Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Sugar, you want to tell me-”

“Shhh!” Raven hisses, and pulls Emma, dressed in her usual bright white, down to the floor with her. “You’re like a big reflective panel or something, they’re gonna see you!”

Emma frowns at her, but lays down next to Raven, following her line of sight (and more importantly, the direction her phone camera is pointing) out the glass of the french doors and into the backyard. Charles and Erik are over on the lawn, Charles waving his hands wildly like he’s trying to explain something and Erik with his arms crossed.

“He’s trying to teach him Hot To Go,” Raven whispers by way of explanation. “It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” Then she does a double take, “Wait. You don’t live here. Is there a party?”

Emma shakes her head coolly. “No.” She could elaborate – explain that Moira said she was hanging out here today and Erik offered to let her come along and besides, Darwin’s upstairs with Alex right now, and she’s fairly sure that Azazel has gone off teleporting with Sean and Janos, which means they could pop back up in the house at any instant, so, really, her entire social group is here – but she doesn’t really feel like it.

“Oh, okay. Cool,” Raven smiles, uncaring, which is the nice thing about her, and goes back to watching the boys.

Emma sighs. “Sugar, you want to tell me why I’ve had five hundred people try to follow me on Instagram in the past week? On my private account?”

Raven waves a hand in a nondescript gesture. “You probably got tagged on our page at some point. Sorry.”

Okay, so maybe it would be nice if she cared a little.

“What are you two doing?” Sean’s voice startles Raven, who whips her head back to glare at him. Emma seems unaffected.

“Erik’s doing Hot To Go,” Raven explains, and Sean grins.

“Awesome,” He says, and lays down on his stomach next to Emma. “Az, Janos, Erik’s dancing!” He calls over his shoulder, and soon enough Azazel and Janos have emerged from the kitchen to spy with them. Raven subtly tilts her camera to show the line of people laying on their stomachs on the floor. Emma, as soon as she notices, glares at her and pushes the camera back.

“Oh my god, they’re doing it,” Sean whispers loudly, and sure enough, Erik and Charles are both doing the dance – Charles with a great deal of enthusiasm, Erik with… less. Raven zooms in. Sean starts humming along to the song.

“What’s it take to get-oh.” Sean cuts himself off, almost sounding disappointed, as Erik leans over and kisses Charles, their dance dissolving into one of their typical face-sucking ordeals. Raven, Azazel, and Janos all stifle laughs, and even Emma almost looks amused.

“Oh, shit, they’re coming,” Raven scrabbles up from the floor as Charles and Erik break away from the kiss, retrieve the phone they had set up, and start moving back to the house. “Shit shit shit!”

Everyone scrambles away from the door, flinging themselves into some of the beanbag chairs and trying to look like they’ve been doing something.

“We need a cover,” Raven hisses, with urgency.

“Music!” Sean suggests, “Alexa, on.”

“Playing Alex’s Playlist,” The machine says, and everyone groans. Alex’s annoying depressed angry boy music floods the speakers just as the door opens.

Charles frowns at them. “What are you doing?” It’s clear he knows they’d never listen to this willingly.

“Nothing,” Raven says, smiling sweetly and schooling her features into an innocent look, hoping her brother has his mental shields up right now. Thank god Sean has his back to him, or else the jig would be up, the way he’s trying to stifle a smile. “Just… hanging out.”

Charles continues to frown, but says, “Okay…”

“I heard Moira’s coming over?” Raven continues, trying to steer the conversation another direction. It works, because Charles’s face brightens.

“Yes, she’s dropping off some lab reports for me that we couldn’t quite manage to find online,” He says. “I think she said she might stick around for a little bit. Hang out.” He arches an eyebrow at them and then turns to look at Erik. “Onaka ga suki mashita.”

Erik furrows his brow. “Hungry?” He guesses.

Charles has been trying to help him learn to speak Japanese, which translated to Charles absorbing the language from a friend of his and now speaking it near constantly every time Erik’s in the room.

Charles nods happily. “Spot on, darling.” He continues staring up at Erik with his puppy dog face on until the man sighs.

“Fine.” Erik grabs the keys off the kitchen counter. “I’m driving.”

A grin splits Charles’s face. “Wonderful!” He turns back to the group, briefly, “Would anyone like anything from McDonalds?”

“Get me McNuggets!” Raven says. Sean immediately perks up.

“Oh, oh, me too!”

“Two McNuggets, okay.” Charles nods. “Anything else?”

Azazel shrugs, “Would fries be okay?”

“Certainly.”

Azazel signs to Janos. “Want anything from McDonalds?”

Janos nods, signing back. His new cochlear implant hasn’t quite gotten adjusted to speech yet, so they’re still mostly signing around him – or, in the telepaths’ case, just projecting.

Charles nods, understanding the signs with an ease Erik tries not to be jealous of. “Two fries, coming right up! Emma, anything for you?”

“I’m alright, sugar, thank you.” She offers him a cool smile, which he returns brightly.

Charles loves having Emma around, someone else who understands the unique way he experiences life, the struggles, the joys. She pretends to tolerate him, but it’s clear even the cold, calculated Emma Frost has a soft spot for Charles.

“We’re getting Moira fries and a strawberry milkshake,” Charles reports. Erik sniffs.

“Who drinks strawberry milkshakes?”

“A very valid question,” Charles smiles.

“You have questionable taste in friends.”

“No, I just have friends with questionable tastes in food. Including you, Mr. I-won’t-eat-fast-food.”

Erik narrows his eyes. “Just for that, I’m going to make you order me Chinese.”

“Happily, my love.” Charles winks cheesily, and Erik can’t hold back his laugh anymore.

“You’re so cheesy,” he reaches across the center console and takes Charles’s hand, bringing to his lips and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Charles affectionately swats at him with his other hand

“You love me.”

“I do.”

“‘Strawberry milkshakes are the most popular milkshake flavor in ten US states, including California,” Moira reads from her phone, lounging on one of the beanbag chairs and sipping her drink thoughtfully.

She’s got more makeup on than she usually wears, a nude peach covering her lids that’s darker than her regular eyeshadow, matching her shirt and shiny lip gloss. Charles noticed as soon as she came in, projecting a quick you’re all dressed up and receiving a fuck you, Xavier as she smiled nicely at everyone else.

“Well, you’re not in California, are you, sugar?” Emma says, gracefully arching an eyebrow. Moira’s cheeks redden and her lips purse, staring at Emma as everyone laughs and moves on, the mood light for everyone but those two.

Moira looks over at Charles when Emma’s attention has turned to stealing Raven’s chicken nuggets, a look of annoyance and “what the fuck do I do?” He tries to give her a supportive smile.

A second later, when Moira’s attention has turned to Angel, who’s made an appearance and is also trying to steal food from everyone, Emma looks over to Charles and Erik with a look that, on anyone else, would probably be a glare, but on Emma is most likely a look of “what am I doing wrong you were friends with her first help me.” Not that she’d ever admit to it and project that. Charles smiles at her too, and Erik just smirks.

Are we ever going to tell them that they’re both obsessed with each other? He asks Charles, projecting into their mental link at the same time as shoveling noodles into his mouth. Ah, the perks of having a telepathic boyfriend.

And the other perk of having a super powerful telepathic boyfriend is that his other telepathic friend can’t listen in. So. Best gossiping capabilities.

Charles smirks between bites of his own food. No, they need to figure it out for themselves. It’s better that way.

Erik looks at him skeptically, and he adds. More fun, too, I suppose.

There it is. You know, you’re more devious than you pretend to be.

Charles smirks, I know. He looks at Erik with big, innocent eyes, magnified by his dorky glasses, as he projects some of the most explicit images of all time into his head, causing Erik to very nearly choke on his chow mein.

He swallows and then kisses Charles squarely on the mouth. Chess?

Hm…. I don’t know….

Please?

Well. Since you asked so nicely. Charles eats his last fry, licking his lips slowly, and transfers back to his chair.

Erik’s thinking must be getting loud, because Emma is giving him a disgusted kind of glare.

“Erik, please, use some shields, I beg of you,” She groans, “I did not need that level of information.”

He shrugs, smiling. “Hey, we’re just going to play some chess.”

Everyone else in the room groans too.

“We all know that’s a euphemism,” Raven sighs, “Just please, please, don’t be loud. I don’t want to have to leave again.”

“I second that!” Sean declares, and everyone else in the room begins to chime in with their agreement.

Erik rolls his eyes, but Charles just laughs, and he feels his heart stutter.

Standing there, being made fun of by all their friends, with Charles’s face lit up and beautiful, Erik doesn’t know if he’s ever been this happy.

With the realization comes the sinking feeling that it can’t last.

Chapter Text

“Get off of that,” Charles grumbles, clumsily trying to knock the phone out of Erik’s hand in his half-asleep haze. “We’re not going to hear anything until this evening… S’no point worrying about it now.”

“Mm, just go back to sleep, Charles,” Erik says softly, eyes fixed on his phone, feeling his head spin with the congestion of the issues in the world. Wars. Hate crimes. The political climate. Immigration issues. Homophobia. Mutantphobia. Oppression. Censorship.

Charles whines, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. “I can hear you stressing. It’s not relaxing.”

“Mm,” Erik intones, half listening.

“Get off that.”

“Mm-Hey!” Erik exclaims as Charles grabs the device from him, rolling over and holding it close to his chest. “Give me that!”

“Nope!” Charles says, resisting all attempts on Erik’s part to wrestle it away from him.

“C’mon…”

“I’ll make a deal; you can have it back after I do my PT. Fair?”

Erik sighs and nods, getting up and out of the way. “Fine.”

Charles transfers from the low bed to the floor, grabbing an exercise band from his nightstand drawer and shifting his legs around, beginning to circulate through his stretching routine. Erik joins him on the floor.

Charles told him, back when he first started staying over for the night, that he’d prefer that Erik didn’t make an attempt to “help;” he’d been exercising by himself since getting out of recovery, and he preferred it that way, but Erik was welcome to do his own exercises alongside him.

It’s a peaceful thing, really, with golden morning light filtering through the blinds, just the quiet sounds of breathing filling the air.

When they’re done, Erik doesn’t really want his phone anymore. He just wants to keep his little slice of peace. He takes Charles in his arms, and they lay like that for a while, on the carpet, watching the gaps between the blinds grow brighter as the seconds melt away.

Together they gather in front of the downstairs TV, nervously waiting for the results of the vote and the press conference that would follow. The mood is somber, everyone having given up on trying to make jokes or talk about other things within an hour.

They’ve all squeezed onto the couch together, by way of some miracle; Raven and Hank are sitting at one end, Angel with her head in Raven’s lap, feet on Sean’s, Sean leaning against Alex’s left and Darwin on Alex’s right, Janos and Azazel squeezed next to them, with Emma beside Charles and Erik, Moira on the floor leaning against the couch between Emma and Charles’s legs, and with Edie on Erik’s other side, sitting against the armrest with her son’s hand clasped in hers. Angel and Sean made an attempt to make it comfortable for everyone, with soft blankets gathered from other rooms scattered around the couch. Charles is pretty sure there was nothing they would’ve been able to do to release any of the tension.

Edie brought a pie, which is sitting on the coffee table in front of them, along with Sean’s grilled cheese spread and the strawberry ice cream Moira brought. The food is mostly untouched, everyone’s appetite sapped by the news.

Emma rubs her head, looking strained.

Headache? Charles projects.

There’s a lot of anxiety in here right now. She says by way of explanation. He sends the mental equivalent of a nod.

I feel it too.

I know, sugar. She gives him a small, sad-ish smile. It’s probably the most deflated he’s ever seen her, and that starts a sinking feeling in his stomach.

If Emma Frost is unnerved, things are bad.

The announcement barely lasts ten seconds. It passed. The votes tipped one way, the wrong way, by a hair, and there’s no doubt that the president will be signing the bill as quickly as he can, considering all his anti-mutant sentiments.

From the looks of it, all mutants will be fitted with inhibitor collars and registered based on their power level. The collars will turn off only when mutants are on private property, which has been mapped using some sort of new AI technology. There will be stricter enforcements reserved for mutants with higher power levels, including mandatory weekly injections of chemical cures, not allowing their collar to turn off at all, or even being taken into custody.

Everyone’s silent. Someone hits the remote and exits the news app, and quiet fills the room.

“Does… anyone want to watch a movie?” Sean asks, voice uncharacteristically small.

“I-” Charles feels his voice catch in his throat. Nobody answers Sean.

“This is bullshit,” Angel whispers.

“Complete bullshit,” Raven nods, and everyone murmurs their agreement.

“It’s unconstitutional,” Erik says. His brow is furrowed, and Charles can feel the absolute fury rolling off of him in waves – set with a heavy undertone of exhaustion.

“They’re banking on the fact that we aren’t human,” Darwin says, sounding less coolheaded than Charles has ever heard him.

“Which we are,” Hank says, beating Charles to the punch.

“Well, duh!” Raven groans.

“What movie are we watching?” Alex asks. His voice sounds bored, like it always does, but his jaw is clenched and his hands are balled into fists.

Sean shrugs. “Legally Blonde?”

“I’m going to bed,” Charles sighs, rubbing his temple where a headache is forming. He turns to Erik, “Are you staying over?”

Erik looks to Edie, who waves a hand at him. “Stay. You’re needed here. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Mother and son both stand, allowing Charles to scooch over and transfer back into his chair.

“We’re gonna head out,” Azazel says, linking hands with Janos, who gives a wave, and they’re gone in an instant. Emma sighs; knowing them, they’re going to go out and hit the bars, then show up at her apartment tomorrow begging for a hangover fix.

Tilting her head, she considers Moira, who’s still sitting on the floor, silent, bowl of ice cream in hand.

“Want to sit up here, sugar? It’s more comfortable,” She offers. For reasons.

Also, it’s true. And there’s space now. It’s the polite thing to do.

