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Charles was a good father, despite everything. He repeated that to himself everyday, a reminder that, as a single father, he did a great job.
He always dropped David at school in the mornings in time, and he was at every parent-teacher meeting to know how David was doing in his classes — it was always rewarding to see how little trouble David caused and how he charmed the entire school staff easily. He also made David breakfast before school: eggs and toast, with chocolate milk like David liked; fruits when he wanted to get David eating a little healthier. David was a lanky boy, and Charles had to keep his little boy strong.
He took David out to the park on free weekends and, when he had the chance, to the Aquarium so they could see the sharks. At this point, Charles was sure David was a better marine biologist than him, and that one day he'd correct Charles or one of Charles' colleagues on how sharks behaved and worked.
Charles would also take David to therapy every Saturday, and he'd make sure to update himself on anything that came out in the academic field about Autism and DID, as well as listening to David to understand his needs. It wasn't easy, but, being a telepath, Charles was more empathetic and understanding of others' minds, and he felt like now, after years of living alone with David after the accident that took Gabby away from the boy, he understood David's mind a little more. He wanted to understand, and he did his best to do just that; it seemed to pay off, even if he occasionally made mistakes either way.
Something else he'd do was make sure David was able to control his powers, teaching him to control his telepathy mostly, but taking his time to teach him about the powers David claimed he had thanks to the alters. He helped David with the moments he lost control of the body, most of the alters already used to his presence and respecting his authority until they gave David control again. Charles would usually only interfere with the ones who tried to harm the body, but the ones like Cindy, one of David's protectors, he would usually try and create a bond it (Cindy mostly for the potential she had of burning their house down if she lost control).
Still, even with all that, Charles was flawed. Being a single father, a professor and a researcher at the same time was not an easy task, and things like forgetting to pick David up from school sometimes happened, like it did that day, and for the past few days that week. Life was chaotic back at work, his research and his project to spread awareness on sharks not being the dangerous animals media portrayed them to be taking a lot of his time, and Charles would forget to check his clock sometimes.
Now, he wheeled himself to the front of the school while chanting a litany of curses under his breath, seeing how the building was almost empty. David was at the front doors, his teacher just by his side with her eyebrows up at Charles, clear judgement in her mind. In a defensive burst, Charles quietly wished she'd shove her judgement up her arse, making sure David couldn't pick up on that thought.
"Hey, I'm sorry," Charles ended up saying, stopping his chair next to them as David walked closer to him, standing by him and waiting to be taken to the car. He felt a little disappointed at being the last one to be at school, and Charles felt his heart clench. "Work has been crazy lately."
"Maybe you should consider getting David a caretaker, Dr. Xavier."
"I don't need a nanny!" David protested quickly.
"I'm sorry again, Mrs. Flemming," he said with a sigh, taking David's backpack to carry it for him — he could feel the quiet discomfort in the boy's mind at the weight of the books. "I'll be here at the right time tomorrow-"
"Tomorrow is Saturday, Dr. Xavier," the woman pointed out, judgement still in her eyes.
"Fuck," Charles muttered, the teacher and David looking at him with wide eyes. "Oh shi- Sorry."
"You just cussed," David whispered to him, looking at Charles like he had just killed someone.
Too tired from the day and for the clear displeasure in the teacher's mind, Charles resorted to only sighing.
Since Charles hadn't had the time to get home before running to pick David up, dinner wasn't ready when they got home. Charles was tired, but he had already ordered too much food that week, and David needed something healthy at least once in a while, so he just watched the fish frying on the pan, a salad set aside — an easy thing to make, at least — while the green beans cooked. He had to do groceries that weekend as well, he thought to himself as he took a mental note to go grocery shopping the next morning after David's session with his therapist, looking away from the fish to see David sitting at the kitchen table, drawing again.
He smiled at the boy, seeing him hugging the shark plushie he had found at the IKEA store years ago with one arm while his free hand painted the drawing he had just made with crayons. He'd be doing homework any other day of the week, but they had a deal: Friday night David was free to skip homework, as long as he did it on Saturday afternoon without fail. Charles was half impressed he hadn't gone straight to the videogame that night.
"How are things at school, munchkin?" Charles found himself asking, seeing David's mind focus on his words even if David's eyes remained on the drawing. He wondered for a moment for how long would David let him get away with the endearment term. "Did Ruth play with you again today?"
There was a flash of color inside David's mind — so colorful, his boy's mind, and Charles could distinguish them easily to tell the boy's mood — a soft yellow; David was happy at the mention of Ruth, then.
"We did," David replied quickly. He wasn't very interested in talking, but did so anyway. "I caught a ladybug and put it in her hand. Showed what it looked like with my mind."
Charles felt a little wary then, but didn't say anything. He'd have to warn David another time about using his telepathy; he was sure the girl, Ruth, wouldn't mind, but other kids — other people — didn't take kindly to telepathy.
"Look," David said after a moment of silence, raising the paper he had been drawing on and making Charles pay attention to the boy's words. There was a drawing of what Charles could see was a Great White on the paper. "It's Erik, our shark friend!"
