Fanfic: The Importance of Elevator Music
Title: The Importance of Elevator Music
Characters/Pairings: Charles/Erik
Rating: M
Length: ~2,170
Summary: Omegaverse. Charles and Erik end up in an elevator together and the most inopportune moment.
Note: Originally written here on the kink meme.
Erik has a headache and only twenty minutes before he needs to be back at the office with the report he’d conveniently forgotten on his kitchen table that morning. So when he sees the elevator just about to close, he calls out. On a normal day, Erik would’ve waited for the elevator to come back down or at least taken the stairs, but right now he just doesn’t have the time. So he calls out and runs and sticks his briefcase in the opening at the last second because whoever’s in there is not helping. The door slides slowly back open to allow him entrance and he slips in, thumbing the sixth floor button and then the door close button. The door takes its own time closing, much to Erik’s frustration.
“Sorry about that, my friend, I didn’t hear you,” the other man-boy, he doesn’t look older than twenty-in the elevator says, keeping his eyes down and it’s such a lie and they are most certainly not friends and Erik almost shouts at him. Instead he lets out what he hopes is a menacing sigh because not only is the man lying to him, he is going to the fourth floor and really, what young man takes the elevator to the fourth floor? Four flights of stairs is a perfectly walkable distance and all it does in the elevator is make Erik’s trip forty seconds longer. He is definitely taking the stairs down.
The elevator jerks to a halt, the digital number by the door still on 3, but the door doesn’t open. Erik growls and slams his fist into it. “Come on,” he mutters, pushing at the door. Nothing happens. The other man lets out a soft, panicked moan. “Oh, shut up,” Erik grumbles back at him. “It’ll probably keep going in just a minute.” To make sure of this, Erik stabs at the button for floor seven.
Nothing happens. The elevator doesn’t move an inch.
Erik jabs his thumb into the alarm button and winces at the high pitched buzzer. Nothing.
The man groans again and Erik, too busy with the buttons to turn around and look, hears him sink to the floor. “Oh God, oh God,” the man says hoarsely, “I’m sorry. I should have come home sooner. I’m so sorry.”
“Shut up,” Erik says, too frustrated to even deal with the man. He pulls out his phone and dials the front desk. Thankfully someone picks up on the second ring and, after a short, terse explanation and wait, she promises that they’ll be moving soon. Not soon enough that he won’t miss his meeting, Erik realizes as he hangs up the phone. He sends a quick message to Emma and hopes she’ll be able to do damage control but really he knows that his whole month will suffer for this. He should’ve just taken the damn stairs.
Suddenly Erik realizes that the whole elevator smells like sex-like omega sex. A little less suddenly, maybe with the help of a quiet whine from the other man, Erik realizes that it’s not the elevator, but the other occupant. Oh God was an understatement. Erik can feel his heartbeat picking up and heat rising on his skin in response to the pheromones in the air. Goddammit, this is not happening.
Spinning on his heel to face the other man, Erik barks, “are you serious? Right now?”
The other man glares up at him with, thankfully focused, deep blue eyes. “Would you like me to just turn it off? Because please, if you know how, tell me,” the man snaps.
Erik growls and slumps down in the opposite corner. “Just stay over there,” he grumbles, running his hand through his hair. It came away damp.
“I should be saying that to you,” the other man mutters back, curling in on himself.
Fifteen minutes later, the other man is curled up on the floor, his face pressed into the cool metal surface, which is disgusting on more levels than Erik wants to think about, especially when none of them are making it any more bearable to be in the elevator. His eyes are shut now and his breathing is ragged and just slightly erratic. After a moment’s consideration, Erik nudges him with his shoe, figuring contact through thick rubber won’t hurt anything. “Hey, kid, you okay?”
The man turns his face further into the floor and grumbles something that sounds like “mmrrghchrrmmmrrmr” and Erik rolls his eyes.
“Can’t hear you,” he says tersely.
With a quiet grunt, the man turns his head, and says crisply, his accent heavier than before, “My name is Charles and I’m twenty-seven.”
Resisting the temptation to roll his eyes again-or to shove Charles down and tear off his clothes and-Erik pulls his foot back. He had been willing to excuse a kid for pushing it this close to going into heat out of doors, but a grown man? It was just stupidity. “Well, Charles, don’t you have pills or something for this. Watching you-do whatever it is you’re doing over there is disconcerting.”