Moira hesitates, “Are you all… sure? I know I’m… baseline…” The word is so small in her voice that Emma’s surprised anyone without telepathy heard it, but everyone else in the room is nodding emphatically.

“We’re all in this together,” Sean says. “Now come sit, and pass the pie.”

She sits next to Emma. It’s kind of wonderful. Emma kind of wants to die.

She’s falling for a baseline, like a hypocrite. She’s fucked.

Hank is in the middle of plotting – as Charles would call it – an experiment (theoretical, of course. He’d need a substantially large centrifuge, one that would never fit in the house, let alone his room or the school’s lab) when there’s a soft knock on the door. The sound surprises him, and he fumbles to note down his thought process so he knows where to start when he comes back, dropping his pen a few times in the process. It’s taken him a lot of time to try and get used to his form, the wide, clawed hands, the bulkiness of his body, how big his jaw is. He used to look normal.

Rule sixty three of being a good scientist (according to Hank): Never use yourself as a test subject. Especially when testing an experimental gene therapy based on the DNA of your powerful shapeshifter friend.

Speaking of Raven, there she is, standing in her Sabrina Carpenter pajama pants and an oversized hoodie, hair pulled into a curly little poof on top of her head.

“I saw the light, figured you were up.” She says.

Hank blinks. “What time is it?”

He has a no-clock policy for his room. And the window has blackout shades. He has timers that alert him forty-five minutes before his respective classes, so he has time to shower and put on respectable clothes, but otherwise he prefers to keep his schedule fluid.

He supposes it’s probably leftover from the guilt he’d carried in his teenage years. He’s an only child, and his parents liked to keep close tabs on him. Sometimes the stress of it would just get to be too much; he’d tell them his homework was all finished, then stay up late studying without them knowing. He felt awful lying to them, and sick for feeling happy, all alone in his room, no pressure, just the endless well of knowledge that his textbooks and the internet offered him. He wasn’t supposed to feel happy about lying. But he was. It was the best he’d ever felt.

Now he just does what he wants when he wants to, and maybe it’s unhealthy, but, hey, he’s not a psychologist, he doesn’t need to analyze his lifestyle. For the first time in his life he’s truly happy, and that’s what matters.

“Two AM.” Raven says, in a small voice. Smaller than he’s heard it in a while.

Raven has many sides to her. Most of them are brazenly confident... but a few of them are scared, too. Hank, considering that to be one of his primary attributes in life, is quick to identify it and quicker to sympathize. Of course, he’s not in any way eloquent when it comes to emotions.

He’s in the middle of working out what to say when Raven blurts out: “Do you wanna bake a cake?”

“What?”

“A cake. Box cake. Funfetti, I bought it last week.”

“Wh-?”

“I can’t sleep, Hank. I’m fed up with all the bullshit in the news and everything that’s going to happen to us and being told every day that who I am as a person is not valid or ugly or something I should be ashamed of. And I can’t stop thinking about it, and nobody else is awake and besides, you’re the only one who understands.” She takes a deep breath, “So. Hank. Would you, the one other blueberry in this house, like to make a cake at two AM?”

Hank nods, turning off the light in his room and following Raven downstairs.

Rule five of being a good scientist (according to Hank): Use precise measurements. Which is why he has to try really hard not to freak out when Raven just starts dumping things into a bowl.

“Don’t worry,” She says, giving him a knowing smile. “I’ve done this hundreds of times before. Here, stir, it’ll take your mind off of things.” A whisk and the biggest mixing bowl they own is thrust into his arms, and sure enough, the motion does seem to work, pulling him from any lingering thoughts of his studies or the news. Raven chats quietly, talking about some new celebrity gossip (he’s made an effort to research some of them, as Raven brings them up often, so he manages to follow it well enough) and possible renovations on fourth street (unfortunate) and trying a new restaurant that just opened (could be fine, though all the new restaurants as of late have been ridiculously overpriced) and “oh isn’t Ms. Lehnsherr so nice?”(yes, which is surprising since Erik is an ass) and stupid things Sean did when they crashed a frat party two nights ago. Meanwhile, Hank finishes mixing the batter and pours it into a cake pan and they put it in the oven and Raven tells him that it’ll take thirty minutes, so they make frosting while they wait and Raven dyes it bright blue (“to match,” she says, grinning at him in a way that makes his breath catch, “since this is now an official meeting of the Household Blueberries”). When they’re done with that, Raven sits on the counter and pulls out two forks and a platter for the cake and a spatula to spread the frosting.

“Let’s eat the whole thing, okay? Leave no evidence of this crime.”

“With my metabolism, that shouldn’t be a problem.” Hank says, and she laughs. He hadn’t really meant it as a joke, more just a statement of a fact, because, yes, he does eat more than the average person, a lot of times without noticing, but the feeling of being funny is nice so he smiles back at her. And that’s nice too.

When the cake is done, they put it in the freezer for three minutes to cool quickly, then Hank sits on the counter with Raven, she smears the frosting onto the cake with a practiced hand, and they pick up their forks and eat the entire thing. It’s really delicious, too, not something Hank would’ve expected to come from a plain box cake, but that’s Raven; she’s the person who could flip thrift-store finds into prom-worthy dresses back in high school.

“Do you guys still go thrifting?” He asks her, because he may as well.

She tilts her head, considering the question. “You know, we haven’t in a while. That’s a really good idea! Thanks!”

“Yeah, of course.”

And that’s how they part ways. Even just seconds after, Hank isn’t sure that it wasn’t some kind of dream, so strange it was, baking in the dark by flashlight (Raven insisted it made it more fun. In retrospect, that seems true).

But he feels happy, and that’s what matters.

In the dark, curled up in his bed, feeling less restless than he has in months, Hank smiles.

Chapter Text

Friday evening.

That’s when Darwin likes to take Alex out on dates; he’s done with his classes by four, and shows up at six-o’clock on the dot, holding a bouquet of flowers, wearing a button-up or a polo or something nice like that and his best smile.

Alex isn’t sure what to do with him, really. He tries his best to look nice – he’s been systematically pilfering white button-ups from Charles’s closet (he’s three inches shorter, but has broader shoulders, so he can get away with it if he wears high-rise jeans), and they look classy enough underneath his leather jacket. He always puts the flowers in a vase. Or two. Or three. Sometimes he’ll leave a few flowers in a jar in the girls’ room, or on the shelves on the downstair’s wall, or in the kitchen (they really do brighten the house up, and every time Darwin comes in and sees them he smiles in that special way that makes Alex feel like he’s going to die). He watches every single cat video Darwin sends (they’re hilarious and adorable. He’s hilarious and adorable).

It’s five fifty seven, and Alex is sitting on the couch in one of his stolen button-ups, leather jacket beside him (it’s been a damn hot June so far). He stares at the clock under the TV, urging the glowing digits to turn.

Raven passes through the living room idly, purse on her shoulder and phone in her hand. She’s wearing a gold cocktail dress – probably going out for Friday night, too. “Got a date, loverboy?”

“Shut up, dickhead.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Invite Darwin to our pool day tomorrow.”

Alex nods, and Raven smiles, pleased, and disappears out the front door.

Minutes later, at six-o-two, there’s a knock at the door (three. Two fast, one slow, like always).

“Hey,” Darwin smiles at him and leans down for a kiss, pressing a bouquet of red tulips into his hand at the same time. Alex can feel his heart drumming in his ears, and when they pull away he smiles shyly (he never smiles shyly).

“You’re late,” He says, trying to sound appropriately annoyed and school his face back into a frown.

Darwin just chuckles and traces a finger across his cheek as he says “There was an accident downtown, I had to take a different route. I would’ve pulled over to text you, but then I would’ve been even later.”

Fuck. That’s romantic.

“I’m gonna put these in water,” Alex says, feeling too nervous to stay like that, face cradled in someone’s hands, standing on the front porch (so fucking romantic). Darwin smiles that easy smile of his and Alex swears his knees are shaking.

Fuck. He’s not like this. He’s never been like this. Even when he’d had a crush on Hank, even though he’d never known what to say, he wasn’t this nervous. He didn’t act like such an idiot. But now he’ll yammer on about nothing in particular just to see Darwin pay attention to him, to stare at him with his piercing brown eyes. Now he’s fucking weak in the knees because of a closed-lip kiss and a smile and some flowers.

Now he’s getting in the car, radio already on the indie rock station he likes, and Darwin is holding his hand as he drives them to dinner downtown.

So. Fucking. Romantic.

Alex isn’t romantic.

But Darwin makes him want to be.

Two weeks.

For two weeks, Erik skips his classes in favor of attending protests everywhere that he can reach in a day in a 700 mile radius. He’s emailed all of his teachers, and everyone except crotchety old Prof. Stryker has given him extensions and various forms of “good luck.”

People are rallying across the country, mutants and baselines alike. They’re crowding monuments and federal buildings, they’re making signs and social media campaigns and signing petitions. The educational system and what’s left of it’s funding and structure is trying to find ways to protect their mutant students. Scientists and researchers are presenting formal evidence to the courts that mutants are in fact, human. Erik would’ve protested that just a few months ago, but between his genetics nerd boyfriend and the fact that it might be the only way to get the bill overturned, he can’t help but feel relieved that the concept exists – and is backed by some serious evidence.

Everyone’s calling it an outrage. The news is saying that it’s a nation-wide panic. The far right is celebrating their triumph in congress. Erik’s exhausted.

He’s been driving hours every day, leaving long before sunrise and returning to a dark, still apartment, Edie either working a late night shift or already fast asleep. He’s gotten into three different brawls with three different factions of the Friends of Humanity in three different counties (He won, of course, but his face got bloodied up pretty badly, and there’s bruises scattered across his torso).

He’s in line at a rest stop vending machine, idly scrolling through his feeds, when he sees the video.

“I usually try to leave politics out of things,” Charles says, sitting at his usual study set-up at his desk, staring gravely into the camera. “But, I think you all probably know who my boyfriend is at this point-” A small quirk of the lips, a millisecond of smile that makes Erik feel like he’s alive again for the first time in days, “-And right now academics are being affected, too, our school systems, our communities. The next generation of students.

“What is happening right now isn’t just about mutants, it’s a fight against oppression, oppression of speech, of expression, of entire groups of people. According to the New York Times – I’ll link the article in the description – there are entire lists of phrases that have been excluded and erased from new and existing federal documents. Phrases like ‘women and underrepresented,’ ’inclusion,’ ‘minorities,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘allyship,’ ‘anti-racism,’ ‘mutated,’ ‘psionic,’ and even the word ‘equality.’

“So, please, I urge you – attend a protest. Sign a petition. Use these words – we have them for a reason.”

It takes Erik a second to realize that he’s gotten choked up, tears welling in his eyes. He’s so fucking tired, and he wants more than anything to fall into Charles’s open arms, to curl up in his safe, plant-and-fairy-lights-filled room, to feel the whisper of his mind against his own. To forget, if just for a while. It’s all he’s wanted for days.

He calls Charles from the car as soon as he’s on the road again. He picks up after one ring.

“Hey, darling,” Charles’s voice sounds through the speakers, and Erik’s an inch away from sobbing.

“I miss you,” He says instead. “God, Liebling, I miss you. So much.”

“I miss you too,” A pause, and then, “You sound bloody exhausted, Erik.”

“I am,” Erik manages, and then he makes the executive decision to pull over to the side of the two-laned middle-of-nowhere highway because he’s pretty sure he’s about to lose it. “It’s-It’s bad out here, Charles.”

“You’re in the thick of it, love,” Charles says. “You should come home. Take a rest day.”

Erik shakes his head like Charles can see him, “I- I can’t. I already said I’d be there today, at the protest.”

“Then stay home tomorrow. It’s perfect. We’re going to have a pool day, celebrate the nice weather and enjoy our last weekend before the final’s cram.”

Erik mulls it over.

“I have an extra rashie,”

“To cover your scars” is left unsaid, but Erik appreciates it just the same.

“Should be big enough for you.”

They’re only a week away from the implementation of every horror the act proposed. Can he stand to lose a day?

“It’s only a day. One day for you to rest, so you can be at your best when you’re out there fighting for us.”

Charles always seems to know what he’s thinking, even if he can’t read his mind.

“I’ll… Yeah. I’ll be there tomorrow.” I’ll see you tomorrow.

“Good.” Another, longer pause, “I’m so sorry, love, I’ve got to go – are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I love you, Charles. So much.”

“I love you so much, too. You’re doing a wonderful job, Erik.”

Charles hangs up the phone, and Erik does sob, sitting in his mother’s car on the side of a highway at eight thirty AM. Then he drives another two hours to the protest, socks a bigot in the face, and heads home at dusk.

Five thirty AM.

And people assume Sean’s not an early riser.

The sky is soft and hazy, flower-petal sort of yellow and pink clouds floating through it. It’s light blue at the edges and a deep azure above, like it’s still night at the top of the atmosphere. Which, Sean supposes, is true. It’s always night above the atmosphere. It’s space.

When he was little, he used to put “astronaut” on all of those “what I want to be when I grow up” worksheets at school. At least, if he didn’t put “rockstar.” And there was that one time he said he wanted to be a gold miner, though that could be attributed to his Minecraft phase.

He can probably be a gold digger if he feels like it, but the only two rich people he knows are Charles and Emma, and Emma’s totally gay for Moira (understandable, she is hot) and Charles is with Erik. And Sean’s not gay.

At least, he’s pretty sure. Everyone else is. They call him the “token straight on thin ice.” He’s decided not to worry about how thin the ice is and just chill.

But anyways. He doesn’t know any available rich people, and going out and making new friends would be such a hassle.

Right now he just wants to enjoy watching the sunrise from the roof of his very own (very own plus five roommates) house. Then he’ll go back inside and make pancakes or waffles, something delicious, along with eggs and some fruit or maybe a smoothie, something healthy, enough for everyone. It’ll be there when they wake up. Or in Hank’s case, emerge (Sean’s still not really sure when he sleeps). Or in Raven’s case, get back home (probably at a party. One of the perks of living in a college town – lots of parties and free booze).

