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Hank leaned over his table in the lab as he concentrated on an equation and sighed. If it were under any other circumstance, he would’ve been at his happiest right here-just experimenting and working on science. But today marked the…what was it? Oh right, the second year to the day that Erik and Raven left them all on that beach in Cuba and his mind was on Charles.
Charles had been getting worse; it used to be that quite often, Hank would have to carry around a handkerchief or a box of Kleenex because his friend would sometimes start crying at the memories going through his mind-whether his own or someone else’s, or that Hank would have to tread carefully on certain subjects-not because Charles would get angry, {no he wouldn’t get angry at all}, but because Charles would then go from the happiest he’d been all day, even going so much as to smile or laugh, to having a shadow cross his face and then withdrawing to his room for hours on end.
But now? Ever since Charles had asked Hank to give him the serum that he’d been using to keep his own mutation balanced so that all those mournful thoughts from other people could go away and he could finally get a peaceful night’s sleep, Hank had noticed Charles was now starting to get worse. With his power intact, at least he had the drive to be empathetic actively and it helped a little with taking his mind off his own problems; but now with nothing except Hank, {who liked to be by himself from time to time to re-charge}, to keep him distracted; he was now officially depressed. He didn’t even cry anymore—he’d gone past that stage and had cried all his tears and now he just moped and laid around in his dressing robe with his ever-growing hair, every now and then attempting to read a book but that didn’t help much.
It was when Hank noticed that Charles was starting to use his previously happy pastime of drinking as a coping mechanism in which he now always had a glass in his hand and was hardly ever 100% sober, that Hank knew that his little attempts to keep his friend happy was not enough. Verbal comforting and playing chess was not helping like they used to, and he knew it; that’s why he was working on this equation. The chances that using this new technique would help a bit were promising, but he needed to work out the math one more time to be sure. He added this and worked on that, aaannddd…it would work!
Hank straightened with a small smile. Now it was time to find Charles.
“Hey, Charles!” He called, knocking on his door.
“Yes, Hank? Come in.” Came the mono-tone response.
Hank opened the door and walked in to see Charles in about the situation he’d expected; drink in hand and a look that he could tell meant that his friend had been drifting off in thought about things again.
“I have an idea that I think you’ll like.” He said, pushing his glasses further back on the bridge of his nose.
“What is it?” Charles asked wearily.
“Let’s get dressed and…vandalize some stuff.” Hank said, pausing as he was not quite sure how to word it, but also smiling hopefully.
Charles frowned in confusion. “What? Why do you think I’d like vandalizing public property, Hank? That’s ridiculous. We can’t vandalize other people’s stuff; it would be wrong and terribly inconsiderate of us.”
Hank closed his eyes and quietly chuckled nervously. He worded it wrong, but at least Charles was showing a different emotion than usual, even if it was not favorable to him. “Well, I meant a different kind of vandalism--not the destructive kind.”
Charles shook his head softly. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s a lot of negativity around h—out there,” he realized what he was saying and stopped himself from completing his first sentence quickly, “and I thought we could have a little fun reversing that.” Hank smirked.
Twenty minutes later and armed with Sharpies, Duct Tape, Banana Flips, and Ding-Dongs in a cross-body bag; they both hid behind a bush in front of a parking lot, plotting their move.
“I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.” Charles said, now dressed for the day and looking more like a part of society and not like he was a homeless drunk outsider.
“I was pretty convincing.” Hank turned his head back to look at his friend behind him.
“’It’ll be fun’ is convincing?” Charles asked, skeptical.
“What? Like you had something better to do?” Hank said, a little sarcastically, but he’d been stressed out lately too.
“…Fair point.”
“Now,” he glanced out at the Wendy’s parking lot before them and spotted a truck with the numbers ‘4x4’ on the back, “that’s our first target. You wanna actually do it or you wanna be the look-out?” He asked, smiling.
“Well, this was your idea, so I think I’ll see how you do it first.”
“Alright, then. Let’s go!”
Hank led the way, bent down slightly so as to be less obvious {which probably wouldn’t have worked if there was anyone there}, and made his way to the truck—Charles following suit. He glanced back and forth once and gestured to Charles to move to the corner of the vehicle to look for anyone coming. And then, pulling out a Sharpie from his bag, he made a few marks on the other side of the numbers so the back of the truck now said:
‘4 x 4 = 16’.