"Oh, yeah," Charles' smile widened, looking away only to avoid the fish burning on the frying pan. "You really liked Erik, huh?"
Charles had taken David diving a few days after meeting Erik the Great White Shark, mostly because David wouldn't talk to him anymore if he didn't. It was one thing for David to see the sharks in an Aquarium, it was a whole other thing for David to see one in real life and be able to interact with it.
Charles had been nervous at first, knowing David wasn't exactly the calmest kid in the world. He had no idea how Erik or the other sharks would react to him, and had to rely on his own confidence that he could stop something bad from happening. As much as he was trying to prove sharks weren't inherently dangerous, messing with them wasn't exactly something one was advised to do.
Thankfully, David had behaved well, even if he was incredibly excited the whole time, and, after telling David that "No, darling, that's not Erik," to every shark that came closer, Erik had appeared, recognizing Charles almost instantly as Charles recognized the shark's mind amongst the others'. The shark had circled them, clearly curious about the tiny human next to Charles, until the telepath sent over a series of impulses that translated into something like "friend, son, pup, friendly."
Erik had bumped its snoot against David's chest gently, and Charles had to give David a quick warning to not open his mouth that wide around his breather when he gasped at the contact, but Erik seemed to immediately file David under "friend" in its mind. Amusingly, Erik seemed to understand David was Charles' "pup", but couldn't fully understand why they were together. Later, David had hugged Erik and sent over his own series of impulses towards Erik, the shark reacting excitedly at the wave of affection coming from the boy.
David had not stopped talking about that dive for weeks.
"Can we visit Erik again?" David asked as Charles turned off the stove to take the fried fish out. "I'd like to see him again."
"I don't know, munchkin. I don't think I'll be free to go diving so soon."
"But we haven't gone out anymore," David's voice turned into a whine, and Charles winced as he realized it was true. Their free time was spent at home, mostly playing board games whenever David was in the mood. "And you promised we'd go again!"
Charles sighed to himself, turning off the fire on the beans as well and starting to put David's dinner on a plate, making sure not to mix anything together or else David wouldn't eat. He knew it wasn't really his fault that he was busy, that his project was taking a lot of him, but it didn't stop him from feeling guilty.
"How about on Sunday?" He offered, and the way David's mind burst with happiness and an array of happy colors made Charles smile again.
David was, as expected, bouncing up and down on the boat the whole way there, Charles and Raven constantly having to keep him from leaning over the railing too much to look into the water. It was a blessing that Raven had agreed on going again, considering another pair of hands and someone who could actually run after David was a little more reassuring to have around for him.
"You didn't have to bring your camera," Charles commented as he watched Raven putting a laughing David over her shoulder to stop him from leaning over the boat again, yellow eyes turning to look at Charles. "This one isn't for research."
"I know," she shrugged, ignoring David's attempts to get free — she was too strong for him to free himself still, maybe would always be if Charles was being honest; Raven's strength was inhuman at best. "I just thought it would be good to take a few pictures of Hair since I didn't do it last time."
Hair was how Raven had taken to calling David ever since his hair started to stand up and wouldn't give, no matter what Charles did. David liked it, said it was a cool name, but Charles guessed it was only because Aunt Raven had always been cool in the boy's eyes.
"I'll have a picture with a shark!" David screamed excitedly, arms raising as much as he could raise them as he stayed upside down on Raven's shoulder, muttering a quiet, "Shut up, Cindy. The shark will eat you!" under his breath.
Charles snorted a little, feeling how he seemed to be sharing control with Cindy now, the excitement probably bringing her forward. Cindy seemed to be teasing him now.
The boat stopped at their spot, the captain slowly moving around to take the shark bait to attract them, but Charles stopped him when he recognized the faint feeling of Erik's mind somewhere nearby. Charles called out for the shark, which made the animal stop for a second before a loud "!!!" feeling took hold of its mind, swimming towards the boat. He had the strange suspicion that the shark had been swimming through those waters a lot recently, waiting for Charles to come by.
Preparation was as boring as ever, Raven helping David out with his swimsuit while Charles put his on, reassuring the shark many times that Charles would be in the water soon — or at least as close to that as Charles could with a shark. He had to stop the shark many times from doing something stupid, overheating its thoughts of swimming fast and jumping inside the boat to meet Charles there. It only gave up when Charles sent a loud warning of "no, death" towards the shark. To a shark, death was a weird concept, but it seemed to understand he shouldn't do it anyway.
It was strange to notice how familiar with the shark's impulses Charles was getting, his reading better now that he knew what to expect, and his capacity of communication advancing as well. It only proved to Charles that, with a bit more training, he'd be able to deal with animal minds just as well as he did with human ones.
Once they all dropped into the water, Erik was there, swimming around them with something akin to joy in its mind, bumping its nose against Charles' chest almost immediately. The whole time, Raven took some pictures of Erik with Charles and David, the boy radiating his happiness loudly to everyone, including to Erik. Charles had just turned Erik on its back and was chuckling at the joy in Erik's mind at the petting coming from both Charles and David when Raven warned them about the time to go up.