But anyways. Breakfast will happen, then he’ll go out flying. Soon enough, he won’t be able to.

“It’ll be fine.” He says, addressing the morning sky. “I’ve been meaning to focus more on music, anyways. Angel always says that I’m gonna get killed if I keep jumping off of things.”

The sky says nothing back. Sean sighs.

“I hope I’m still good at singing without my gift,” he admits, in a small voice. It’s a fear he’d never put words to except in the early, vulnerable hours of the day.

Flying is fun. Flying is wish fulfillment (C’mon, who doesn’t want to fly?). But singing? Playing music? That’s his soul.

“Good talk, man.” He says, nodding at the much brighter sky as he begins to crawl back through his window.

Breakfast. Flying. They’re having a pool day later, which should be fun. They’ll laugh and they’ll push each other in and escape the heat and probably order pizza and end up watching another movie and staying up late and maybe eating ice cream and maybe doing karaoke and maybe a million things. Who knows.

All he knows is that it kinda feels like life is going to end in a week (is this how people felt during Y2K? Impending doom? he can’t help but wonder).

So he’s got a week to do a million things, before his life is irreparably changed.

Chapter Text

As soon as Erik shows up, him and Charles are just… all over each other. More so than usual.

“Oh, Erik, darling, what happened?” was the first thing Charles said when Erik stepped foot into the backyard, pulling him down so he could inspect his face. His voice was halfway worried and halfway scolding, making Erik look somewhere between annoyed, enamored, and cowed.

“FOH assholes,” Erik grumbled, and they moved to one of the lounge chairs where a lip-locking session soon ensued. And kept on ensuing.

“Get a room, losers!” Raven yells, coming out of the house with a bag of chips and a case of LaCroix. Charles holds up a middle finger in her general direction, mouth staying glued to Erik’s.

“Gross,” Raven rolls her eyes, coming to sit next to Moira on the edge of the pool, dangling their feet into the water together. Moira chuckles and accepts the LaCroix she’s handed.

“Strawberry-peach,” she reads off the can.

“Well, naturally,” Raven says, taking a sip of her own. “Since we don’t have any strawberry milkshakes to feed you this time, Hank and I thought this would be a good replacement”

Moira elbows her softly, and they both laugh.

The day is young, the sky a pale morning blue, but the sun is already hot and the air is sticky. Soon, Moira opts for stripping off her t-shirt and slathering herself in sunscreen so she can jump into the pool. The water is cool, fresh against her skin, and she splashes Raven, who squeals and grins and jumps in after her. Her cannonball effectively soaks the boys.

“Hey!” Charles sits up fully and frowns at them. Raven just laughs again and splashes water towards them.

“Join us!” She calls, in a dramatic voice. Her brother rolls his eyes, but there’s obvious affection in the motion.

“Come on, love, let’s go get you that rashie…” he says to Erik, transferring back into his chair and wheeling towards the house, Erik following closely behind him. “We’ll be back!”

“Ten bucks says we don’t see them for the next hour,” Raven stage whispers to Moira as soon as the door’s closed behind them.

Moira laughs, “They’re definitely gone. We’ve lost them.”

“Eh. When did we ever really need them?”

Gradually their friends start to make their way to the backyard. Azazel and Janos bamf into existence over on the lawn, Azazel immediately getting a running start and launching himself into the pool, Janos waving hello and then wading in. Sean gets back from flying, still wearing his jumpsuit, just a few minutes later, and goes into the house to get changed. Angel comes out at the same time, followed closely by Alex.

Raven gets out of the pool and calls Hank, rolling her eyes. “He’s coming down now. He thought it was still nighttime.”

Azazel shakes his head, grinning, “I don’t understand his lifestyle.”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Angel agrees. Minutes later Hank emerges, white sunscreen smeared into his blue fur, donning a bucket hat, a dorky-looking rash guard with the brand name across the chest, and khaki board shorts.

“You look like a dork,” Raven tells him, smiling a little.

“Well, at least I won’t have skin cancer,” He replies, and jumps into the pool. Everyone screams and laughs, water splashing over them, and Hank pops up to the surface with a grin.

Darwin and Emma arrive shortly after, having carpooled. Darwin immediately gets in the pool, putting his arms around Alex and clinging to him like some kind of sea monster, scales and gills and flippers growing over his body as soon as the water touches him.

While everyone teases Darwin for being like one of the girls from H2O, Moira swims up to the edge of the pool where Emma is, valiantly ignoring the shouts of “‘Cleorrr, noarrr!’”

“Coming in?” She asks, smiling up at her and trying not to look like she’s staring. She and Emma are about the same height, but Emma’s wearing those heeled flip flops that make her legs look like they go on forever. And pairing that with a white bikini and a knitted, form-fitting cover-up…

Moira’s not staring. She’s not.

Emma wrinkles her nose, “I’m not much of a swimmer. But you go on ahead, sugar. I’m quite alright up here.”

“‘Kay,” Moira smiles, “Just wanted to make sure you were good.”
Emma smiles back and waves a magazine at her. “I’m perfect. Go have fun.”

Moira nods and rejoins the group.

From the steps of the pool, Janos watches the whole interaction with a practiced eye.

To anyone who hasn’t been friends with Emma since middle school (if the nightmare institution of Shaw’s could be called “school”) her behavior is perfectly nonchalant and, for the large part, unexpressive. He can see it, though, see the way she smiles at Moira, warm in a way she barely ever is, the way her eyes follow her until she realizes she’s looking and stops herself.

The signs are subtle, but they’re there.

He walks over, popping on his sunglasses and sitting in the lounge chair next to Emma.

You like her, He projects, grinning a little bit.

Emma’s face stays perfectly placid, but she sends over a Shut the fuck up.

She likes you too…

There’s a pause, before the smallest projection of She doesn’t. Janos can’t quite place the emotion of the words – it’s almost as though she’s trying to convince herself it’s not true.

Why are you so sure? She’s always speaking to you, she looks at you all the time. Stares, actually.

Another pause. Put some sunscreen on. Should your implant be near water?

Janos sighs, knowing that’s all he’s going to get from her today, and holds out a hand for a magazine. I put some on before we got here, and it’s waterproof, but thanks for looking out for me, panita.

Emma rolls her eyes at the endearment, but hands him Cosmopolitan. He smiles, and flips it open, drinking in the sun and the still robotic-sounding feedback from his ears. It’s not a bad sound.

He knows that his hearing will never return to the way it was when he was little, before he lost it, but he’s looking forward to the day that his brain will recognize those noises as speech, as song. He’s made up his mind that he’s never going to stop signing, never lose that part of himself – but it would be nice to hear the noises of his abuelo’s kitchen again, his messy array of cousins chattering together in spanglish as they worked. It would be nice to speak along with them, to honor the memory of his parents and their culture. To remember a time before Shaw’s institute.

Erik and Charles emerge from the house some amount of time later, a time after the teasing of Darwin has ceased and most of the LaCroix has been drunk. Everyone stares a good bit at Erik’s bruised face, then pretends that they weren’t staring when he glowers at them, Charles chuckling.

Charles wheels to the edge of the pool, coming up next to the lift and waving Erik away, telling him to get in the pool. While sitting on the seat, he pauses, fingers hovering above the controls until he looks as though he’s made up his mind about something.

In a single, swift motion, he shucks off his rash guard, then proceeds as normal.

The pool area falls silent. Sean, Alex, Angel, and Hank all stare at him, eyes wide. Charles looks nervous. Erik’s standing ramrod straight, mouth pressed into a thin line, looking dangerously on the edge of attacking something. Raven just looks… sad.

Azazel frowns, trying to figure out what’s going on. Sure, Charles is incredibly pasty, but that doesn’t seem to be grounds for such a drastic response.

Then he catches sight of the raised red lines on Charles’s wrists as he places the remote back on the lift and undoes his seatbelt. Raven sends a pool noodle drifting towards him, and as he pushes off into the water Azazel sees his back; he’s distorted by the current, but Azazle can see raised purple marks across his shoulders and lower back.

He’s never really thought to ask if Charles had an accident – he’s just always been Charles. Erik’s boyfriend. The smart guy with the British accent and dorky ass glasses and too many sweater vests. The chair is just… there. That’s just how Charles is. He never thought to wonder if that wasn’t always how Charles was, though that certainly seems to be a possibility now.

Charles takes a deep breath, then looks at his friends. “I know we should probably talk about… some things,” He says, gesturing at his wrists, “But… Today I’d rather… I’d rather we just enjoyed things. This is just something I need to do. For me.”

“Okay,” Angel says, smiling softly, speaking for everyone. Charles nods at her.

Slowly, life returns back to the pool area. Janos and Emma are clearly having some sort of conversation over their magazines, the occasional signings and changes in facial expressions giving them away. Azazel, at Raven’s request, bamfs them up above the pool, allowing her to do a cannonball without the run-and-jump start. Quickly, it becomes a trend, and soon enough they’re all laughing and Azazel’s teleporting his friends around and it feels right.

It feels so right to have people talking mentally, to teleport openly, to see Angel flitting in and out of the water with her wings, to see Darwin swimming with scales and gills like he was born for the water, Raven shapeshifting to join him every once in a while, Hank reapplying sunscreen to his bright blue fur every hour like clockwork, Janos making small whirlpools and everyone screaming and laughing as they’re sucked into the current. Azazel can’t help but think this is the way the world should be.

Across the pool, he can tell Erik’s thinking the same thing. They lock eyes for a second, and Azazel nods at him. Slowly, nearly imperceptibly, Erik nods back, understanding passing between them. It might be the most friendly Erik’s ever been to him.

Everyone’s tuckered out by the afternoon, most of them lounging poolside or crowded into the hot tub (“‘Two dudes, sittin’ in a hot tub, no feet apart ‘cause they’re really gay!’” Sean sings enthusiastically, pointing his phone camera at Darwin and Alex. Alex flips him off. Darwin laughs heartily.) Eventually, they head inside, where the lights are off and there are sheets pinned up over every window to preserve the coolness of the indoors.

“The AC is just awful for the environment,” Charles explains, and Raven, Angel, and Hank all nod their wholehearted agreement.

They order a bunch of pizzas and spend the rest of the day binging How To Train Your Dragon, since Erik has apparently been deprived of all normal childhood experiences.

“We’re watching the series, too,” Angel announces after the first movie. “That’s where all the character development happens.” Everyone else who’s seen it is inclined to agree, so they start it.

“Hear me out,” Raven announces, “Dagur.”

Half of the people in the room scoff. Half of them nod.

“Personally, I favor Viggo, if we’re choosing from the villains, but Dagur isn’t bad,” Charles muses. Erik shoots him a judgemental glance.

“Who’s this Viggo guy?” He practically growls, and everyone laughs.

“He’s quite unattractive, love, don’t you worry,” Charles teases, kissing his boyfriend on the cheek. “I simply admire his strategic mind. He is quite clever when it comes to Maces and Talons.”

Erik pouts, and they keep watching. Janos smiles as he watches Moira fall asleep with her head in Emma’s lap. Quietly, Darwin hands Alex a slightly wilted daisy from his bag. Erik and Charles have their arms around each other. Hank, Raven, Sean, and Angel are all wrapped in the same blanket, squeezing in close to share (more like hog, really) the last bag of chips.

It’s a perfect day. A beautiful day.

A peace that cannot last.

The calm before the storm.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Erik wishes it wasn’t so easy for Charles to convince him to do things. He was halfway there earlier tonight, pulling open the bottom drawer of Charles’s dresser and once again marveling a little at the fact that he, Erik Lehnsherr, has a close enough relationship to have a drawer at someone’s house.

It’s a thought that’s both wonderful and terrifying and equal measures, and it made him think twice if spending the night was a good idea, if he’s getting too close.

Then Charles came out of the bathroom with his damp hair pulled into a little ponytail and a little smile across his face, and, well. Who could have reservations?

“Where are you protesting tomorrow?” Charles asks once they’re in bed, his arms around Erik and his face pressed into his neck.

“Um… the Tesla dealership,” Erik recalls that being the next protest he’d sought out. “By the freeway.”

“Mm… that’s in town. Can I come?”

“Charles… Liebling… Do you remember what happened last time?”

Charles scoffs, “Last time is just proof that we need to be doing something. I’d like to come.”

“Okay.”

He feels Charles smile, pressing a soft kiss against his skin, and he drifts off into a deep, sound sleep for the first time in a long time. When he wakes up in the morning, Charles has stolen one of Angel’s “Magneto is right” t-shirts to wear and has made a sign; it reads “99.8% the same” and has a marker drawing of a DNA helix.

“You’re such a nerd,” Erik laughs, grinning at his boyfriend and his dumb ponytail and his cute sign and that stupid shirt. “Mein Gott, Charles, I love you.”

Edie Lehnsherr is many things: a daughter of immigrants, a single mother, a devoted friend, someone who brings cookies to her coworkers on their birthdays no matter what her budget for food is that month, a regular attendee of Trish Parker’s book club, and a damn hard worker. Among other things.

She’s tried to be the best role model possible for her son, especially after Jakob left. More than that, she’s tried to be his friend – she knew from the moment the doctors told her he had the X gene and a high probability of expressing it, that his life wasn’t going to be easy, not in today’s world; he’d need a friend.

She’s glad she did, too. Unlike some of her friends, her son actually told her when he realized he was gay. He called her when he got drunk at a party in high school and was too scared to have the other kids drive him home. Most significantly, he forgave her for her incredible misstep with Sebastian Shaw, and continued to trust her.

The last few months, however, Erik’s made some friends of his own.

Edie was ecstatic when he first became friends with Emma, his freshman year; but even though Emma (who, really, Edie is going to be eternally grateful to. She’s a wonderful girl, and has been an amazing friend) tried to bring him into her group of friends, he was just too… well, he’d say focused. Edie would call it scared.

