If as much as Erik's name can induce a churning spire of confusion, then his country of origin is the kicked up debris of a dust storm in a desert; he would be the first to tell a person that he has no home. He never thinks of himself as German anymore; before he could call himself a mutant there was no nationality he could sink his hands into, and he only called himself by his faith when he was using it as a weapon.

But some things don't change. Germans, as a people, love sentiment, they love wide sweeping arias and dense heavy poetry, they love words that encompass the meaning of a thousand ideas. Erik has no love for the place he was born, the place the man he could have been died behind barbed wire, but there is something of that in him, a love of words and acts infused with meaning, so instead of crushing Charles' entire self to him the way he wants to, when Erik bends to him (as he must), he cradles the lines of Charles' jaw between the wide span of his hands and kisses him with the lightness of rain falling on water.

If it was a kiss that stayed that way it'd be sweet--chaste, nearly, but sweet--although of course it doesn't. He can feel the race of Charles' pulse on the roof of his mouth like sparks in his teeth, can taste day old worry and lighting that shivers on his tongue, and this is Charles, who Erik has wanted so badly it's settled like blood in a bruise. So chastity is in...fairly short supply, Erik sliding one hand down over the curve of Charles' neck and spine to plant it flat at the small of his back, mouth moving in bursts like the flare of flash bombs.