It was a process to get both David and Erik to understand they needed to leave, but soon they were getting on the boat, Charles laying on the floor for a moment, feeling the sun against his face as he allowed his arms a moment to rest. Next to him, Raven seemed to help David with his swimsuit.
"I wish we could see Erik every day," David sighed with real distress, already missing the shark. "I wish he could come home with us."
"And where would he live?" Charles asked, entertaining his son's thoughts for a moment.
"The pool at the back!" David quickly said. "We could just throw some salt in the water."
"It's a very small pool, munchkin," Charles opened one eye to see his son pouting, brow furrowed as he apparently tried to think of the logistics of having a shark living with them. "I'm sure Erik is happier here in the ocean."
"He likes us, I can feel him wanting to come with us," the boy argued, and Charles couldn't say he was lying. Erik seemed to swim in circles around the boat as they got ready to leave — "they" excluding Charles, of course, who suddenly felt too lazy to even want to move from the spot he was laying on, letting the sun warm his body and unfeeling legs dangle from the side of the boat, where Erik would brush against sometimes.
"Hm," Charles hummed, closing his eyes again and making a breathless sound as David jumped over his chest. His arm held his boy immediately, feeling David resting his head against Charles' chest — he could almost feel David's blue and green eyes on him. "Still, munchkin. Erik's a shark. He's better here."
There was a pause, the sound of the wind and the water hitting the boat the only sounds around then, until there was something loud in David's mind, an idea that made Charles open his eyes again and look at the boy, seeing the way his eyes were shining. His mind was a burst of colors out of excitement.
"If he was human he could come with us," David said, as if he had just discovered something important.
"Um," Charles voiced, confused as to where the boy was going with that.
"And then Mrs. Flamming wouldn't be saying I need a nanny, because Erik would be with me!"
Uh oh.
"David-"
Before Charles could say anything, before he could tell the boy that it was not as good of an idea as David thought it was, David was getting up in a hurry, a vague look in his eyes that showed Charles he had retreated into his mind. Charles was about to warn David not to do whatever he had in mind, when he saw David's hand raise towards the water, and his mind caught something happening.
Erik's mind had been there, the familiar impulses still showing frustration that Charles and David had left, and suddenly they weren't there anymore. In their place, there were fully fleshed thoughts of a human mind, if only a little messy and, somehow, new, that shone with confusion until it shone with the pain and despair of drowning.
Fuck, Charles thought, raising his torso with his arms and moving as quickly as he could to jump into the water again, taking a deep breath before diving and hearing Raven's worried screams behind him. He didn't have time to hear her, or think about what he was doing, not when he could feel the panic against his mind.
Charles swan as fast as he could, noticing the figure of a man just a few meters below, apparently slowly sinking down. Without thinking much about what had just happened and what David had just done, Charles grabbed the man by his waist, swimming up as quickly as he could with just one arm free, until he broke the surface with a desperate breath for air.
The man in his arms was thrashing around, and, to Charles' despair, he wasn't breathing at all, despite having his head above water. With a start, Charles realized that the man he was trying to drag to the boat had no idea how lungs worked, only sucking a few breaths, but too confused to really understand what was happening around him.
Charles held the man's face between his hands, making his eyes stare at Charles' in between his panicking. He pushed inside the man's mind an instruction, the method to get air into his lungs, and soon, thankfully, Charles saw the man take a deep and loud breath of air, his movements becoming less erratic as he didn't feel like he was about to die from suffocating. There was the noise of someone jumping into the water, and soon Raven was aiding Charles on pulling the man up to the boat, watching as he flopped to the floor and moved his limbs around like he didn't know how to use them.
Next to them, David was smiling brightly, shaking his hands in excitement; the rest of the people there seemed to just watch with terror the naked man laying there, fighting to breathe. Now, sitting on the boat again, Charles tried hard not to faint.
David had turned Erik into a human.
"Um, Charles," Raven spoke, a little breathless now as she stared at the man on the ground, who had finally stopped moving and just looked plainly confused. "Who- What-"
"David," Charles called, his voice distant as he stared at the shark turned human. His son moved closer, and Charles almost laughed at how proud of himself he seemed to be.
"He doesn't need salt in the water of the pool anymore," David said, as if that was the solution to all the problems they had.
They watched as Erik the Human seemed to figure out how to use some of his limbs, hands pressing against the ground to raise his torso with sharking arms just enough for his eyes to meet Charles'. He could feel in Erik's mind how different his vision felt, and how he couldn't sense things around him anymore; still, his memory felt just clear enough for him to recognize Charles.
He just sat there as he watched Erik get closer, dragging himself through the floor awkwardly and bumping his head against Charles' chest like he had been used to doing when Charles visited him. Something about the familiar gesture calmed Erik's mind even if only a little, his breathing still loud and heavy as his face remained burried against Charles' chest. David, standing next to them, seemed pleased.
Charles swallowed thickly, mind going blank as he tried not to panic at the situation he had gotten himself into.