But Charles. Well. Charles changed everything.

Edie quite likes Erik’s new friends; she follows them on Instagram now, and watches their videos from time to time. They seem to have a lot of fun – healthy, wonderful fun that Erik never really cared for as a child, and it warms her heart. He needs that kind of thing, especially in these times.

He’s spending the night at Charles’s place tonight, the night before the Mutant Registration Act is implemented, the night before they all go to the makeshift “clinic” set up downtown to get fitted with inhibitor collars (Edie shudders whenever she thinks of it. Inhibitors are such a horrible thing.)

“Join us on our last day being able to live comfortably!” Raven chirps at the camera, obviously employing heavy sarcasm. Around her, the rest of the group gives overexaggerated grins and overly-cheerful hand gestures. Even Erik does so, and it warms Edie’s heart to see him participating in something. Even if that something is a desperate attempt to make light of oppression.

“We decided to go spend some time out in nature,” There are shots of them packing up two large cars with blankets, picnic coolers, jugs of water, and all sorts of other miscellaneous but somehow vaguely connected items, then a quick driving montage and a panning shot of the woods. “Sean knows all the best spots, so we followed his lead,”

It cuts to a clip of Sean, wearing that flight suit of his, pointing at the trees around them and saying something around the lines of “This is the best place I’ve found, trust me.”

“We hiked for a little bit,” There’s a few shots of everyone walking, including one video of Charles wheeling a chair with thick wheels by the way of some levers, something Edie reasons is probably a special chair for hiking, and Erik walking alongside him, face surprisingly pleasant for such a dark time.

“And then we made it to this old, graffitied place by this river, which actually turned out to be cool like Sean said, so we had our picnic here!” It does indeed seem to be an interesting place, with the infrastructure of some left-behind building creating a sort of dock out on a fair-sized river. There are a few shots of the kids, eating and playing around.

“After that we went downtown to hang out for a bit in some of our favorite spots, since we won’t be able to visit any of them without inhibitors after today, and having an inhibitor on for too long can be really taxing, so this was our last chance to spend some time out!” There’s a montage of them looking through thrift shops and bookstores, sitting at cafés. There’s even a cute little shot of Charles and Erik sharing a croissant.

“It was getting late, so we went to our favorite burger spot for our last meal out, and then we came back home and had a movie night! Tomorrow, our personal freedoms are going to be stripped away from us and we will no longer be able to live comfortably. Actually, considering our mutations, most of us will be actively suffering! It’s going to be sooooo fun! Stay tuned, or whatever!”

Edie likes the video.

She can’t really tell how she feels about it. For one thing, it’s always nice to see her son interacting with his friends. On the other hand, her mood is beginning to turn murderous, thinking of the atrocities that tomorrow holds for the young mutants. For all mutants.

She grits her teeth and contemplates sending yet another letter to their local senator.

Erik got his temper from somewhere.

They all leave together, but once they arrive in town the group is split; they break apart in the crowd as they surge towards the bright orange street barricades that are corralling the mutants into a nervous, messy line. Charles, Erik, Alex, and Darwin all manage to stay together, but the rest of their friends are lost somewhere behind them.

Charles tries not to worry, instead observing the people around him. He spots more physical mutations than he’s ever seen in one place – varying forms, all different and beautiful – and he wonders what they can do. What their gifts are.

What’s about to be taken from them.

On the other side of the street, the humans are gathered. It seems to be halfway a mob and halfway a raucous celebration, taunting signs preaching the end of the mutant age and the return of public safety. Charles can make out more than a few Friends of Humanity shirts and slogans, and feels a sickening mixture of unease and anger swirling in his gut.

There is a small group of people holding signs like “mutants are our children, our brothers and sisters, our friends” or “mutant rights are human rights.” But they’re greatly outnumbered, and getting harassed as well.

He looks up at Erik to see the other man glaring daggers at the horde. Wordlessly, he takes his hand, squeezing it tightly. Erik looks down at him, not quite managing a smile but looking slightly less hostile, and squeezes back.

This can only last for so long, Charles reminds him. It’s unconstitutional, and everyone knows that. Even them.

It doesn’t make it okay. Erik’s mental voice is rocky.

It doesn’t, Charles agrees, softly, and Erik squeezes his hand again, holding it until they have to move up in line.

There’s a family in front of them, a unit with two small children. One of them has been peeking around her mother’s leg and eyeing Charles curiously for the past ten minutes, so he decides to give her a small wave and a smile. She’s probably scared, or at the very least confused, by everything going on around her.

She waves back and steps a little closer. Her eyes are a bright, brilliant green, flashing in the light, and her face has purple markings that match her wine-colored hair.

Her mother notices her, turning around and saying, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Oh, no, it’s no bother at all,” Charles smiles as brightly as he can. “I love kids. I used to tutor when I was in middle and high school, and my little sister and I were always quite close growing up. Still are, thankfully.” He resists the urge to peek back over his shoulder to see if he can see Raven somewhere in the line behind them. He hopes she doesn’t do anything rash. He’d already had to convince her not to show up stark naked.

The woman smiles, “That’s wonderful. Family’s so important, especially in these times.”

“It truly is.”

“What’s that?” The little girl blurts out, pointing at his chair.

“Clarice!” Her mother looks scandalized, face flushing in embarrassment. “Don’t be rude! I am so, so sorry! You know kids-”

Charles waves her away. “Really, it’s alright. I appreciate it when they ask.” He meets Clarice’s gaze again, “This is my wheelchair. I got hurt, so I use it to get around instead of my legs.” He rolls himself back and forth, just a little, enough to show her how it works. “See?”

She nods, seeming to understand. “Do you still hurt?”

He shakes his head, offering a small smile. “Not so much anymore.” It’s mostly true – he may be sugarcoating a little bit, but his PT really does help. There’s days with muscle spasms and pain from the nerve damage, of course, that won’t go away. But he can handle it just like he’s handled everything life has thrown at him. Just like he’s going to handle this.

There’s a simple truth in his life, something that never seems to occur to people: Charles Xavier is a survivor.

Chapter Text

The line becomes single file as they filter into the “clinic.” Really, it’s just a large, empty storefront with two separate entrances. Now, there’s a check-in stand in front of one door and a middle area of the room where the mutants are fitted with their collars and have their blood drawn, the other door reserved for the exit.

Darwin smiles at the bored looking official, asking after his day and receiving little other than a grunt.

“Full name?” He asks.

“Armando Muñoz.”

“Biological sex?”

“Male.”

“Ability classification?”

“Shapeshifter, subclass non-mimic.”

“Biomutative classification?”

“Gamma.”

“ID?”

Darwin hands the official his ID card, which is inspected the same way as it would be at the airport, and then handed back to him.

“Go on,” The official says for probably the hundredth time today, and Darwin nods at him and then turns to press a quick kiss to Alex’s lips before walking through to the middle area of the room, where a few medical personnel prompt him to sit down.

“This is just going to pinch a bit,” One of them says as she ties a tourniquet onto his arm and cleans his joint.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but my mutation’s not going to let you…” Darwin trails off as the needle comes into contact with him, his skin crusting over with what he calls his “armor.”

The doctor frowns at him, annoyed at the inconvenience. “Sir, I know needles are hard for some people, but by law we have to obtain a sample of your blood.”

“My mutation acts independent of my control,” Darwin shrugs, “I can’t do anything about it, I’m really sorry.”

“Well. Let’s fit you for an inhibitor first, then, and see if that changes anything.” She waves another person over, who measures the circumference of his neck with a tape measure, then grabs a collar.

“It might be a little uncomfortable, initially,” The man says, and for what it’s worth, he does sound apologetic.

He clasps the inhibitor onto Darwin’s neck, the circle closing with a click. But as he moves to turn up the intensity to gamma level, Darwin feels his body begin to push back.

“Sir!” The woman says. “Please, keep your mutation under control!”

“I told you, I can’t do that,” Darwin tries to keep his voice calm, even as his skin crusts over and hardens and pushes out and breaks the collar at its hinge.

He’s kind of screwed.

The man looks nervous. The woman calls over one of the police officers. “He’s not letting us put the collar on!”

“Sir, if you don’t comply, we will have to take you into custody.”

“Darwin!” Alex pushes past the official at the front, trying to reach his boyfriend. Another officer restrains him. Erik begins to step forward, the metal on the officer’s uniform rattling dangerously. Charles starts talking, saying something like “There has to be a way to resolve this, please, listen to him!” to the official.

“Hey, hey, Alex, look at me,” Darwin says, putting his hands on his head to show all the officers and officials that he’s not a threat. “Look at me, okay? I’m fine. You’re fine.”

“I can’t- they can’t take you!” Alex tries to shove through the officer’s grasp.

“Can I talk to him?” Darwin asks the officer next to him. “Please? I swear, I’ll come with you right after.”

The officer considers him.

“Please?”

“...Fine.”

Darwin rushes forward, cupping Alex’s face in his hands. “Hey, hey, look at me, look at me, okay?”

“They can’t take you,” Alex says, sounding angry and petulant and Alex, breathing heavily on Darwin’s face, his cheeks flushed and his eyes threatening to shine the same color, the way he always is before he starts sending out plasma disks.

In any normal situation, Darwin would take him somewhere where he could let out that steam, break something, cool off. But this is far from a normal situation, and there are people here who could be hurt and that would break him again, chipping away at Alex’s heart, the same way he’s been hurt by the hurt he’s done for years, and Darwin can’t let him do that to himself.

“Babe, I’m alright. Do you trust me?”

“Yes! Of course I fucking trust you, but-”

“Then trust me when I say I’ll be fine,” Darwin whispers, “They can’t hurt me.”

Alex’s face crumbles, and he leans his forehead against him.

“They. Can’t. Hurt me.”

“You… You better be right.”

“I am.”

Chapter Text

Charles tries to reach a compromise with the officers. His words fall on silent ears, and Darwin is taken away. The whole room hums with nervous energy that fills Charles’s head and buzzes against his skull in the most unnerving way possible.

Fuck, he should call Raven. Tell her not to try anything. He needs her safe and at home, not rotting in some jail cell rigged up especially for mutants.

“Full name, please.” The official at the desk says to Alex. Who’s still staring at the door.

“Alex, are you alright?” Charles asks gently, looking up at his friend. Out of everyone, Alex is usually the hardest to read, most of his emotions masked by an intense anger.

That anger is there right now, of course it is, but underneath it… he’s devastated. And scared.

“Full name, please. Sir.” The officer repeats. Erik takes another step forward, expression turning murderous, and Charles grabs his hand.

I need you here with me. We need you. You’ll do no good to him or anyone else stuck in jail.

Erik steps back and twines their fingers together, face still stern, posture still tense, but not violent. Charles breathes a silent sigh of relief and takes out his phone to text Raven, fumbling with one hand..

Alex turns with a cold look in his eyes.

“Alexander Summers.” He says, voice flat, teeth gritted.

“Biological sex?”

“Male.”

The officer goes through the rest of the routine questions, and then Alex sits in the chair and doesn’t move a muscle as his blood is drawn and his neck is measured, only flinching when the inhibitor latches on.

Then he gets up and leaves, walking out without a second glance.

Charles stares after him, and hopes he doesn’t do anything rash.

Alex sits in the third row of the car, knees curled into his chest, breathing heavily. He’s freaking out. He’s freaking the fuck out right now. He can feel the rage burning through him, pulsing at his chest and his fingertips and his eyes, rage that would normally release itself but is being held back by his stupidass inhibitor.

Darwin. Perfect, kind, wonderful Darwin. Arrested. In a cell.

Alex screws his eyes shut and tries not to imagine it. The images come anyways.

No more six-o-clock dates on Friday nights.

No more silly cat videos.

No more soft smiles or soft touches or soft, brown eyes.

No more arms holding him close, telling him that he matters in a way words never could.

When Alex opens his eyes, he can feel the wet, hot sting of tears streaking down his face in the place of plasma and fire and strength.

He hasn’t cried in years.

It hurts more than he thought it would.

“Full name?”

“Erik Lehnsherr.” His face has turned murderous again. Charles sighs, and holds his hand a little tighter.

“Biological sex?”

“Male.”

“Ability classification?”

“Telekinetic, subclass metallokinetic.”

“Biomutative classification?”

“Gamma,” Erik already has his ID out, and slides across the table with a glare. The official “hmphs” and runs it through the inspection machine, then gestures for him to go on.

Do you need me?

Erik seems torn. I… I don’t think they’ll let you through just for that, if past behavior is anything to go off of. It’s true that the officers are eying Erik rather closely.

“Okay,” Charles tries to smile encouragingly. Hopefully, it doesn’t look too much like a grimace. “I’ll be right here the whole time, darling.” He taps his temple, and Erik nods, giving his hand one more squeeze before walking through and sitting down.

He does fine as they measure his neck and clean his arm and put the tourniquet on, glaring in his usual way, but then the needle comes his way, and he shudders.

The action is small, but the waves of fear that surge through their mental bond are not. With it comes snippets of memory, rushing through his head in a blur of blood and pain and metal and the haze of cures and the sting of inhibitors and the sharp words of Shaw.

Without thinking, Charles plunges into Erik’s head, pushing back against the barrage, projecting feelings of calm and digging up as many happy memories as he can find, from his mind and his own.

The day Erik staged his first protest.

Charles’s high school graduation.

Erik lighting the menorah with Edie at some early Hanukkah.

Laying together on the floor of his room, morning light threatening to spill through the blinds.

Holding hands and kissing and going on dates and small shared smiles and dirty jokes and warm hugs and-

Charles is jolted out of the stream of memories as he feels a part of Erik’s mind shut down. He blinks, coming back to himself, to find Erik sitting in the chair, needle far gone, dazed, with the collar clasped around his neck.

