Cherik Oneshots

Prison AU

"I'll wait for you."

Those were the last words Erik had heard him say before he had been taken down to his temporary cell. At the time those four words were the only things that mattered, but now after ten years and nothing from the man who had said them he wasn't entirely sure they still held the promise they once had.

For Erik, prison had been quite the experience and it certainly hadn't been what he had expected it to be. He had expected more violence, for one, but he had only been in three fights in the last ten years and none of them had been his fault. Except the second one, well the bloke shouldn't have insulted him, if he had left Erik alone then he wouldn't have ended up with two teeth missing and a nose that had to be set back into place.

Another thing was the food, Erik had expected the food to be awful and almost inedible but it turns out he had had worse so he could live with that. He didn't have a cellmate so that was another bonus, and there was a very nice gym so he wouldn't lose the muscle he had spent years building up. The muscle that he knew Charles worshipped.

That was the only thing that was wrong with this entire thing, Charles hadn't visited him once. Every visiting day for the past ten years Erik had hoped that Charles would turn up to see him and every time he was crestfallen when he found out that Charles hadn't admitted a visiting form. But he was getting out in five days and Erik was counting down the hours.

Charles hated waiting. He had waited for things his entire life and absolutely without a doubt hated it. And waiting for this was the absolute worst, he would probably give almost everything to make time speed up.

He had waited ten years for this moment, he had made a promise to a man ten years ago and he intended to keep it. If only the bus would bloody turn up already. He glanced at his watch again and the old lady sat on the bench next to him smiled at him, he realised that had been the fourth time in that minute he had checked his watch.

"Someplace special to be?" The old lady smiled at him and he tried to think up an appropriate response, he wasn't quite sure 'Yes, my boyfriend who I haven't seen in ten years is getting out of jail today and i was hoping to meet him' So he kept his mouth shut, nodded and smiled at her.

He sighed in relief as he saw the bus come round the corner.

Ah fresh air for the first time in ten years. Erik had to admit that freedom felt wonderful. But now that he was out and free, he had a few problems to face. For one thing:

"Where the hell am i gonna go?" He said to himself and he jumped as a voice behind him answer his question.

"I could probably think if something." He turned to see Charles goddamn Xavier standing there, leaning up against a lamp post.

"What, Charles. What." Erik stuttered as he stared. "What are you doing here?" he asked once his mouth and brain started working again.

"Well, you see, I made a promise to a man ten years ago that i would wait for him." He stopped leaning and took a step forward, he spread his arms out wide. "And here i am fulfilling it." Erik stared in astonishment.

"Ten bloody years i waited for you in that place, ten years of looking at the visitors list and not seeing your name and yet here you are." Erik walked the few paces to Charles and dropped his bag. "I can't believe it." Charles still had his arms out so Erik stepped into them. They hugged each other like they never had before but it felt exactly the same as it had when they had last embraced ten years ago. Well at least Erik felt like it was the same.

"What's all this?" Charles asked, Erik gave him a questioning look. "These are like twice the size as they used to be." Charles squeezed Erik's bicep.

"Charles the two choices of entertainment in that place were cooking classes or the gym, and i already know how to cook." Charles put his arm around Erik's waist.

"C'mon let's go home." he said and Erik couldn't argue with that. He hadn't been home in ten years and ten years felt like an eternity.