Charles glares up at him, pushing himself back into a sitting position and wrapping his arms more firmly around his bag. “Excuse me for not voluntarily drugging myself while trapped in the lift with a stranger,” he says quite clearly, but Erik can see now that his eyes are much less focused than before.
After a short, uncomfortable pause, Erik says softly, “I’m Erik, by the way.”
The noise that Charles makes might’ve been a laugh under different circumstances and he says, “that doesn’t make you any less a stranger, but thank you.”
Another twenty minutes and Charles is back on the floor, scrabbling with his wool coat. He keens in the back of his throat and Erik’s fingers twitch. “Erik,” he whines, breathless, “It’s stuck. Help, please, it’s so hot.”
Erik just stares and tries to collect himself. He’d taken his coat and tie off a few minutes before, but the air is incredibly close and thick with their combined pheromones and Charles is laid out before him, arms trapped behind his back, chest pushed forward, erection visible through the fabric of his pants and Erik is having a hard time just not taking what is there for him-because he has no doubt it’s for him, there’s no one else here for it, he’s already won it-no, he needs to focus on something else, something not Charles. Dammit, why is there no god-awful music in this elevator. Isn’t that the purpose of elevators-to torture their occupants’ ears?
Charles moans again. “Erik, please,” he says, dragging out each word.
Erik is across the elevator before he can stop himself, reaching out to pull on Charles’ coat. “Are you sure I can touch you?” he asks, hands shaking.
“Yes!” Charles gasps, pushing closer to Erik, and it’s not anything near the consent that Erik would want but all it takes for him to grab onto Charles’ arm and jacket and free him from it.
As soon as the jacket’s gone, Charles curls forward to pull his shoes and socks off and Erik has to look away because Charles feet and ankles are just as alluring as his hands and his neck and his eyes and his everything. And then Charles is tugging at his chin, pulling him in for a kiss and Erik falls into it, reveling in the feel of it. He runs his hands up Charles’ sides and across his shoulders and pushing him down and down and he can’t remember why they hadn’t done this earlier. Charles moans softly into the kiss and pulls back, repeating Erik’s name under his breath as his fingers slide down Erik’s chest.
Something snaps in Erik’s mind and he pushes himself back, back into his corner and pulls his briefcase up in front of him, like it will work for a shield. “Charles,” he says, tone harsh.
Charles stops moving for a moment, his eyes focusing somewhat as he stares at Erik. A pained expression crosses his face and he pushes himself back into his own corner, pressing his face into the wall. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
Erik takes a few minutes to recover himself, straightening his shirt for something to do. “You shouldn’t have to apologize for that,” he says when he can speak clearly again, and he thinks it earns him a small smile from Charles.
There’s only another ten minutes before the repairmen get the elevator to move and they are neatly deposited on to the fourth floor, but it’s the longest ten minutes of Erik’s life, he’s sure. Charles is pressed into his corner the whole time, failing miserably at being discreet about the way he’s rubbing himself in his pants, whining softly the whole time. Erik can’t even read the debrief that Emma sends him. He does manage, he thinks, to send her a text saying he won’t be back into the office that day, but he’s really not sure and he really doesn’t care. And then they’re moving.
There are maintenance men waiting for them on the fourth floor but Charles has collected his bag and slipped past them before anyone can react. Erik tries to go after him, give him his shoes and his coat, but Charles has disappeared into a room before Erik can make it out the door.
“Charles?” Erik calls down the hallway.
There’s no answer but a stern look from one of the maintenance men who has clearly made some assumptions about what had happened in the elevator. “Please sign this, Sir,” he says, shoving a maintenance request form under Erik’s nose.
Erik glares at him, but signs it before collecting the rest of his and Charles’ things and heading for the stairwell. He has a long appointment with his hand scheduled for the rest of the day.
In the morning, he returns to the fourth floor, but can find no indication of which room belongs to Charles, so he heads down to the reception desk of the building and turns in Charles’ discarded clothing there. He had thought about keeping the coat, it still reeked of Charles and Erik and sex and Erik might’ve gotten a little attached during the night, but he’d sprayed it down with Lysol and returned it with the rest. And the sight of Emma waiting for him in his own lobby, toe tapping impatiently on the floor, wiped all other concerns from Erik’s mind.
Okay, so maybe not everything was completely wiped.
