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Being woken up at the ass crack of dawn and being dragged out of bed into a supermarket with Charles wasn’t exactly how Erik had imagined his Sunday going but lo and behold. Here he is. Nine in the morning standing in the aisle of some grocery store with too bright of lights and wishing he had simply rolled over and pretended to be asleep when Charles had come to wake him this morning.
Just because he was forced into this situation doesn’t mean he was going to act like he was happy about it.
Charles noticed his sour demeanour and notably ignored him and his grumbling, instead choosing to grab some more bags of chips and dump them into Erik’s basket. Charles looked up at his frowning face with an amused smirk tugging at his lips.
“May I remind you that someone has to do the shopping less we all starve.” He turned around to continue scanning the aisles.
“May I remind you, that I’m not your personal servant waiting on you hand and foot.” Erik said with a small amount of anger. Charles now knew that Erik was definitely not a morning person. In truth neither was Xavier himself, but when there were things to be done like buying food and supplies for the next 2 weeks, he knew his duties.
Besides, the idea of spending more time with Erik made his chest feel all fuzzy.
“I would never think of you as my servant, Erik,” Charles stated calmy as they made their way to the frozen food section. The professor pried open one of the fridge doors to grab a tub of ice cream, “I just need your help carrying all our items, and we aren’t going to leave until I’ve gotten everything the others need. You can grab anything you’d like as well; I don’t mind.”
Erik stared at the smaller of the two as Charles examined the different types of ice-creams in his hands. Erik turned his head to the side to hide the small amount of blush appearing on his face. Dammit! why does Charles have to be so generous and kindly spoken all the time.
He always talked about making the mansion feel more like home to all of them and was constantly trying to get Erik to feel at home too. Maybe by participating in a domestic situation like this would help ease both their minds.
When Charles finally decided on an ice-cream, he dropped it in his basket and looked up to see Erik was reaching above him for a box of salmon. Charles mind froze completely as he inhaled the scent of Erik’s cologne, having the man’s other hand on his shoulder did not help Charles mental dilemma, if anything it only added to the growing pink on his cheeks.
It was only a few seconds of closeness before Erik was pulling away and continuing down the aisle, but the warm feeling of Erik behind him did not go away. Pushing all feelings aside Charles shut the fridge door and caught up next to Erik.
“We also might need to pick up some medicine as well” Charles pointed out.
“Why?”
“Well, I currently know of about sixteen students who have caught the flu and considering that all of them share dorms and classrooms with each other, there is a high chance of it spreading quickly so best to try and avoid that.” The telepath explained.
Erik simply hummed in response as they made their way to the healthcare aisle. Again, shopping around for groceries on a Saturday morning and avoiding his feelings for Charles hadn’t been what Erik expected nor what he wanted to do today. But alas, there were upsides.
For example, from where Erik was leaning on a shelf behind Charles, he had a pretty good look at the professor’s backside. Small wins, he thought to himself.
A small knock against his leg startled him out of his Charles induced trance. He looked down to see a little girl sitting on the floor looking up at him with wide eyes. Around the age of four, African American, platted pigtails and faded blue eyes (Almost white in fact).
He knelt down and helped the girl stand up, so he was eye to eye with her. She dusted herself off and shyly looked at Erik. “D-Danke mein Herr.” She said softly.
Recognising the German made Erik smile back cheerfully. “Ihr willkommenes kleines Fräulein” he responded. The girl smiled brightly at him and started to talk more and introduce herself to him. They chatted for a small amount of time until her mother came round the corner and visibly let out a sigh of relief after looking for her.
Apparantly the little girl had a habit of running off, after the shared ‘thank you’’s and ‘it was no problem’ they parted ways. Erik watched as the little girl waved goodbye from her place in her mother’s arms. Before turning the corner, she blew a spout of bubbles out of her mouth giggling before disappearing among other shoppers. She was another mutant. And German too. Erik could feel the dumb grin that spread upon his face.
As he watched them leave, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked to see Charles smiling up at him, almost smirking. He tried his best to get rid of his own smile and go back to scowling but it was too late, Charles already caught him.
“You know you really are good with kids, Mutant or otherwise.” Charles pats his shoulder once more before resuming shopping. Erik always liked when Charles complimented him. In fact, he liked it any time Charles talked to him.
His voice was warm and comforting, his accent was adorable and posh. Even when Charles lost his temper and got angry Erik couldn’t help but listen in, enamoured by that voice. He would listen to Charles talk for hours, days if possible. Anything and everything sounded so much better when it came from his mouth. Whether that be a lecture or simply talking about the weather. It consumed Erik’s whole mind, Charles had more than one way of doing that sort of thing.
The metal bender shook his head away from the thoughts of Charles’s cute condescending face out of his mind. They continued down, across, and all over the grocery store grabbing items they needed and/or simply wanted. When they finally left Erik found himself not feeling as bad as he felt this morning, maybe he would help Charles with the groceries in the future.