You Give Love A Bad Name - Cherik Oneshot

You Give Love a Bad Name

Professor Charles Xavier was not having a good day.

It hadn't been a single thing, just a series of more and more increasingly frustrating events. Late shipments, faulty technology. Just bad things upon bad things.

The thing that had kept him going was thoughts of the afternoon. One of his favourite authors had released a new book, and he was going to stop by the bookshop and pick up a copy.

He entered the Hellfire Bookshop and could immediately feel the tension leaving his shoulders. Bookshops were a little slice of heaven.

He quickly headed to the 'New Releases' section.

"Book, book, book, book, book," he murmured as he searched for the book.

Then he looked up and groaned. Top shelf. Of course. That would be how this day would end.

He stood on his toes, trying to reach it, but gave up a few seconds later. It was hopeless. The shelves were higher than most men would be able to reach.

He looked around, trying to find the help.

The only person in the aisle was a(n admittedly attractive) man.

Charles cleared his throat and the man looked at him.

"Can you hand me that book?" Charles asked politely. He gestured to the book.

The man looked at him. Then looked at the book. "You read that trash?" he asked, a grin crossing his face.

Charles' face darkened and moved forward, meaning to bump into the man, push into him with his shoulder as he went past. He was sick of the crap, sick of everything. Being insulted in one of his favourite places in the world, in this of all days, one of his worst days.

Unfortunately, the man was moving too, pulling himself up on the tips of his toes to retrieve the book Charles had asked for.

So when Charles 'bumped' into him, he stumbled backwards, falling against a table of nonfiction books.

There was a silence and the two man looked at each other in horror.

"Is there a problem?" came a sharp voice.

Charles looked up at Miss Frost, still a bit numb. "N-no, I just-"

"He pushed me!" Erik said loudly as he pulled himself up, running a hand through his hair. He still looked completely bewildered.

"No I didn't me-"

"You pushed me." The man said again.

Miss Frost narrowed her eyes. "If you'd please keep it down."

The man looked at her. "He-"he began again.

She glared at him. "Right. Out." She looked at Charles. "Both of you."

"What?" Charles asked.

"I won't have fighting in my shop."

"We weren't-"

"Hmmph," the other man said, and strode out of the bookshop.

"What?" Charles said weakly.

Miss Frost was still glaring at him, and so were a few of the other customers. Charles flushed and quickly walked out.

"Hey!" Charles called as soon as he left the bookshop.

The man turned and raised his eyebrow. "I'd think you'd be running in the other direction," he commented dryly.

Charles shook his head. "I..uh...wanted to apologise."

"For pushing me."

"I didn't....I was only going to bump into you."

"Yes, it's a shame I was doing as you asked."

Charles rubbed his head. "I'm sorry. I was just having a bad day."

"Oh, well that explains it then," the man replied sarcastically. "Apology accepted."

Charles glared at him. "I am trying to make this right. Besides, you did start this."

"Did I?"

"You called the book trash, remember?"

"Trash isn't necessarily bad," the man said, then turned and walked away.

Charles stood there, gaping for a second. Then he sped forward. "Wait! Do you mean you read-"

"Yes." The man didn't look at him as he continued to walk, but he was grinning.

"Then why did you-"

"Why did you push me into a table?"

"I didn't push you!"

The man's smirk widened and Charles' eyes narrowed. He needed to get rid of that grin.

"Want to have dinner?" It was the first thing he could think of.

The man's stride faltered. "It's four pm," he finally said.

Charles shrugged. "Tea then. I'm hungry now."

The man stopped and examined him. "You don't even know my name."

"I'm Charles."

"Erik," the man responded automatically, then scowled at himself.

Charles grinned at him. "Well then, Erik, there's a nice Thai place across the street."

"You also attacked me."

"I hear I'm a great conversationalist."

Erik looked him over again. "You're paying."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." He gestured to the street. "Shall we?"

A/N: Anon prompted "This is an AU I saw on a tumblr post "I asked for your help getting a book off the top shelf and you laughed at my taste and called me a nerd so I shoved you into a table of nonfiction best-sellers and that's how we both got banned from the quirky community bookstore" and I just thought it'd fit Charles and Erik perfectly (except the "nerd" comment would be something along the lines of "you read that trash?")"

So yep. I set in in the First Class verse, because uh.. two seventy years olds fighting wouldn't have quite the romantic undertones right? Though Emma's a bit more comic bookish really.

Title from "You Give Love A Bad Name" by Bon Jovi. I literally opened my Youtube history and that was the son g I'd listened to last, plus it works so yeah~

Hope you enjoyed! I know it's a bit short...So glad I'm getting such a wide variety of prompts, each day I wake up with a new prompt in my inbox and it's great. Prompts are brilliant and I love each and every one of them.

Haha, Hellfire Bookshop, I'm a sucker for adding in references.

And yeah, I couldn't think of a good author who had a book coming out soon. In my mind it's Richelle Mead, who is a brilliant author.

Um, for those of you who don't know, I've been asking for Marvel prompts, either in the comments section or on my tumblr. Or, you know, if you just want to talk Marvel. Cos I love talking about Marvel. A lot.