A week later, in the coffee shop across the street from his building, Erik spots a familiar head of wavy hair leaning over a table filled with books and charts and before Erik can hide himself behind the old lady in front of him in line, Charles looks up and spots him. Charles blushes faintly, but there’s an easy smile on his lips as he stands to greet Erik.
“You’re from the elevator,” he says, still smiling. “Erik, right?”
He remembers Erik’s name. He’d been high out of his mind on hormones and pheromones and he remembers Erik’s name. Erik feels a blush rising on his cheeks, but forces it back when he realizes just how undignified that would be. “Yes,” he says, hoping his voice sounds normal, “and you’re Charles.”
Charles’ smile broadens. “I’m sorry about all that,” he says, waving vaguely toward their building, “we were in the middle of an important development at the university and I got a bit carried away…”
Erik looks at his shoes, at the old lady’s hat, at the coffee menu, anywhere but Charles. “I said you didn’t need to apologize,” he says voice low.
“I don’t recall that being your first reaction,” Charles says, shoving his hands in his pockets. Erik glares at him, but Charles is still smiling and looking pleased. “Thank you,” he says, holding out a card, “Not many people would’ve done that.”
Fixating on the card, Erik grabs it. He has spent the last eight days trying to forgot everything about Charles and his hair and his smell and his eyes and his voice and now here they are and Erik has Charles’ business card and he doesn’t know what to say.
Charles clears his throat. “Well, I should be off to work and it looks like you’re up next,” he says, pointing to the counter, and then he’s gone, gathering his books and heading out the door.
Erik orders his coffee, glancing distractedly over his shoulder at Charles’ progress. By the time his drink is in his hand, Charles is entirely gone and Erik has managed to turn the card over, although the shiny Charles Francis Xavier, PhD on the front was very impressive, to find the note scrawled on the back under Charles’ cell number.
Drinks tonight at my place? 8PM? Room 412.
And by drinks I mean tea and not whiskey. My
sister is always confusing them.
-End-
Writing this fic caused a lot of problems for me and it's helped me realize and articulate some of the issues I see in fandom, especially surrounding the Alpha/Omega dynamics. I almost asked for my fic to be taken down. But instead I've written a companion essay on the issues I've found if anyone's interested in looking ( it can be found here).
Characters/Pairings: Charles/Erik
Rating: M
Length: ~2,170
Summary: Omegaverse. Charles and Erik end up in an elevator together and the most inopportune moment.
Note: Originally written here on the kink meme.
Erik has a headache and only twenty minutes before he needs to be back at the office with the report he’d conveniently forgotten on his kitchen table that morning. So when he sees the elevator just about to close, he calls out. On a normal day, Erik would’ve waited for the elevator to come back down or at least taken the stairs, but right now he just doesn’t have the time. So he calls out and runs and sticks his briefcase in the opening at the last second because whoever’s in there is not helping. The door slides slowly back open to allow him entrance and he slips in, thumbing the sixth floor button and then the door close button. The door takes its own time closing, much to Erik’s frustration.
“Sorry about that, my friend, I didn’t hear you,” the other man-boy, he doesn’t look older than twenty-in the elevator says, keeping his eyes down and it’s such a lie and they are most certainly not friends and Erik almost shouts at him. Instead he lets out what he hopes is a menacing sigh because not only is the man lying to him, he is going to the fourth floor and really, what young man takes the elevator to the fourth floor? Four flights of stairs is a perfectly walkable distance and all it does in the elevator is make Erik’s trip forty seconds longer. He is definitely taking the stairs down.
The elevator jerks to a halt, the digital number by the door still on 3, but the door doesn’t open. Erik growls and slams his fist into it. “Come on,” he mutters, pushing at the door. Nothing happens. The other man lets out a soft, panicked moan. “Oh, shut up,” Erik grumbles back at him. “It’ll probably keep going in just a minute.” To make sure of this, Erik stabs at the button for floor seven.
Nothing happens. The elevator doesn’t move an inch.
Erik jabs his thumb into the alarm button and winces at the high pitched buzzer. Nothing.
The man groans again and Erik, too busy with the buttons to turn around and look, hears him sink to the floor. “Oh God, oh God,” the man says hoarsely, “I’m sorry. I should have come home sooner. I’m so sorry.”