“Your name, sir.” The official in front of Charles says, in a tone of voice that suggests he’s asked multiple times.

“Ah, um, yes. Xavier, Charles Xavier.”

“Biological sex?”

“Male.”

“Ability classification?”

“Psionic, subclass telepath.”

“Biomutative classification?”

Charles takes a deep breath, “Omega.”

It’s a word that has haunted him for years, knowing that the prejudice he’s faced may have been lessened if he’d been in Alpha or Beta. Even a Gamma classification would be better than Omega.

But no. He’s a threat, he’s an outlier, he is someone that terrifies baselines and other mutants alike.

The official, on his part, doesn’t react to the word, just continues to exude boredom. Omega classifications are rare, but not so rare that he wouldn’t have seen any others today.

“Sir, we need the chair. Can you please stand up?” The doctor is saying to Erik.

“Oh, pardon me, but he actually loses his balance when his mutation is suppressed.” Charles butts in. “I’m just fine in my wheelchair, during the blood draw. And I can help him out after.”

The doctor looks entirely ready for her shift to be over, but nods and motions for Charles to wheel next to Erik’s chair.

Are you alright? Charles projects.

Fine, now. Thank you, Liebling.

Of course.

Erik takes his hand, and Charles twines their fingers together.

It’s weird that this is the last time we’re going to be able to talk like this.

...Yeah… It is…

Charles winces a little as the doctor draws his blood, but soon that part is over and the man is looping the measuring tape around his neck. Then he’s grabbing the inhibitor and adjusting the sizing and the input ratio and starting to put it on and there’s a click and-

Chapter Text

Erik watches in horror as Charles screams – no, that’s not quite the right word. He’s practically roaring, a deep, guttural cry ripping from his lips, eyes screwed shut, blood slowly starting to trickle out of his nose.

“Charles!” Erik tries to lean over to him, only to nearly fall off his chair. Damn that fuckass collar.

If he really, really focuses, he can kind of feel magnetic north. A little. And some of the larger infrastructure around him. He’s used his power with inhibitors before – but his balance is still lost.

Charles is gasping for breath now, eyes and mouth fluttering open like he’s trying to say something. The doctor and the technician and a good majority of the people in the room look freaked the fuck out.

Erik begins to realize that he can still feel Charles inside his head. If anything, his presence is stronger than it was before, soft glow turned to a harsh flame, flooding the corners of his mind, scrambling at any leverage he can reach.

“Turn…! It…! Up…!” Charles wheezes, eyes open just long enough to cast a desperate look at the technician before crying out again. The man scrambles to adjust the settings of the collar, hands coming away bloody, the crimson already dripping far enough to ruin Charles’s shirt.

Just like that, the fire is extinguished. His mental presence is gone.

“...Better… Thank…” Charles manages, then returns to trying to catch his breath. Erik reaches over to grip his hand, and Charles squeezes back rather desperately. About a minute later, he seems more or less stable, lifting his head to give his oh-so-polite British apologies to that bigot of a doctor and the squirming, good-for-nothing technician.

“I’m afraid it took out my shielding capabilities, but not my actual abilities, on the lower setting.” He explains. The technician looks too frightened to nod. The doctor scowls.

“We have more of you to deal with. Please leave.”

Charles frowns back at her. “No – well, actually, you know what, do take offense: you’re quite rude. Come on, love, let’s get out of here.”

Erik manages to lean forward, bracing himself on Charles’s shoulders, and they make it out of the building. There, Charles stops.

“Liebling?”

“It really, really hurts, Erik.” Charles mumbles, rubbing his hands over his face, smearing blood all across it without realizing.

Carefully, Erik lowers himself onto his knees, shuffling so he can look at Charles.

“Is there anything I can do? How can I help?” Who do I have to kill for this policy to disappear? He adds silently. Charles wouldn’t appreciate that.

“I just want to go home,” Charles says, voice breaking, hands shaking. His pupils are so dilated his eyes look nearly black. Framed with blood, it’s haunting.

“I-I’ll get you there. I promise, Charles.”

The problem is, the car is a block away. And neither of them can really walk – what with Erik’s balance problem and Charles seeming to be just skirting the edge of passing out.

Erik attempts to get up, falling sideways the first couple of times. Eventually, however, he’s leaned back up against Charles.

“Okay,” He pants, feeling the anger wash over him. How dare they take away his ability to do so simple a task?

“Do you boys need some help?” A voice behind them says, and Erik falls over again when he tries to adjust to see the speaker.

It’s an older man, maybe around his mom’s age, wearing a tweed jacket that Charles probably owns too, an inhibitor clasped around his neck. A mutant. He must’ve just come from the clinic.

“We-” Erik begins to say, and loses his balance once again in another futile attempt to stand.

“Yes, please,” Charles says, voice still pained and cracking. “If it’s… If it’s not too much trouble, sir. We wouldn’t… wouldn’t want to impose.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” The man says, giving them both a warm smile. “We’ve got to stick together in times like these!” He offers Erik a hand up, and before he knows it he’s being supported by the surprisingly strong mutant.

“And where are we going?” He asks.

“That way,” Charles says, pointing to the left. “To our car.”

“Are you two fit to drive right now?”

“...Probably not. But we carpooled – our friends should be… be okay.”

“Good. And you can get yourself there, yes? If not, I can take two trips.”

Charles makes a dismissive hand gesture. “No, I’m quite alright on my own. I should be… be fine for a block… without the ex… extra weight.”

“Alrighty then. Off we go.”

They begin making their way towards the car, the strange trio garnering weird looks from passersby.

“I’m Jason Mckinney, by the way.” The man says.

“What’s your mutation?” Erik asks him.

“Biokinesis,” Jason says, smiling a little. “I run a plant nursery downtown.”

“Wait. New Leaf?”

“That’s the one!”

“My mom loves your store.” Erik says. She’s dragged him there a couple of times, fawning over the succulent arrangements. It’s very likely that half the plants in their apartment are from there.

“Aw, that’s nice! Tell her to say hello sometime, I’ll give her a discount.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. You’re Erik, right? I’ve seen you on the news a couple of times.”

“Yeah…”

“You’re a very good speaker. You’re going to be a hell of a lawyer someday, I’ll tell you that.” Jason looks down at Charles, “And, I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Xavier. Charles… Xavier.” Charles pants, arms shaking from exertion. He looks like he’s about to fall unconscious at any moment.

Jason seems to sense this, saying, “How close are we? Do we need a break?”

Charles shakes his head, gritting his teeth with determination. “Just… a few cars… cars further.”

“The green minivan,” Erik specifies.

“Ah. So we’re almost there.”

When they get there, they find Alex sitting in the front seat, scowling and staring at his phone. His face looks ruddy and his eyes are red, like he’s been crying. Erik can’t blame him. He’s ready to cry, too.

Jason opens the back door for them, and Erik and Charles manage to collapse into the car, Charles awkwardly folding and pulling his chair in after them with a fair deal of difficulty. Such an easy task for him, reduced to something he can hardly do.

“Hey, you kids call me if you ever need any help again, okay?” Jason says, pressing a business card into Erik’s hand. “We’re all in this together.”

“Thank you.” Erik says. The man nods at him, an easy smile on his face, and shuts the door.

“What the fuck happened to you two?” Alex grumbles, taking in his two out-of-breath friends and Charles’s bloody face.

“The fucking government,” Erik growls. Charles leans against him, curling into his shoulder, clinging to his arm. He presses a kiss to his forehead, not caring that his lips come away tasting like iron he can’t sense.

It’s all going to be okay, He promises silently. I’m going to make sure of it. No matter what it takes.

Some things, it’s good Charles can’t hear.

Chapter Text

When Hank, the last of them to get back from the clinic, walks through the door, everyone does a double take.

“Dude.” Sean says slowly.

“Oh my god.” Angel says.

“I know,” Hank mutters, adjusting his clothes – which he’s practically swimming in. Because Hank is no longer big and blue and buff; he looks pretty much the same as he did in their early years of high school, except older and in desperate need of a shave. “I guess I’m not the beast anymore.”

“Wait, but you’re here! This is private property. Why aren’t you reverting back?” Raven asks, looking offended. She’s maintained her blue form – now the only form she’ll be able to take in public. Though she can’t exactly shift too much at home, either, not with the collar, lest she accidentally choke herself.

“I’m on the list for chemical suppressants,” He explains, sighing and rubbing his face.

“Are you feeling okay?” Raven frowns at him.

“It’s… I’m fine. I’m going to lie down for a bit, sorry.” Hank shuffles awkwardly around the group and heads upstairs, looking gangly and not at all comfortable in his own skin.

“Bastards!” Raven hisses under her breath. It’s not entirely clear who she’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter anyways – there’s multitudes of people who could take the blame for this.

“Yeah,” Sean and Angel agree in unison.

“Who wants pancakes?” Sean asks. The girls sigh dejectedly and nod, and they all head into the kitchen.

Charles isn’t really sure how he made it through finals week. To be honest, he can barely even remember any of it. He's pretty sure they visited Darwin at the new mutant detention center the county built. There’s a few videos on his page that he doesn’t remember making, in which he looks tired but appears well-balanced enough. He does know that he’s slept a lot, whenever he could, and has been drinking coffee instead of tea, and taking mass amounts of Tylenol, and lying to Erik, who was also in the thick of exams, about feeling fine.

He’s far from fine, really. He feels slightly drugged, between the pain medicine and the inhibitor and the caffeine and the piercing pain in his head. But he can handle it. He has to handle it. Just for a little while, just until this whole thing blows over. Until then he'll keep his shields up high when he's not on the inhibitor and... take a fuckton of Tylenol.

Right now, Erik is actually here, both of them finally done with tests and rather exhausted, snuggled up together in Charles’s bed.

“I can’t wear turtlenecks with this thing on,” Erik says, quite out of the blue.

Charles considers. “I suppose not.”

“I have about four shirts now.”

“We’ll go to Target, then.”

“Why Target?”

“Target is a magical place that can fix any problem.”

Erik gives a half-hearted chuckle, and they return to silence.

The air is still. The sun is setting outside the window. Charles is pretty sure he can hear the opening music from Legally Blonde playing downstairs, for the fifth time this week. Erik sighs.

“Want to make out?”

“God, yes.” Charles cups Erik’s face in his hands and hopes that he can drown out some of the white noise in his head in his lips. Erik lets his jaw fall open, sliding his tongue into Charles’s mouth and bringing his hands under his shirt, and Charles tries to focus on how good that feels instead of the buzz in his head and the splitting pain in his skull.

After a minute or so of this not working, he pulls away, opting to coast his lips across Erik’s jaw instead, just the way he likes it. If his mind isn’t going to let him derive pleasure from this, he’s at least going to make sure Erik gets to.

It occurs to him, though, when he’s halfway down Erik’s neck, that the inhibitor is going to prove to be an obstacle in the way of his usual path. He noses around it experimentally, laying kisses to the adjacent skin and ending up with the plastic scraping uncomfortably against his face. He tries to persist, but Erik’s not even reacting to any of it and frankly, he just feels awkward. Finally, he pulls all the way back, frowning.

“Is this any good for you?” Erik blurts, looking at him with an equally bemused face. Charles shakes his head.

“Not really… You?”

“It was… fine.”

They blink at each other for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“That may have been the worst foreplay of my entire life.” Charles giggles. “And I am a very good kisser. I didn’t think it was possible for me to be that bad!”

“I didn’t think it was possible either, but, alas...” Erik smirks, and Charles shoves him a little.

“Well, then. Continue cuddling?”

“That sounds perfect.” Erik grins and loops his arms around Charles again.

They shift a little bit, trying to find a comfortable way to lay again. Erik’s usual go-to, with his face tucked into Charles’s neck, is clearly impeded by the inhibitor. Like so many other things, apparently.

“We’ll go to Target after dinner.” Charles murmurs, and Erik laughs again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you want to go?” Erik asks as Charles grabs the car keys. “We don’t have to.”

“Come on, Erik! It’ll be fun,” Charles chirps. He seems fine – but how can he be fine? “I haven’t gone anywhere since before finals.”

“Okay…” Erik says, and awkwardly manages to hold the door open like a good boyfriend despite his crutches, Charles beaming up at him.

There are dark circles under his eyes – but he’s a scholar. He’s looked like that since before they even met.

“Want to drive?” Charles asks, holding out the keys. “I’m a little sleep deprived, and they say it’s not good to be on the road like that.”

“Sure.” Erik agrees, and takes the keys from him. He’s sleep deprived too, but he’s not drugged up and under telepathic duress like Charles… apparently is, so he’ll take his chances.

Raven knocks on the door. “Hank?” There’s no response from within. She knocks again, then sighs and decides to brave it. Fully prepared to see the dehydrated corpse of her friend laying on the floor, she pushes open the door.

Hank is laying on the bed. Doing nothing. Eyes open, staring at the ceiling – really, for a moment, Raven thinks that he actually is dead. But his chest is rising and falling, slowly, but surely.

“Hey…?” Raven says quietly. Hank looks over at her.

“Oh. Hi.” He says, and damn, his voice sounds like shit.

“We haven’t seen you in a couple days…”

“Um. Oh.”

“Have you eaten?”

Hank shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t know it’d been that long…”

“Oh my god. Hank! You have to eat.”

He frowns. “Raven… You know… It’s weird… I’m fat. I haven’t eaten anything and I’m fat.”

“Uh…” Raven looks him up and down. And yes, just like she remembers – Hank is a literal twig. “I’m sorry, have you seen yourself? You’re not fat.”

“I don’t have any muscle…” He mumbles. “It’s all just… flab.”

“Okay. You need to eat. You’re losing it, and not in your usual way. Get up.” Raven walks over, pulling him up by the arm. “This is dangerous behavior and I’m not going to lose my fellow blueberry to a goddamn piece of plastic crap that was bought from Temu by the motherfuckers in charge of the government.”

