on to something new and exciting, it was...okay, a little scary.

It's been three weeks though, and he's already settled into a routine. He feels like a stranger driving down the roads heading up to campus. He feels even more out of place walking from the public parking lot between the buildings and towards the quad. It's exactly the same as he left it, but smaller, somehow.

The Canteen is mostly full of freshmen when Erik arrives and it's strange, paying for his coffee with a debit card instead of his Bux Card. He manages to snag a corner table by looming and glowering at a young boy until he vacates, and then sips his coffee with one eye on the clock. It's reminiscent of how he spent most of the past two years, but it still feels odd. He lets himself get lost in those thoughts until he finally spots Charles trudging towards the Canteen.

"Hey!" he says. He can't keep the embarrassing smile off of his face. Charles doesn't see him, though, and Erik pauses before he calls again. Charles looks--tired. And sad.

Erik's stomach sinks. Fuck. Fuck. He knew the long-distance thing would be hard, but, fuck, they're barely starting. He saw Charles a week and a half ago. They were great. Upset about the distance, but happy to be together. He'd had to pry Charles' fingers off his wrist at the train station. That kind of love--this thing between them, it couldn't die that quickly. Could it?

He swallows hard, but before he can call out again, Charles glances up and sees him. His entire demeanor changes--he lights up, the slump disappears from his shoulders, and a smile blooms across his face.

"Erik," he breaths, and elbows through the crowd, then hits Erik hard enough to knock the breath out of him. "You're early!"

"Not too early," Erik says. "Maybe an hour. I made good time on 84."

Charles' arms are wrapped tightly around Erik. Bruisingly, really.

"I'm so glad you're here," Charles says. "I'm so glad."

"I am too," Erik says. "I missed you." He tries to move--this is a nice reunion, but he'd like to take it somewhere more private--but Charles doesn't budge. "Uh, Charles?"

"Sorry," Charles says. His voice trembles. "I just really needed this today."

"Okay," Erik says. Charles did look wiped. He rubs Charles' back. "You wanna go back home?"

"Yes," Charles says. He sighs again and then finally takes a step back. "I really just want to take a shower and sulk," he manages to say without his voice wavering too badly.

"We can do that," Erik says, even as he begins to calculate in his head the best possible way to bring Charles out of a sulk.

Charles lives in a house just off campus now, not far from the frat house where Erik lived for three years. It's not a long drive, but it's still somehow strained. Charles is quiet on the walk from the Canteen to the public parking lot and once he buckles himself into Erik's car, he rests his head against the window and doesn't say much on the short drive off campus, nor does he speak up once they're inside the house and ascending the stairs to Charles' bedroom.

The room looks much more lived in than it did when Erik helped Charles move in. This things are piled everywhere and there are photos tacked to the wall--photos of Charles and Erik, of Charles and Raven, of Charles and Moira. Erik looks around eagerly--he's only seen snatches of the room behind Charles on their Skype dates--while Charles strips out of his clothes, grabs a towel, and disappears to the bathroom.

He still hasn't said anything. Erik sits on the edge of the bed and pulls out his laptop; hopefully getting some work done will distract him from the pang of helplessness throbbing in his chest. He picks at a lab report against the steady sound of the shower down the hall, but he can't concentrate and he stops even pretending to look at the screen when the shower stops. Charles appears in the doorway moments later, towel wrapped around his waist, mouth set in a thin, unhappy line.

Normally, Erik never misses a chance to ogle Charles, especially a freshly washed and shower-warm Charles, but today Charles just looks too miserable for Erik to do more than steal a cursory glance. He pushes his laptop away and leans back on his elbows as Charles drifts around the bedroom. He drops his towel and pulls on boxers, then crosses back to the bed and sits down heavily.

He sighs and drops back onto his back. His head rests near Erik's hip and Erik can't resist the urge to pet his hair.

"Hey," he says.

"Hi," Charles says, looking up at him. "It's been a long day."

"Yeah?" Erik asks. He scratches Charles' scalp with his fingernails and Charles sighs again. He rolls onto his side and pulls his knees in close, sliding his head up onto Erik's stomach. Erik continues to stroke his hair.

"Yeah," Charles says. He closes his eyes. "Erik, I'm really bad at teaching."

Erik can feel Charles' disappointment viscerally, except that's not exactly right--what he feels is his own disappointment for Charles. He wants Charles to be happy. He wants Charles to have everything he wants, and what he's wanted for as long as Erik has known him is a long life in academia, specifically teaching. He's not like Bruce, who wants the lab time and the funding but dreads standing in front of a classroom--Charles is actually excited about the prospect of lectures and lab assignments and grading. He's built his entire future around it and Erik has begun to build his future around Charles' future.

He can't imagine what would happen if he went to the build room and found he wasn't actually good at working in his field. He can't imagine what Charles is feeling.

"It's only the second day," Erik reminds him. "It's the second day of your first ever TA assignment and you're a baby compared to most of the kids in the room."

"They don't listen," Charles says. "And I don't know how to get them to pay attention and I was only halfway through my planned lesson when Dr. Platt took over today. I couldn't even get through the whole thing before he decided I couldn't handle it. And I couldn't. I was terrible."

Erik strokes the nape of his neck and wishes he could do more. He can't make a room full of freshman pay attention to Charles' lesson, although he absolutely would if it was at all feasible. In that regard, at least, Charles is probably lucky that Erik's already out of school, because he would haunt that classroom and loom and glower until the entire lecture hall was silent and attentive.

"I'm sure you weren't terrible," Erik says. He says it at first because he knows it's what he's supposed to say, but even as the words are leaving his mouth, he knows it's true. While he's never say and listened to Charles teach, he's certainly put up with his share of lectures. Every time Charles finds something new and interesting, he shares it immediately with Erik whether Erik cares or (more often) not. He has passion and enthusiasm. He's never boring and about 80% of the time he even manages to explain things in such a way that Erik can follow them, even if they're outside his field. He remembers, in particular, one night two years ago. It was after he and Charles had started sleeping together but before they were officially dating. Charles was sitting in Erik's desk chair, wearing only his boxers and one of Erik's hoodies, and talking about--something that had to do with bioinformatics, maybe?--but even though Erik was lost, he couldn't look away.

It's possible that Erik is biased. He does love Charles more than he thought he could love another person, after all. But he doesn't think that's the case, here.

"You're smart," Erik continues, stroking Charles' hair off his forehead. "And you're well-spoken. You're enthusiastic. You explain things well. I think you're probably a great teacher. But I think a room full of resentful, gen-ed freshman who are just about the same age as you are probably aren't going to be your best audience."

Charles sniffs and looks up at him again.

"Do you really think that?" he asks. Erik nods. "Thanks."

"And even if they do think you're terrible, it doesn't matter," Erik adds because it's important he make that clear, too. He's only disappointed because he knows how badly Charles wants this. "I'll love you anyway, so fuck them."

Charles laughs. He looks much less like he's going to cry, which is good. Erik's bad enough at offering comfort as it is. He's not sure he has many more tricks left after this.

"Can I still sulk for a little while?" Charles asks. "I still feel awful."

"You can sulk as much as you'd like," Erik says. "I'm also available to, you know, distract you from sulking."

Charles laughs again, harder this time, hard enough that the feeling reverberates through Erik's stomach.

"How about I sulk for a little while longer and then you can try and cheer me up, hm?" Charles suggests. Erik takes one of his hands and squeezes it in his own.

"Whatever you need," he assures Charles, and kisses the tips of his fingers.