Chapter Text
"Raven?" Charles asks, knocking on his sister’s door. He could hear her and her best friend, Angel, giggling inside.
"Come on in, Charles," she calls out.
Charles enters and sighs at the whirlwind mess they have made. Clothes, make up, and discarded food wrappers litter every possible surface of the room. While they might be grown women, nearly 21 years old, their time spent together resulted in the same amount of mess as a 12-year-old slumber party. Not that Charles should be one to judge, his room was drowning in stacks of books and papers.
“I’m ordering Chinese food, do you girls just want the usual order?”
“I thought that you were making omelets tonight?” asked Angel.
“Yeah, that didn’t exactly go according to plan,” Charles shrugs. “You heard the fire alarm.”
“Only you, brother dear, could mess up making something as easy as glorified cheesy eggs,” Raven teases.
“Well I’d like to see you try your hand at cooking, sister dear,” Charles quips back.
“Nah, I think lack of culinary skills is genetic. And the fire department has visited this apartment enough times in the past six months. It’s safer to just order out. And don’t forget my extra sweet and sour sauce this time”
“I like to think of my poor cooking as an excuse to stimulate the economy and support local restaurants.”
“Which is good, ‘cause they’d all go bankrupt without your support,” Angel says, only half joking.
“I resent that remark,” Charles says with a fake gasp. “Someone’s not getting the extra potsticker tonight.”
He exits the room chuckling as Angel throws a pillow at his face.
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When their food arrives, Charles calls the girls out to the dining room table, which is currently serving as his office. The table is covered in half-graded projects and forgotten about coffee mugs. Angel haphazardly pushes aside a stack of papers to make room for her and her friend to eat.
“I thought there was a no devices at the dinner table rule,” Raven jokes as Charles sits fiddling with his phone.
“I’m looking at work emails, that’s different,” Charles says dismissively.
“Really? Cuz according to the mirror on the wall behind you, you’re currently checking out dudes on Tinder,” Angel points out. “And besides you scroll up and down to look at email, not swipe left or right.”
Charles shoots her one of his “disappointed teacher” looks. “You know, I liked you a lot better when I thought you were a shy, sweet little girl.”
Angel shrugs, sticking out her tongue at him.
Charles pauses for a moment. Though he didn’t allow himself to read the girls individual thoughts, he could tell by their body language and the busy hum of their minds that they were up to something. With a sigh, he asks Raven what she’s thinking about.
“I know your romantic life is none of our business,” Raven begins.
“It really isn’t,” Charles buts in.
“Just let me finish! But you’re closer to 30 then 20 now…”
“I’m only 26, Raven!”
“Shut up, Charles! What I was trying to say is that you haven’t had a serious boyfriend in years. I can’t even remember the last time you brought one home for anything other than sexcapades.”
“Raven!” Charles admonishes, choking on his lo mein.
“The fact that you know the details of your brother’s sex life is greatly concerning, Rave,” Angel interjects. “But that being said, she’s right, Charles. You need to start thinking about meeting a nice guy and settling down.”
Charles sighs, fighting the urge to stick out his bottom lip like a pouting child. “I appreciate the thought girls, but I really don’t need my baby sister and her best friend trying to set me up with someone again, you did that enough when you were in high school.. I’m completely happy with the bachelor life, I don’t want to get back into the serious dating world anytime soon.”
“Too late!” Raven squeals, whipping her laptop out of a bag by her feet. “Angel and I started filling out an online dating profile for you.”
“What the fuck, Raven! Why would you do something like that?”
“We’re not along in thinking this Charles, even Moira agrees with us. She even helped us fill out some of the questions.”
“Remind me to send her a strongly worded text about this later tonight. Dear God, I need new friends,” Charles sighs. “I am not signing up with an internet dating service. Think of all the creepy internet predators on there!”
“Says the guy meeting random dudes to hook up with using a phone app,” Angel deadpans.
“That’s the last straw. You both lose all potsticker privileges for the next month,” Charles says as he snatches the container away from them, with Angel protesting vehemently. “I feed and clothe you, let you live in my apartment, and this is the thanks that I get.”
“Charles, I just want you to be happy. Really I do.”
“And I am happy Raven. I have a job and friends that I love, as well as a sister who is caring to a fault. It’s one thing to introduce me to a cute boy that you know of, but sign me up for online dating? This is a little over the top, even for you.”
Angel snorts at the thought of anything being too over the top for Raven, which earns her a hard jab from Raven’s elbow.
“Please Charles, just try it. If you don’t meet anyone you like after, say a month?, then I’ll deactivate the account and we can pretend like it never happened. Do it for me?”
Charles tried to look away, but he was too late. Raven had set her puppy dog eyes on him. Those eyes had gotten her out of untold numbers of speeding tickets and into many a club without an ID. It took a cold hearted son of a bitch to be capable of defying that look, and goddamit, Charles was not nearly soulless enough to resist her powers.
“Okay, okay, I’ll look at your stupid website!”
Raven’s eyes widened even farther in disbelief. She jumped up from the table and ran towards her brother, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me.”
“I’m not sure why this means anything to you in the first place. But if you get to meddle in my love life, then I get mess with yours too.”
“Wait, why? I date people all the time!” Raven protests.
“I don’t know, Raven, that seems pretty fair. What are the ground rules?” Angel asks.
“You two can meet me in my classroom tomorrow for my ten o’clock lecture. I will point out several options of people I approve for you, and you will then choose one of them to ask on a date. Angel will be allowed back her potsticker privileges if she can confirm that you and whomever you chose did go on a real date which you are not allowed to sabotage.”
“I get my potstickers back? Raven, you are so taking this deal.” Angel says excitedly.
“Ok, deal. But you can’t sabotage any of your dates either.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Charles says rolling his eyes dramatically.
The two shake hands on their deal and dinner continues without chaos. Or with as little chaos as can be expected given the circumstances. When they are finished, Angel and Raven return to her room. She emails Charles the account information. Though Charles is determined to keep his attention on the papers he’s grading, curiosity gets the best of him and he pulls out his laptop to check it out.
“Mutant Meets, eh? Let’s see what the damage is.” Charles says to himself.
His profile is still in the set up stage where the service asks all sorts of nosy information about you. Charles found it slightly disturbing, though not at all surprising, that Moira and his sister knew all the intimate details of his life. Date of birth, favorite color, schooling and such were things that nearly anyone would know about him, but they had quite accurately filled in the information about his beliefs, hopes for the future, and the type of boyfriend he was interested in as well.
After checking out the first few pages, Charles figured that the rest of the questionnaire would be filled in successfully as well. The only tabs left were Family and Medical History. Charles didn’t have any major health issues, so he didn’t feel that tab was relevant anyways. As for family, it had been just Raven and him for years since their mom passed away from alcohol poisoning. Their father had been dead for years before that. They had a step-brother, Cain Marko, as well, but Raven and Charles did their best to forget that he had ever existed. Satisfied that everything was filled out as well as possible, Charles clicked ‘Post profile’.
“Here goes nothing. I hope you’re happy, Raven.”