She leads him downstairs by the hand, Hank stumbling awkwardly after her. He looks like shit, sounds like shit – honestly, smells a little like shit too – but the scariest thing about him is the lost, soulless look in his eyes.

Hank doesn’t know who he is anymore.

For a long time, he’d glorified the idea of being regular in his mind, even as he got used to his new form. He’d regretted losing that part of himself. He’d wanted it back – and even tried to safely, permanently (without chemical suppressants) reverse the process. All of those attempts had been unsuccessful, so he made the most of it.

He built a brand for himself. He found his place in the mutant community. He continued to pursue his studies and his interests and the things that make him happy, surrounding himself with the people he feels safe with.

Now, back in his baseline form, he doesn’t know who he is. Being the beast may feel too bulky, too strong, but now he feels flimsy and flabby. Being blue may have been an adjustment, but his pale skin looks too translucent and sickly. He’s always been tall, in either form, but now he feels lanky and uncoordinated. Off-balance.

He’s not even hungry.

“Erik.” Charles tugs on his shirt, forcing him to look at whatever has caught his eye now. “Look.”

“What am I looking at?” Erik asks. All he sees is a rack of women’s clothes.

“That.” Charles points to a sparkly blue dress. “You should wear that.”

Erik chokes on his own saliva.

“You know,” he says when he recovers, “just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I have to wear a dress at some point.”

“Oh, darling, I’m not saying you should because you’re gay – I’m saying you should since you have the sluttiest little waist known to mankind,” Charles looks up at him, tired eyes sparkling, “It would be criminal not to.”

Erik sighs a long-suffering sigh, pretending his face isn’t on fire, and puts the dress in the cart. Charles grins and nods approvingly, and Erik can tell he’s already imagining him in that ridiculous garment.

Well. Maybe if it makes him smile like that, it won’t be so bad.

Chapter Text

“You would look very handsome in this…”

“That’s a suit, Charles,” Erik says as he inspects the flannel selection. “I have no need for a suit.”

Charles pouts. “You’re no fun.” Erik rolls his eyes, throwing a few shirts in the cart, on top of his crutches and the hideous blue dress.

“I’d kiss you like you obviously want me to, but I’m pretty sure I would fall over if I leaned down.” Erik says, leaning heavily on the cart (the current source of his balance), and Charles’s little pouty lip disappears into a little smile as he chuckles.

“Fair enough.” Charles points at a rack with a bunch of black long sleeve shirts. “How about those?”

“Perfect.” Erik says, and grabs a few. They’re basically the non-turtleneck version of his turtlenecks, which should be comfortable. “I’m done. Let’s go.”

“Hang on,” Charles says, looking offended. “This is Target. We’ve got to spend a little time looking around.”

“We’ve already picked up one useless thing, Charles. We hardly need another.”

“Just for that, I’m going to buy you pantyhose.”

Erik grumbles, and they continue moving through the store. Charles has regained most of his strength, wheeling along at his normal pace, but Erik, even with the cart for balance, has been stumbling along slowly all day. It’s humiliating and enough to make him want to crawl back to his apartment or Charles’s house and never leave again.

Which is probably exactly what the Mutant Registration Act is counting on.

Erik sighs, and keeps putting one foot in front of the other. He’s going to continue living. Out of spite. What a lovely way to enjoy life.

“Erik! Look!” Charles says, and his voice is so ridiculous that Erik obligeshim and turns to see… a giant rack of stuffed animals.

“It’s you,” Charles jokes, grabbing a soft looking shark with a big toothy grin on its face. “Oh, we have to get these!” He throws the first shark into the cart, then takes a second off the shelf.

“We don’t need two.”

“Of course we do! One for you, one for me. Emotional support sharks.”

“Seriou-”

“Oh my god, they have a strawberry! We should get this for Moira.” Charles throws another stuffy into the cart. Then he turns back to Erik, a lips pursed in thought and eyes alight with an idea. “Maybe we should get one for everyone. For morale.”

As much as Erik hates to admit it, it’s a sweet idea.

“Emma would probably like this one,” He sighs, pointing at a snow white bunny rabbit. Charles grins and pulls it off the shelf.

They end up going through their entire list of friends, picking out stuffed animals from the shelf based on their interests or inside jokes or whatever they think they’d like.

“Raven has a disco ball in her room,” Charles says, putting an honest-to-god stuffed disco ball in their cart, complete with a face and legs.

“I’m pretty sure Azazel’s favorite animal is a giraffe…” Erik says, looking between some sort of fuzzy monster looking thing and the aforementioned giraffe.

He’s fairly certain, actually, considering the one time he went to a club with Azazel, Emma, and Janos he’d had to suffer through an entire drunken rant about Azazel wanting to have a pet giraffe someday. It had been half in sign-language, and he’d stupidly had enough beers to think it was worth decoding.

“Sean makes the best pancakes.” A stuffed stack of pancakes was added to the cart.

“Angel has butterfly wings, right?”

“Dragonfly, but I think she likes butterflies too.” A butterfly goes in.

“We should get one for Darwin, too… In case we can get him out soon…”

“He likes cats.”

“One for Alex, then, too.”

Eventually, the stuffy pile is above the edge of their cart, a haphazard assortment of creatures and objects – one specially picked for everyone. Including Edie.

“Can we go now?” Erik asks.

“Yes- Oh, actually, I should pick up some more Tylenol. We’ve run out.”

Erik stops to look at him. “And why is that?”

Charles doesn’t look back, shrugging and absentmindedly messing with a piece of his hair. “Well… Alex has been going through a lot.”

“And?”

“Well, you see, it’s the inhibitors… they make everyone a little uncomfortable…”

“Including you?”

Charles sighs. “Erik, you saw me when they put it on.”

“So drugging yourself is the answer?”

“It’s not like I’m taking actual drug-drugs, love. It’s an over the counter medicine.”

“But, Charles-”

“But nothing.” Charles’s voice has dropped into that quiet place it goes when he’s getting angry. “If I’m being forced to live like this, I can do what I want to make it bearable.”

“Charles, of course you can, but I just… I wish you had told me how bad you were doing.”

Charles glares at the ground. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“I want to worry about you. I love you.”

“...I love you too.” Charles sighs, and when he looks back up, there’s a soft smile across his lips, “Now, darling, why don’t you take this and go check out while I head over to the pharmacy window. I’ll meet you at the car.” Charles hands Erik a credit card, kissing his hand when he reaches down to retrieve it.

Charles stares at the pharmacy shelf, bottle of Tylenol in his lap. In front of him are name-brand mutant suppressants, much like the ones Sharon had him take for a few weeks when he was twelve before she forgot about him again.

After a minute of deliberation, he goes to ask the attendant to get them out from behind the glass.

Chapter Text

The door swings open.

“We’re back!” Charles announces, wheeling through the door with several Target bags squished in a precarious pile on his lap. “And we come bearing gifts!”

“Gifts!” Sean repeats, pausing Legally Blonde and peering over with curiosity.

“Let’s see… Here you go!” Charles throws something at Sean, whose hands whip up to catch it… and sorely miss, the stuffy version of a stack of pancakes hitting his face instead.

“Aw, it’s cute!” Moira says, picking up the stuffy and inspecting it. It has golden fabric imitating syrup drips and a cute little face and legs.

“Moira!” Charles flings the next one over. Sean manages to snatch this one out of the air, smiling at the fluffy strawberry.

“She’s adorable,” He says, and hands it to Moira, who trades him for his pancakes.

“You better have one for me!” Raven says from underneath one of the blankets on the couch. She pokes her head out just in time to be hit with her disco-ball stuffy.

“Erik, do you have Hank’s?” Charles asks, turning to the man standing at his side, a Target bag hanging from each of his wrists as he stands with the crutches, working to regain his balance with the inhibitor now off.

“It’s possible.” Erik says, in an uninterested tone of voice. Though he almost always sounds uninterested.

Charles, undeterred by his robotic boyfriend, starts rooting around in the bags. “Ah, yes. Here we are.” A blue object goes flying across the room, hitting Hank in the chest.

“A blueberry,” He says quietly, staring at it. Next to him, Raven smiles. The stuffed piece of fruit has a little face on it, grinning up at Hank in a way that seems like it’s trying to cheer him up. It’s adorable, and hopefully exactly what he needs. “I love her. Thanks, Charles.”

“Of course, my friend.” Charles says, wheeling over to deposit the rest of the bags onto the floor next to the couch. “What are we watching?”

“Legally Blonde!” Sean announces, making a flourish at the TV.

Erik groans. “Again?” He says, glaring at Sean, who side-eyes him.

“We’re watching Ten Things I Hate About You after,” Moira reminds everyone, then goes back to sipping her milkshake.

“Want to join in, darling?” Charles asks, looking at Erik, who shrugs and nods, coming over to the couch as Charles transfers over. Raven throws a spare blanket at them.

“Mm,” Moira stops drinking, “Charles, before I forget, I brought over Benjamin. I thought you might need him. He’s in my purse, remind me to get him before I leave.”

“Who’s Benjamin?” Erik asks.

“Benjamin Bacon Mactaggert-Xavier. Our fake zygote from a genetics lab,” Charles explains. “He’s got a combination of Moira and me’s traits, from a survey we did, and then our teacher had us make these horrendous little popsicle stick dolls as an ‘ice breaker.’ We’ve been trading him back and forth since freshman year.”

“So he’s a fake child?”

“One could say that, yes.”

Erik looks over at Moira. “I wasn’t told I was a stepfather, apparently.” She laughs, and Charles swats at him.

“Guys, as entertaining as this is, there is a movie going on right now,” Sean says, pointing at the TV screen with a frown on his face.

“Shh, we’re discussing custody.”

Sean hits her in the face with his stack of pancakes.

“So how come you have a fake child with your lab partner and not your boyfriend?” Erik whispers in Charles’s ear as Elle is “stamping her little last-season prada shoes” at the gay/european man. Charles nearly chokes on his own saliva in an attempt not to burst out laughing.

“You really want me to hand you a survey, ask you to fill it out, and make an ugly popsicle stick doll with me?” He whispers back, then stifles another giggle as he sees Erik’s face. “Oh my god. You do. Look at you.”

“Well, is that so bad?” Erik responds gruffly, looking sheepish. “I like… imagining that… Well. That we have a future somewhere down the line, and part of that could be kids… even if they weren’t our biological kids…”

“Oh, please. I could get you pregnant if I tried hard enough.”

Erik’s expression is the most hilariously adorable thing Charles has ever seen. He looks well and truly freaked by the idea.

“Okay, what is so important that we are interrupting Legally Blonde?” Sean asks, pausing the movie and glaring at them.

“We were just discussing whether or not I could get Erik pregnant,” Charles shrugs. Everyone in the room stares at him similar to the way Erik is.

“Okay, ew, no sex talk in front of your little sister, please.” Raven groans, burrowing even farther down into the blankets.

“Nah, man, he totally could. He’s a crazy scientist – they know things.” Sean says, waggling his eyebrows mysteriously. Raven gags and disappears fully under the fabric.

“I started this, didn’t I?” Moira says, looking fairly amused.

“You and Benjamin,” Charles agrees solemnly.

“Via mitochondrial-” Hank starts, adjusting his glasses. Both Charles and Moira perk up at the word “mitochondrial,” much to the disappointment of both Sean and Raven.

“Mitochondrial replacement therapy!” Charles finishes for him, looking quite excited. “Hank, you’re a bloody genius!”

“What is that?” Erik asks.

“It’s the use of an egg donor, except the majority of DNA is removed from the egg and replaced with another parent’s; it’s typically used for women who have severe mitochondrial diseases but feasibly, I don’t see why it couldn’t be adapted for use by same-sex couples… Really, I never considered it. And it’s even legal in the UK!”

“As opposed to here?”

“Very illegal here. Even before all the abortion and IVF disputes.” Charles shrugs. “A good portion of genetics is just yelling at people about ethics.”

Moira groans. “It really is. Trust me, you guys have no idea.”

“Well, there are some pretty obvious concerns about the gene pool…” Hank says.

“And aren’t there people trying to edit out mutant genes?” Erik adds.

Both Moira and Charles sigh long-suffering sighs, and collapse back into the couch.

“Finals just ended, I don’t have the energy for this.” Moira whines.

“Amen to that,” Charles agrees, and pats his boyfriend on the arm. “We can resume this conversation later.”

“Far away from me.” Raven’s muffled voice says.

“You’re being ridiculous, Raven. It’s not a sex thing, it’s genome editing. Done in a lab.”

“Whatever. Still sounds like Mpreg to me.”

“Raven.”

Sean laughs. “This was so worth pausing for.

Chapter Text

The suppressants are burning a hole in Charles’s mind. He thinks about them all through the three movies that they watch, barely processing any of them or the fact that Erik has cuddled up against him in the cutest little way. He lets Raven, Sean, and Angel, who came back from mountain biking all muddy without him noticing, take care of Moira when she asks if she can stay the night. He acts on autopilot when Erik says he’s going to stay over, if it’s alright with him; he just smiles at him and kisses him and thinks about how nice it would be if the pounding in his head were gone.

Maybe he could finally sleep – real, deep sleep. The rest that he’s been craving ever since the inhibitor was turned on.

He barely remembers going upstairs. He barely watches Erik get undressed, a sight he’d usually take the time to appreciate. He barely even feels the other man place his lips on his jaw, leaving kisses that would’ve been searing, would’ve been the perfect salve for any other problem beside the bloody racket in his head. Distantly, he puts on a smile.

He knows it looks real. He’s masked his pain his whole life.

Erik buys the act, barely notices how quickly Charles departs for the bathroom, curling up in his blankets and shutting his eyes, sore from the crutches and exhausted from all the same things in all different ways.

Charles, with a shaking hand, uncaps the bottle that he managed to stash in the small underseat pocket of his chair, away from the eyes of Erik and his sister and everyone else.

