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"You're my lunch! Roared the hungry alligator."
"No, no, no, read how Erik reads it!" Cross-legged on the bed in her polka-dot flannel pyjamas, Raven cut him off. "You have to do the voices."
"I've only just started," Charles glanced down at the four-year-old. Her shock of red hair was still wet from the bath. She had refused to stand still long enough for him to dry it, which meant that tomorrow it would not have regained its thick oily sheen and would frizz in all directions. Which meant he would need to spend at least thirty minutes combing it and sticking it down with gel before she went to kindergarten or Raven's yellows eyes would well up with tears and she would stomp her foot and her skin would turn jet-black. And he would comply, of course, because the very fact that they had finally found a kindergarten where Raven was scared of getting teased for having frizzy hair, instead of getting teased for having blue scales, was one of the biggest blessings of the past year.
"But you have to do it proper," Raven's blue fingers played with the corner of the book's pages. "Erik, he does, like, he does it like you're my lunch."
"I've only just started, just wait," Charles said cheerily. He turned back to the book and continued to read, "I'll eat half of you now and save half for later-"
"You're not doing the voices," Raven whined. "Erik does," and this time, out of her tiny mouth came a pitch-perfect mimicry of Erik droning in his native accent, just subtle enough for a four-year-old to still understand the words, "I'll eat half of you now."
"What, he's a German alligator?" Charles asked.
"Yes, he does it like, like, like, You're my lunch," Raven copied Erik again. It was quite unnerving, even when you had raised the little shapeshifter since she was a baby. It had been more unnerving before she couldn’t form her own speech, of course. Watching a one-year-old who can barely crawl copy everything you said like a particularly clever parrot had been downright creepy.
"Well that's Erik's way of reading, but Erik's not here, he's downstairs looking at stolen CIA files, which is why I'm reading Percy Puffin tonight, so if you want to hear the story you've got to let me do the voices my way," Charles told her.
"You said stealing was bad," Raven whispered not-at-all-quietly.
"It is, and Erik's going to get in lots of trouble when Aunty Moira finds out," Charles nodded. "Right. I'll eat half of you now, and save half of you later," he switched to what he thought was a pretty good New York accent, "Well you can't eat me, said Charlie-"
"Stop, stop!" Raven cried. "Erik does it like Well, you can't eat me," this time the Erik-voice she mimicked was a higher pitch, and Charles noticed with a frown that it was German as well - but he had the oddest feeling it was a different regional accent. Before he could quiet Raven again, there was the thumping of footsteps to halfway up the stairs.
"Charles! CHARLES!" nine-year-old Alex yelled. He did not sound alarmed, which meant nothing was on fire.
"What is it?"
"Sean wants to know if he can go outside he wants to practice his screaming," Alex said in a rush.
"Alright, but tell him he is not under any circumstances to touch any glass he breaks no matter how bad he feels, he must come and get me or Erik to clean it up," Charles called back. Sean was seven and his hands were always covered in bandages, no matter how many times Charles told him that if it really was an accident, he wouldn't get in trouble for telling an adult.
Alex's footsteps thudded away down the steps. Charles went back to the book. "Well, you can't eat me-"
"You're still not doing it, you need to do it like You can't eat me, " Raven groaned, rocking forward and digging her fingers through her hair. Yes, it was definitely a slightly different German accent.
More footsteps outside the door. Twelve-year-old Hank, in his soccer shorts and too-big shirt, stuck his head in the door. "Charles, I can't find my shoes."
"They're by the kitchen door, Hank," Charles said patiently.
"Those are last month's shoes. They're too small. Where's my new shoes?" Hank swayed from side to side in despair, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I want to go for a run. I can't find them."
"I'll tell you what," Charles said. Raven was head butting him in the ribs, making wordless noises of complaint at the delay. "Go and get Erik and tell him he needs to do an Erik-find."
"My shoes don't have metal in them," Hank said.
"They've got metal eyelets and little nails in the sole, I expect," without looking over, Charles put Raven in a headlock with one arm. She hummed happily at the attention, and then began to gnaw gummily at his forearm. "I'll be down soon enough if they don't turn up. And don't go near the rose garden, Sean is practising out there."
"I won’t. Thanks, Charles," Hank said demurely, backing out and thankfully shutting the door behind him.
"Right, where were we?" Charles released Raven and put his arm around her shoulders instead, tucking her against his side.
"Well, you can't eat me," Raven prompted, still in Erik's voice.
Charles finally recognised the two accents. He had never heard Erik actually speak either of them; his rare lapses into German were homogenised by years of travelling. But he'd heard them in Erik's memories, and especially in the nightmares he sometimes woke from, grabbing frantically at Charles with his thoughts ranting about escape and protecting the children. The alligator's voice was the imperfect, second-language accent of Doktor Schmidt. The 'Charlie' voice was Erik's original accent, from when he was a boy, which Charles had never heard him speak as an adult.
He wondered if Erik was even aware he was speaking them.
"That's Erik's way of doing it, you have to give me a chance," Charles said. "Alright?"
"Fine," Raven mumbled sleepily, wriggling down to put her head in Charles' lap.
Charles cleared his throat. He would deal with Erik's alligator later. Right now was bedtime for shapeshifters, and that demanded all of his concentration. "Well, you can't eat me..."