“Shut up,” Erik says, too frustrated to even deal with the man. He pulls out his phone and dials the front desk. Thankfully someone picks up on the second ring and, after a short, terse explanation and wait, she promises that they’ll be moving soon. Not soon enough that he won’t miss his meeting, Erik realizes as he hangs up the phone. He sends a quick message to Emma and hopes she’ll be able to do damage control but really he knows that his whole month will suffer for this. He should’ve just taken the damn stairs.
Suddenly Erik realizes that the whole elevator smells like sex-like omega sex. A little less suddenly, maybe with the help of a quiet whine from the other man, Erik realizes that it’s not the elevator, but the other occupant. Oh God was an understatement. Erik can feel his heartbeat picking up and heat rising on his skin in response to the pheromones in the air. Goddammit, this is not happening.
Spinning on his heel to face the other man, Erik barks, “are you serious? Right now?”
The other man glares up at him with, thankfully focused, deep blue eyes. “Would you like me to just turn it off? Because please, if you know how, tell me,” the man snaps.
Erik growls and slumps down in the opposite corner. “Just stay over there,” he grumbles, running his hand through his hair. It came away damp.
“I should be saying that to you,” the other man mutters back, curling in on himself.
Fifteen minutes later, the other man is curled up on the floor, his face pressed into the cool metal surface, which is disgusting on more levels than Erik wants to think about, especially when none of them are making it any more bearable to be in the elevator. His eyes are shut now and his breathing is ragged and just slightly erratic. After a moment’s consideration, Erik nudges him with his shoe, figuring contact through thick rubber won’t hurt anything. “Hey, kid, you okay?”
The man turns his face further into the floor and grumbles something that sounds like “mmrrghchrrmmmrrmr” and Erik rolls his eyes.
“Can’t hear you,” he says tersely.
With a quiet grunt, the man turns his head, and says crisply, his accent heavier than before, “My name is Charles and I’m twenty-seven.”
Resisting the temptation to roll his eyes again-or to shove Charles down and tear off his clothes and-Erik pulls his foot back. He had been willing to excuse a kid for pushing it this close to going into heat out of doors, but a grown man? It was just stupidity. “Well, Charles, don’t you have pills or something for this. Watching you-do whatever it is you’re doing over there is disconcerting.”
Charles glares up at him, pushing himself back into a sitting position and wrapping his arms more firmly around his bag. “Excuse me for not voluntarily drugging myself while trapped in the lift with a stranger,” he says quite clearly, but Erik can see now that his eyes are much less focused than before.
After a short, uncomfortable pause, Erik says softly, “I’m Erik, by the way.”
The noise that Charles makes might’ve been a laugh under different circumstances and he says, “that doesn’t make you any less a stranger, but thank you.”
Another twenty minutes and Charles is back on the floor, scrabbling with his wool coat. He keens in the back of his throat and Erik’s fingers twitch. “Erik,” he whines, breathless, “It’s stuck. Help, please, it’s so hot.”
Erik just stares and tries to collect himself. He’d taken his coat and tie off a few minutes before, but the air is incredibly close and thick with their combined pheromones and Charles is laid out before him, arms trapped behind his back, chest pushed forward, erection visible through the fabric of his pants and Erik is having a hard time just not taking what is there for him-because he has no doubt it’s for him, there’s no one else here for it, he’s already won it-no, he needs to focus on something else, something not Charles. Dammit, why is there no god-awful music in this elevator. Isn’t that the purpose of elevators-to torture their occupants’ ears?
Charles moans again. “Erik, please,” he says, dragging out each word.
Erik is across the elevator before he can stop himself, reaching out to pull on Charles’ coat. “Are you sure I can touch you?” he asks, hands shaking.
“Yes!” Charles gasps, pushing closer to Erik, and it’s not anything near the consent that Erik would want but all it takes for him to grab onto Charles’ arm and jacket and free him from it.
As soon as the jacket’s gone, Charles curls forward to pull his shoes and socks off and Erik has to look away because Charles feet and ankles are just as alluring as his hands and his neck and his eyes and his everything. And then Charles is tugging at his chin, pulling him in for a kiss and Erik falls into it, reveling in the feel of it. He runs his hands up Charles’ sides and across his shoulders and pushing him down and down and he can’t remember why they hadn’t done this earlier. Charles moans softly into the kiss and pulls back, repeating Erik’s name under his breath as his fingers slide down Erik’s chest.
