AU-gust 2023
Pairing(s): Erik/Shaw, Cherik Warnings: Implied domestic violence
4. Runaway
“Don’t go anywhere,” Sebastian warns, while he has Erik pinned beneath him, panting and writhing and pretending to want it, like he can’t get enough. “I’ll have Azazel check on you while I’m gone. Make sure you’re okay.”
It’s not for his benefit that Sebastian has someone looking in on Erik while he’s away; it’s about control, and about Sebastian being omnipresent in his life. He’s learned the hard way not to argue or try to push back, knowing it would only make his alpha angry and impose even more restrictions to Erik’s day to day activities.
So he smiles, and kisses Sebastian back, and tells him he’ll miss him while he’s in Shanghai for the week. Azazel won’t check in until tomorrow, so he has an almost twenty-four hour head start. Still, he waits until Sebastian’s flight is in the air, and only after he calls the airline to verify that his husband actually boarded the plane. Then it’s a mad scramble to get the bag he’s hidden in the garage, and to grab the emergency money Sebastian has stashed away in the study. He has his driver’s license but not his passport; that’s locked away in the safe unless he’s on vacation with Sebastian. Everything else he leaves in the drawer of his nightstand so it can’t be traced back to him – his cell, his credit cards, his laptop, his wedding ring – anxious but more than ready to leave this life behind him.
He leaves the car – another tie, another way to trace his whereabouts – and takes a cab into the city, where he takes transit to the place where’s he’s stashed an old Toyota in long term parking. It had taken him a couple of years of scrimping to save enough for a used car, even one that won’t last much more than the cross-country trek he’s about to make to New York.
The I-15 takes him out of the city in good time, and he’s almost tempted to drive as long and as far as he can without stopping, eager to put as much distance as he can from the place he’s called home for the past ten years. But he also knows that he needs to stop and rest – if not for him, then certainly for the baby – even if the irrational fear he feels is overwhelming; that Sebastian is right on his heels, ready to drag him back and punish him for daring to leave him.
He’s done his research and mapped this trip meticulously, so he knows exactly where to stop for the night, paying cash for his room and grabbing a quick bite at the diner across the street. It’s hard when he has zero appetite, his nerves rubbed raw and adrenaline still coursing through his body. Still, he forces himself to eat all the food on his plate, because he has to take care of the baby inside him; has to do everything he can to protect them and keep them safe.
(Ironic, that in a way, the baby is also keeping Erik safe – he doesn’t know if he would have ever followed through with his plans to leave if not for the unexpected pregnancy.)
He takes a shower after dinner, and takes his time cleaning all traces of Sebastian from his body; traces he left inside Erik before he left that morning for the airport. The bruises don’t disappear quite as easily, though he supposes they’ll fade away like all the others he’s worn under his clothes. It barely hurts him anymore, when Sebastian is rough with him in bed; it’s only the thought of Sebastian accidentally hurting the baby – or of him finding out about the baby – that fills Erik with dread.
Once he’s dried off and dressed again, he grabs the burner phone from his bag, along with the card that he’s kept hidden away since graduation. Erik desperately hopes that the number still works, and that the person on the other end still remembers him, and considers them friends.
He dials the number, and waits for the call to connect.
“Hello? Charles Xavier speaking.”
“Charles? It’s Erik. I need your help.”