Charles watched as he did it and when the deed was done, they both looked at each other for a solid 5 seconds. And then they couldn’t take it anymore and they both laughed {granted, Hank laughed louder, but it was a start}.
“We—we shouldn’t do this.” Charles said between breaths.
“Why not? You’re a Professor, and this is educational, right?” Hank answered, the unusual sound of their laughter sounding like music to his ears.
A few seconds later, Charles saw a man come out of the restaurant and move towards the car.
“Hank, he’s coming!” He whispered.
The both of them ran to the nearby corner of the building and watched as the man walked up, hadn’t even noticed something was off, and drove away.
“Ha, he’ll be so confused later!” Hank noted, smiling satisfactorily and shaking his head.
“Indeed.” Charles said, his eyes focused on the car now driving out of sight in the distance. After a silent sigh and a wistful look, he turned his attention back at his friend. “What next?” He asked, hopeful intent in his expression.
After that, they went on several more prankish adventures, including; drawing a monocle and a mustache on the face of a person on a poster, placing a hat on top of a famous man’s statue, Duct-Taping the door to a closed hardware store shut, writing ‘.14’ on a piece of paper and taping it after a sign that said ‘floor 3’ at a school {that was Hank’s idea, and he had thought it was such a funny idea that Charles simply had to agree to do it with him}, and drawing funny pictures and jokes on the sidewalks outside of buildings.
At first, Charles would laugh with Hank, and then a few seconds later, be back to a sadder expression; but after a while, he really seemed to loosen up a quite a bit and genuinely have fun—even thinking of the next prank they could do. Hank heard so many chuckles and laughs from Charles that day compared to the last two years that he sometimes had to flinch at the abnormal sound, and he loved it; maybe now after today, Charles could have a few happy memories to think about instead of just all sad ones.
As the day began to turn into evening, they headed home to the school and—not wanting to go inside yet—sat outside in the grass and ate their Banana Flips and Ding-Dongs they’d packed as they watched the sun start to touch the horizon.
“Hank, did you know what today was?” Charles asked as the slightly younger man took a bite of the small chocolate cake in his hand. “What happened on this day two years ago?”
Hank nodded, having known that it had to come up at some point. “Yes.” He voiced after swallowing. “To be honest, it was kind of hard not to know; you’ve been staring at that picture of Raven a lot more often the past week.”
Charles lowered his eyes slightly for a second and then raised them up at Hank again. “Yes, well, I want you to know how much you doing this means to me. I most likely would have just spent today in misery, thinking about Cuba if you hadn’t come up with this…somewhat hare-brained yet genius idea. Thank you.”
Hank patted his shoulder. “Of course; I couldn’t just leave my best friend on a day like this.”
The next few minutes were spent in silence, with neither one wanting to speak. Finally, as they were standing up to go inside, Hank noticed tears in Charles’ eyes. Prepared for this, he reached for his arm to hold onto it, but Charles mistook that gesture and ended up hugging him, which Hank was not all the way prepared for.
It felt good, though. Hank couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged, and now, with Charles’ arms around him and actually feeling the warmth of the embrace, something inside his chest felt soothed, and he hugged back. Closing his eyes, he let the stress he’d been under start to leave.
Charles sighed. It wasn’t as easy for him to just let the feelings of pain and grief float away, even if only for a second or two. He knew that, come tomorrow, things would be back to the way they were before today. But he also knew to take whatever comfort he could get—however short-lived. So, he made an attempt to not think about it all and just breathe under the relieving weight of this hug with Hank for right now.
Hank was ready to let go after about 8 full seconds, but Charles wasn’t, so he waited. Eventually, Charles let go and he patted Hank’s shoulder in gratitude.
“Thank you, my brother.”
Hank nodded sincerely.
Having spent all afternoon doing things with an exertion he hadn’t used since they’d all trained for the Cuba mission, Charles fell asleep much faster than usual that night—the most peaceful he’d been in a while. And Hank? He was given a bit of hope; while it may not be anytime soon, his friend could very well be happier someday and not live in grief. So, he fell asleep with a bit of a smile on his face.