Something snaps in Erik’s mind and he pushes himself back, back into his corner and pulls his briefcase up in front of him, like it will work for a shield. “Charles,” he says, tone harsh.
Charles stops moving for a moment, his eyes focusing somewhat as he stares at Erik. A pained expression crosses his face and he pushes himself back into his own corner, pressing his face into the wall. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
Erik takes a few minutes to recover himself, straightening his shirt for something to do. “You shouldn’t have to apologize for that,” he says when he can speak clearly again, and he thinks it earns him a small smile from Charles.
There’s only another ten minutes before the repairmen get the elevator to move and they are neatly deposited on to the fourth floor, but it’s the longest ten minutes of Erik’s life, he’s sure. Charles is pressed into his corner the whole time, failing miserably at being discreet about the way he’s rubbing himself in his pants, whining softly the whole time. Erik can’t even read the debrief that Emma sends him. He does manage, he thinks, to send her a text saying he won’t be back into the office that day, but he’s really not sure and he really doesn’t care. And then they’re moving.
There are maintenance men waiting for them on the fourth floor but Charles has collected his bag and slipped past them before anyone can react. Erik tries to go after him, give him his shoes and his coat, but Charles has disappeared into a room before Erik can make it out the door.
“Charles?” Erik calls down the hallway.
There’s no answer but a stern look from one of the maintenance men who has clearly made some assumptions about what had happened in the elevator. “Please sign this, Sir,” he says, shoving a maintenance request form under Erik’s nose.
Erik glares at him, but signs it before collecting the rest of his and Charles’ things and heading for the stairwell. He has a long appointment with his hand scheduled for the rest of the day.
In the morning, he returns to the fourth floor, but can find no indication of which room belongs to Charles, so he heads down to the reception desk of the building and turns in Charles’ discarded clothing there. He had thought about keeping the coat, it still reeked of Charles and Erik and sex and Erik might’ve gotten a little attached during the night, but he’d sprayed it down with Lysol and returned it with the rest. And the sight of Emma waiting for him in his own lobby, toe tapping impatiently on the floor, wiped all other concerns from Erik’s mind.
Okay, so maybe not everything was completely wiped.
A week later, in the coffee shop across the street from his building, Erik spots a familiar head of wavy hair leaning over a table filled with books and charts and before Erik can hide himself behind the old lady in front of him in line, Charles looks up and spots him. Charles blushes faintly, but there’s an easy smile on his lips as he stands to greet Erik.
“You’re from the elevator,” he says, still smiling. “Erik, right?”
He remembers Erik’s name. He’d been high out of his mind on hormones and pheromones and he remembers Erik’s name. Erik feels a blush rising on his cheeks, but forces it back when he realizes just how undignified that would be. “Yes,” he says, hoping his voice sounds normal, “and you’re Charles.”
Charles’ smile broadens. “I’m sorry about all that,” he says, waving vaguely toward their building, “we were in the middle of an important development at the university and I got a bit carried away…”
Erik looks at his shoes, at the old lady’s hat, at the coffee menu, anywhere but Charles. “I said you didn’t need to apologize,” he says voice low.
“I don’t recall that being your first reaction,” Charles says, shoving his hands in his pockets. Erik glares at him, but Charles is still smiling and looking pleased. “Thank you,” he says, holding out a card, “Not many people would’ve done that.”
Fixating on the card, Erik grabs it. He has spent the last eight days trying to forgot everything about Charles and his hair and his smell and his eyes and his voice and now here they are and Erik has Charles’ business card and he doesn’t know what to say.
Charles clears his throat. “Well, I should be off to work and it looks like you’re up next,” he says, pointing to the counter, and then he’s gone, gathering his books and heading out the door.
Erik orders his coffee, glancing distractedly over his shoulder at Charles’ progress. By the time his drink is in his hand, Charles is entirely gone and Erik has managed to turn the card over, although the shiny Charles Francis Xavier, PhD on the front was very impressive, to find the note scrawled on the back under Charles’ cell number.
Drinks tonight at my place? 8PM? Room 412.
And by drinks I mean tea and not whiskey. My
sister is always confusing them.
-End-
Writing this fic caused a lot of problems for me and it's helped me realize and articulate some of the issues I see in fandom, especially surrounding the Alpha/Omega dynamics. I almost asked for my fic to be taken down. But instead I've written a companion essay on the issues I've found if anyone's interested in looking ( it can be found here).