The suggested dosage is four capsules. He swallows them and goes to brush his teeth.

Suppressants work fairly quickly – at least, they’re supposed to. He should be able to feel the effects by now, the pressure in his head should be easing, his agony should be coming to an end – and yet he feels nothing. Nothing. Just the steady pounding in his head.

Well. Suggested dosage. Heavens knows he’s got a high tolerance for just about anything. He takes a few more pills and heads off to bed, taking Erik in his arms and anticipating his impending relief. Soon, he’s slipping into a light sleep, the pounding in his head still carrying a beat.

Erik’s not sure why he’s woken up. He lays there for a second, blinking at the darkness, discombobulated. Then the sounds around him begin to compute – violent, rapid breathing.

He sits up, panic drenching him like a cold wave. “Charles?” He Takes the other man by the shoulders, tries to prop him up a little bit, tries to wake him. “Charles?” Reaching with his powers he flicks the lights on, ignoring the wash of pain that comes from the supposedly dormant but somehow still protesting inhibitor. Charles is pale in the sudden searing glow, skin clammy, face twisted into a pained expression.

Erik cups his face in his hand, patting gently, trying to get him to wake. Up. “Charles! Hey, hey, Liebling, hey, wake up! Please, wake up! Oh, fuck, Charles, please!”

Charles’s eyes flutter. Once, twice, threetimesfourandthenthey’re-

Open. Blue and bloodshot and open. Erik breathes a sigh of relief. Charles regards him with a look of confusion, then hurls. Relief is washed away by a fresh wave of concern.

“I’m getting Hank,” Erik decides, and begins to crawl out of bed. Charles catches his wrist with a sweaty palm.

“No… Please…” He croaks, then starts gagging again.

Erik frowns. “There’s no way in hell I’m just going to leave you like this. I’m getting Hank. Stay conscious.” With that, he runs out of the room. “Hank!” He bellows, pounding on his door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” A very grumpy looking Alex emerges from his room.

“Hank, get the fuck out here, I need help!” Erik continues pounding on the door, feeling anger begin to swell in his chest as he goes longer and longer without a reply. He shouldn’t have left Charles – what if he’s unconscious again? Choking on his own vomit? What if he’s-

“Beweg deinen Arsch Hank! Ich schwör bei gott!”

Everyone’s out in the hall now, in various states of sleepy disarray.

“Why.” Angel says flatly, looking like she wants to push Erik off a tall building. Erik pays her and the rest of them no mind, continuing to shout threats and curses in every language he can think of at Hank’s door.

After a few more seconds, it finally unlocks and swings open. Hank has a severe case of bedhead and is wearing a worn-out pair of plaid pajama pants, a few sizes too big for him and tied at the lace with a shoelace, and a giant old Star Trek t-shirt.

“Wha-” He yelps as Erik grabs him by the collar.

“Why the fuck did you take so long!” He barks, and starts dragging the taller man down the hallway. “Asshole~”

In his room, Charles is hunched over the side of the bed, shaking and dry heaving.

“Charles?” Hank says, looking confused.

“Help him.” Erik sits down on the bed again, taking Charles’s hand and attempting to push the sweaty hair out of his face.

“I don’t- I mean, do you know- What caused this?” Hank asks, squinting at Charles, glasses back in his room.

“I wouldn’t have gotten you if I knew!”

“Charles,” Hank begins, stepping closer to his friend. “Do you know?”

Charles chokes out a sob, screwing his eyes closed and leaning into Erik, like he’s trying to disappear.

“Liebling, Charles, if you know, tell him. Please.”

Maybe it’s the panic in Erik’s voice. Maybe it’s his own panic. But Charles bites out “Pills. Bathroom.”

Hank’s eyes widen, and he disappears into the bathroom, coming out a second later with a bottle of inhibitors in his hand. Erik feels his blood run cold at the sight of them, remembers Shaw forcing pills just like those down his throat, the dizziness, the sweating – the way he’d retch and vomit and shake when he was forced to take too many. Just the same as Charles.

Except nobody forced him to take them.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Raven’s head pokes in the door, and she gasps at the sight of her brother, sick and shaking. “OhmygodCharles-” She rushes over to him, stopping just before Hank, hesitant and staring. Charles curls into himself further.

“Okay, Charles, look at me,” Hank’s voice is surprisingly calm, like he’s switched into a whole other person in this panic situation. “How many did you take?”

Charles shivers, breath coming too fast and too harshly to say, and holds up nine fingers. Nine.

“Okay. And have you taken anything else today?”

“Tylenol,” Erik answers for him. He’d seen him take some earlier.

“Acetaminophen.” Hank nods to himself, like that explains something. “Okay. You’re fine, okay? Everything’s pretty much out of your system now, or will be soon,” He looks at Erik. “Just have him rest and make sure he gets some water soon, he’s dehydrated.”

“I’ll-I’ll get some…” Raven says, face stricken, voice barely a whisper. “And, um, something to… clean up, maybe.”

“Thank you,” Erik says to Hank.

“Yeah. No, I’m glad you got me.” Hank says, and adjusts his glasses. All of the sudden, his confidence and calm melt away, and he’s back to the fidgeting, anxious person Erik recognizes.

“I’m sorry I called you an asshole.” Erik says quietly. Hank blinks at him.

“Charles, are you going to be fine?” Apparently he’s opted to ignore Erik’s comment. Probably for the best.

Charles nods, head still down, and Hank nods back and leaves the room without another word.

“I’m sorry,” Charles croaks, voice rough and tone broken in a way Erik’s never seen. He holds him tighter, burying his face in his damp hair.

“I-Charles, are you okay?”

Charles shudders in his arms. There’s no response.

When Raven returns to her room, Moira and Angel are both sitting there, waiting, Moira on the couch they’ve set up for her to sleep on and Angel on her bed.

“What happened?” Moira asks.

Raven’s face looks plagued, like she’s seen a ghost. “Charles… Overdosed. On suppressants.”

“Oh my god!” Angel gasps. Moira’s mouth falls open in shock.

“Charles?”

“Yeah… I mean, Hank said he’s going to be fine, apparently it’s minor… It’s not like drug-drug overdoses, but like… seeing him like that…”

“Oh, Raven.” Angel gets up and hugs her friend. “I’m so sorry. But if Hank says he’ll be okay, he’ll be fine, right?”

“Right.” Raven agrees.

The other girls are sympathetic. They end up on Raven’s bed watching Outer Banks and snacking on Angel’s red vines stash.

But none of their friends, nobody except her, knows what Charles used to be like. Really used to be like. The drinking and the sleeping around and the knife in his bedroom. The old, secret Charles that Raven caught glimpses of – glimpses that might be some of her worst memories. Not that he was ever scary, not like Sharon. But he was broken.

She thought he’d fixed himself back up, put the pieces back together, set out on a new track, filled that void with other things.

But tonight she caught another glimpse of that Charles. And she knows it will haunt her.

Chapter Text

It’s a well known fact that Charles Xavier likes to party.

When he’s not studying or atrociously hungover, he’s at a party. Any party he can find. Raucous birthday parties that he charms his way into, ragers held by the richest kids in the school when their parents are off on glamorous vacations, even some college parties. And if he can’t find one, he throws one.

He needs it. He needs that feeling of everyone’s minds, bright and a little fuzzy from the alcohol but there and real and shining. He needs the overstimulation to drown him out, until he can’t tell who he is, until he’s just a vessel with words and thoughts and emotion pouring through him. The silence in life is what scares him.

Tonight, he surveys the crowd, tipsy, but not yet drunk. Well. The night is young, Sharon’s got enough wine for an army, and he can sense at least a few of the partygoers thinking about him. He singles in on Jonah – cute, on the football team (real football), endlessly confused about the fact that he doesn’t find girls attractive like his friends do, sits in front of Charles in English thinking loudly like he is now.

Charles grabs a bottle on his way and manages to get drunk across the course of his conversation with Jonah, which eventually devolves from gossip and talk of homework to Charles pushing him down onto one of the beds in one of the many guest bedrooms of the Xavier mansion, both of them searching to finally feel something, a connection.

Jonah leaves the party a little more sure of himself, of who he is. Charles breaks down in his room that night, sobbing from the guilt of not matching to the goody-two shoes persona he tries to present to the world, the good kid he’d always seen himself as until he just wasn’t anymore.

His entire personality is a paradox, really. His teachers probably see him as the kind, charming, responsible smart kid in glasses. The internet sees a quiet, endearing academic. His friends and his peers see him as a smart guy who knows how to party. Sharon sees him as a disappointment. Kurt sees him as a nuisance. Raven sees him as a mess.

Charles doesn’t know what he is. In the quiet, stifling silence of his room, he makes another tally across his skin, just another cut that will fade into a scar to remind him of his sins.

Raven found the knife, once, and made him promise to throw it away. He told her he did. In addition to a slut and a phony, he became a liar, too.

Jonah starts texting him, talking to him in class, smiling at him in the halls. Charles smiles back at him and banters and flirts – he really is cute. They start hanging out a little bit, only on the days Raven’s at theater rehearsals (she sees the hickeys on Charles’s neck later, but never comments).

Eventually, though, Jonah starts asking questions. Why did he hear that Charles slept with Andrea at a party last Friday? Why can’t he talk to Raven or meet Charles’s parents? What, exactly, are the scars on Charles’s wrists from? What about the ones on his back? And what happened that time he showed up late to English with a black eye?

Charles lies and makes excuses. They’re barely believable lies, but he’d rather Jonah think he’s particularly clumsy and getting paper cuts all the time instead of punishing himself, that Sharon and Kurt are just never home instead of homophobic and alcoholic, that he’s fallen down the stairs a couple times instead of Kurt beating him every couple of months since he was seven.

There’s still doubt lurking in Jonah’s mind, but there’s a nice thing Charles has found about minds; they want to believe what’s easy. So when he lies, he can kiss away the doubt because Jonah wants exactly that.

He trusts Charles.

Charles sobs about that too, when he’s breaking down in the middle of the night, sick and drunk on the floor of his bathroom.

He’s such a shit person.

Jonah starts holding his hand in the hallways at school. Charles tries his best to end his random hookups. Jonah calls him his boyfriend. Raven meets Jonah. Then Charles’s friends meet Jonah. And then Jonah is there when Sharon and Kurt show up early from a trip, and Sharon insists that Charles’s friend stays for dinner.

Jonah looks so hurt by the word “friend” that Charles doesn’t want to lie anymore.

He sees Kurt’s jaw clench the moment he says “Jonah is my boyfriend, actually,” sees his knuckles turn white around his fork, and knows he’s made a mistake.

Kurt drinks a lot of wine. More than Sharon, even, which is a feat. The moment Jonah is out the door, Kurt begins screaming. Telling Charles that he’s a disservice to the family name and prestige, nevermind the fact that neither Kurt nor Sharon are even real Xaviers.

He slaps Charles across the face, just the way Charles expected him to. Then he starts brandishing a golf club, taken from the array of luggage by the front door, and Charles didn’t really expect that, but as the blows are landing and he hears himself screaming, all he can think is that maybe he deserves this.

When darkness starts creeping into the corners of his vision, he feels relief. The world is cruel. Maybe it would be nice not to be in it anymore.

Then Raven is there, and she’s crying. “I’m gonna get you to a hospital, okay? Charles? Can you stand up?”

“I…” He begins, trying to move. “I… I can’t feel my legs. Raven, I can’t feel my legs.”

Her lips part and her eyes widen, face scared and shocked. She begins to dial.

“I can’t feel my legs.”

Charles’s head is pounding, but he forces his eyes open.

He’s not really sure if he’s glad to be awake or not.

“Charles?” Erik’s voice is soft, the other man’s hand moving to cradle Charles’s face, body curled around his, arm under his waist, protecting him. Charles reaches up to press his own hand against Erik’s.

His ribs ripple in the release of a breath, hot on Charles’s neck. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

Charles almost wants to smile at that. He’s still not sure if he agrees – the pain in his head has only gotten worse since last night’s fiasco; it seems he’s fated not to escape it. But here is Erik, solid and warm and comforting and holding him.

Safe, the soft glow of his mind seems to say, home.

Maybe things will be okay.

“I love you.” Charles whispers, voice hoarse and cracking, shutting his stinging, sandpaper eyelids.

Erik says “I love you too” without hesitation, tightening his hold on Charles just slightly.

Maybe things will be okay.

Not now, but someday. Hopefully.

Friday, two thirty PM.

That’s when Alex shows up at the mutant detention center, supplying ID and allowing himself to be patted down. That’s when he’s taken to a small, bare room, and told to sit at one of the three metal chairs around the plain center table.

It’s a few minutes later when Darwin walks through the other door, wearing a jumpsuit and a smile.

“Hey, babe,” He says, like he’s standing in the doorway ready to pick Alex up for dinner, like he’s handing him a rose, like he’s going to lean in for a kiss, like he’s coming over for a pool day or a movie night.

Not like he’s been rotting in custody of the United States of fucking America for three weeks, the place where everyone’s supposed to be free and nobody seems to be anymore. Not like he’s standing there in a prison-esque jumpsuit. Not like he’s being treated like his very existence, his very DNA, is a crime.

Not like he’s been torn away from Alex, who is having the sudden, nausea-inducing realization that he feels like sobbing again.

“Darwin,” He says, and fuck, when did he run out of breath? Darwin sits down, reaching across the table to take his hands. His skin is tactile and real, and his hold is tight, and he laces their fingers together and squeezes like he knows what Alex is thinking, like he knows that he’s feeling lightheaded and like he’s stuck in some kind of twisted alternate reality.

And then Darwin is reaching farther, tracing fingers along his face and saying “oh, Alex” and well. Shit. He’s crying again. He can feel the burn of his power, aching to be let free, pulsing in his fingers and his chest and his eyes and the only release is the warm tears dripping down his cheeks. The only relief is Darwin’s touch as he brushes each tear away.

“Have they hurt you?” Alex manages to ask. Darwin shakes his head.

“They haven’t. They can’t, and they haven’t even tried.” His voice is low and soft and perfect and Alex wants to hold the sound of it in his hands, to capture it and keep it safe, to take it with him out of this godforsaken facility. To take him with him.

“I. Love you.” Alex chokes out, and he sounds like he’s angry about it. He sounds fucking pissed at the world.

Darwin smiles, not even trying to stop the tears gathering in his own eyes. “I love you too, Alex. I love you, and I’m safe. Please don’t worry about me.”

Eventually, they both manage to calm down enough to talk; Alex tells him about Charles’s breakdown and how Hank is like, dying, or something, and Emma never leaving her apartment and Erik still wearing himself out at protests and Janos’s hearing getting better and Darwin frowns and smiles and laughs and holds his hand and is there and alive and just as Darwin as ever.

Too soon, the time is up.

“I’m going to get you out,” Alex promises as he’s led out of the room. Darwin smiles at him and blows a little kiss, the motion somehow matter-of-fact and romantic instead of cheesy, just like every other thing he does.

“I love you, babe, stay safe,” he says, like Alex is the one who’s imprisoned.

“I love you,” Alex says again, the words barely even a whisper, and takes one last look at the man that he loves before the door closes and he is alone again.

He cries in the car, too, so much tension building in his body that he thinks, hopes, prays, that the inhibitor might break so he can let it out. It doesn’t.

Chapter Text

Sean chews on another cough drop, sitting with his head against the wall, staring across the room and out his window. All he can see is the sky, and birds. God, he wishes he were up there with them now.

He’s had a few close calls, but since they moved to the X Mansion he’s figured out the right spot to jump off of (the chimney) and the right timing to do short, very risky flights in the neighborhood. He’d give anything to even be able to do that right now.

He rubs a hand across his throat, trying to massage away some of the pain. It’s not awful, most of the time. Sometimes it’s not even there at all. But times like now he feels like his vocal cords are going to go up in flames or something. He’s eaten his way through four bags of cough drops (one of which was the menthol kind – which tasted disgusting but worked okay. But he’s never going to buy them again) since he got collared.

He brushes his fingers over the strings of his guitar. Normally, when he’s this stressed or sad, he’d write something. Something silly, to distract him, or something sad to just… get it out. But right now he’s having a hard time even doing anything instrumental.

Sighing, he softly bangs his head against the wall, and then gets up.

If he can’t play, he may as well go watch Legally Blonde for the umpteenth time.

Edie feels her shoulders relax as she steps into her favorite gardening store. It’s been a stressful… well, more than a month, really, with the mutant registration ordeal, and then being busy at work. Though, she’s never not been busy at work.

She sighs, inspecting a succulent arrangement. She’s happy to put her son through college – she wants him to have that experience. The reparation money and the alimony from the Sebastian situation has helped, and Erik’s well on his way to getting a scholarship for law school, but she can’t deny that it’s been tough. And lately she’s felt… old. And tired.

“Looking for anything in particular today?” A voice asks, and she turns to see the man who runs the store watering one of the potted plants, a cute little pothos vine in a very pretty pot.

“Not today. Just unwinding a little bit.” Edie shrugs. “This is such a lovely store.”

The man smiles. “Thank you so much!”

“Of course.” Edie says. But she’s trying her very hardest not to frown; the man, the nice guy who has helped her pick out fertilizers from time to time, who’s always clipping dead leaves or watering flowers or potting something or just chatting amicably with his customers, is wearing an inhibitor collar. And he looks more tired than she’s ever seen him, bags under his eyes behind his glasses.

“How are you doing?” She asks, deciding it’s probably not rude to be concerned about someone’s well being, and gesturing at the collar.

He shrugs, but the placid look on his face is obviously strained. “Oh, well as one might expect, I suppose. A lot better than others out there.”

“Well, that doesn’t make it any easier.” Edie says. “My son’s having such a hard time with it – he can’t walk without crutches now, lost his balance completely.”

He stands, giving her a funny look. “Balance, you say?”

“Yeah. He’s metallokinetic, and when he can’t sense the magnetic fields in things, he has a bit of a hard time orienting himself. It’s gotten a little better, I guess he’ll adjust at some point, though that doesn’t really make it any better…”

The man frowns. “Is your son Erik? Erik Lehnsherr? Friends with, uh… Sorry, I can’t remember names to save my life, Charlie something?”

“Charles, yes, that’s his boyfriend.” Edie huffs a little laugh. “How do you know Erik?”

“Well, I came out of the clinic,” He says, gesturing to his collar, “And I saw these two boys, and they looked absolutely wrecked, and I saw the collars and figured they must’ve been hit with some pretty bad side effects. Helped them to their car, recognized your son from the internet about halfway there. He said that his mom liked my store, and, well, I said that you should drop by and say hello sometime, and I’d give you a discount.” He smiles. “So, hey, if there’s anything you want today…”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Edie says, waving him away. “Really. But thank you so much, that’s so nice of you.”

“Really, it’s no bother!” He gestures at the plant he was watering. “Here, you like pothos? This one’s been hanging around here for a while; it could use a good home.”

“I couldn’t…” Edie repeats, looking at the plant. It really is a cute little thing, and the pot is beautiful, decorated with painted stalks of lavender and little golden highlights.

“Consider it a gift for raising such a nice guy as your son,” He smiles at her again. “Really, thank you. We need more young voices like his, especially in times like these.”

“He’s a fighter, my son is.” Edie shrugs, but feels a sudden surge of pride. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” The man says, handing the plant to her and turning to water some flowers.

Edie lingers in the store awhile, pothos in her arms.

“Have a great day!” The man says as she’s leaving.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was?” Edie asks, feeling as though she should know this kind of thing. She does frequent here rather often.

“Jason.”

“Edie,” She says, returning his smile.

“Nice to meet you, Edie. Tell Erik and Charles that I said hi!”

When Edie gets home, carting her new plant with her, the door to Erik’s room is slightly ajar, noises of movement coming from inside.

“I’m home,” Edie calls to let him know, setting the pot, which was starting to get heavy (surprisingly so, considering it’s not that big, but hey, that’s pottery for you), down by the door, and heading to the kitchen to wash her hands. Erik’s crutches are propped up by the sink, and she eyes them sadly. How dare they hurt her little boy like this?

Erik emerges with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His face gives the impression that he hasn’t slept, and his clothes are rumpled. He looks angry.

“What happened?” Edie asks, and he sighs dejectedly, letting his bag fall from his shoulder and giving her a hug. “Erik, Schatz, what happened?”

“Charles… isn’t doing well.” Erik says, his voice flat in that way Edie knows it gets when he’s feeling too much. “He’s in a lot of pain, and he… had a mild overdose on suppressants, trying to get rid of it. Last night.”

Edie gasps. “Oh my gosh…”

“I’m going to stay with him for a while.” Erik adds. “If-if that’s okay. It would just be until he gets adjusted a little better-“

“Go, mein Sohn. Be with Charles,” Edie smiles at her son, patting him on the shoulder and releasing him from her embrace. “I will be just fine.”

“You’re sure?” He looks at her for approval, but he’s already slinging his bag back over his shoulder. Edie nods.

“I’m sure.”

“Thank you, Mama.” Erik breathes, and begins to make his way to the front door.

“Schatz, wait.” Edie says.

When Erik turns, his mother is holding out her locket. Her locket. The locket that has been clasped around her neck for as long as he can remember, the locket that was the only surviving piece of their ancestral family home in Dusseldorf, before it was destroyed in the war. The only pictures left of his grandparents. The only thing that his mother took from her home when she left with his father.

“I can’t take that.” Erik says, staring at it. It’s silver, with engravings on it, flowers and flourishes and, on the back, a tiny star of David, like the necklace he has sitting on his dresser.

“You can, and you should.” Edie insists, placing it in his hand and folding his fingers around it. “Now go. And tell Charles that I hope he feels better soon.”

“Danke, Mama.” Erik says softly.

“Ich liebe dich, mein Sohn.”

“Ich liebe dich auch.”

“Don’t forget your crutches, Schatz.”

Erik mumbles a swear that Edie pretends not to hear, and rushes away to the kitchen.

She knows that he knows she knows that he swears, and that he’s probably had more than a few sips of alcohol in his life, and, well, he’s had a boyfriend for a while now, and she knows what that means; but she also knows that Erik needs someone to ground him in his past, someone to remind him of the child he once was, someone who he doesn’t have to carry the weight of the world around. He is, and always will be, her son, and she’s decided she will always treat him as such. Even if that does place her in a different time in his life than the one he’s in now.

But that’s okay. The past was nice, until it wasn’t, and they can cling to that nice part together for as long as they need to. It’s as simple as that.

Chapter Text

After Erik leaves, Charles makes himself get out of bed. Laying there just thinking about how bad his headache is and how he screwed up again won’t help anything, no matter how enticing it sounds.

Showering is a nice reset, even if his head’s still pounding. He doesn’t bother putting any product in his hair, just scrubs at it with a towel and leaves it to air dry. It’ll be frizzy later, but he can’t be arsed to do anything about that right now (God, suddenly his back is killing him. Nice of his nerve damage to join in on the pain-fest that is today).

There’s a knock on the door, and Raven pops her head in.

“Oh, good, you’re up,” She says. She’s smiling, but Charles can tell she’s worried. He tries to put on a brave face, and not beat himself up over the fact he didn’t bother trying to look presentable (would it have really taken that much extra effort?). “I’m headed out. I just wanted to check on you.”

“Thank you, dear.” Charles smiles. “I’m quite alright now.”

“Don’t… Don’t do that again, okay?” Her face is a little frustrated and a little worried, and a lot like the face she used to wear in their high school years. It makes Charles feel extra guilty.

“I won’t. It was an accident, really, I misread the bottle.” He lies. “Suffice to say, suppressants are unlikely to be in my future.”

“Good.” Raven nods, looking placated. “Oh, before I forget – Moira said you guys had some class today? And that she’d send you her notes?”

Oh, bugger, that was today. “Ah, yes, we’re taking a summer genetics course. I do suppose today was the first class.” Shit!

“Oh, okay. Well, Moira probably takes good notes.”

“She does,” Charles smiles. “Thanks, Raven.”

“‘Course. Feel better!” She closes the door, and it’s just Charles and his thoughts once again.

Which, of course, is very dangerous.

He checks his phone (no sign of Erik) and decides he may as well go downstairs and watch some TV on the couch, out of his room. A good distraction – or at least a change of environment. Hopefully enough to keep him sane.

Fuck, he hasn’t felt this bad since high school.

A few minutes into his movie, the doorbell rings.

“Can someone get that?” He calls.

Sean yelling “I just got out of the shower!” from upstairs is his only response. Charles sighs, and transfers back into his chair.

“Just a second!” He yells at the door, as whoever it is rings the bell again. If it’s a solicitor, honestly, he’s going to die. He’s in no mood to fend off pushy salesmen right now.

“Hello-” His forced greeting dies in his throat as he processes the person standing in front of him.

No. Fuck no. This can’t be happening. Not this. Not now. Oh, good lord.

“Hello, Charles,” Sharon Xavier says.

Moira takes a deep breath, and then knocks on the door. She’s at a freakishly nice apartment complex at the address Sean sent her, and her heart is in her throat. Do people still drop by like this? She spent her whole childhood knocking on her friends’ doors and asking if they wanted to play – but she’s always been a little behind on social norms. Should she have texted first? Downloaded SnapChat and sent a picture of her ceiling and a vague caption?

“Hey,” Emma says, and her face isn’t surprised – she’s a telepath, of course she’s not surprised. At least she doesn’t seem bothered, either, that’s a relief.

“Hey.” Moira smiles, hoping it doesn’t look forced (she has no right to be this nervous. She’s not typically a nervous person). “I’m on my way to a class, I just thought I’d drop off some afternoon coffee and see how you’re doing.”

“Come in.” Emma opens the door a little wider, and Moira steps inside.

Pretty much everything in the apartment is pure white – white walls, white curtains, white, sleek furniture, a white sofa – and minimalist in concept. There’s a good deal of clutter lying about, though, clothes piled up, dishes in the sink. Emma doesn’t seem to care all that much, just pushes some of it aside and sits (lounges, Emma always lounges) on the sofa.

Moira sets the coffee and the muffin she brought her down on the coffee table, and takes the chair across from her, the seat not covered with anything. Emma quickly picks the coffee up (she really does look like she needs it).

“Mm,” She closes her eyes at the first sip. “Thank you, sugar.”

“Of course.” Moira nods. “How are you doing?”

“Oh…” Emma glances around her messy apartment, trying not to think of the state of her clothes and her hair. She’s always been a little bit of a slob, not that anyone would ever be able to guess – but something about projecting blatant lies to the person you’ve got a crush on seems… not quite right. So here she is, sitting in the midst of her dirty laundry in black pajama shorts and a worn out old t-shirt.

She’s definitely giving the impression that she hasn’t left her apartment in days. Which, she hasn’t, but Moira doesn’t need to know that.

It wasn’t on purpose; at first, she really was just down with a migraine. But then that eased up, and her classes ended, well… What was there left to do? She didn’t feel incredibly inclined to go anywhere, so she stayed in, wearing her pajamas and watching some of the crappiest movies known to man or mutantkind. As Erik’s been off at protests or worrying over Charles and Janos has already gone back home for the first bit of the summer and took Azazel with him and Darwin’s arrested, she hasn’t felt very motivated to make plans with any of her less-close friends, like the first class kids or anyone from her classes.

“I’m doing fine.” Emma settles on saying. “How are you?”

“Good, yeah, no, I’m good.”

“You said you’re going to a class? Have you not finished your finals yet?”

“Oh, no, it’s a summer class,” Moira explains, a small smile curving across her face. “Charles and I decided to choose one or two to take together. And we continue our lab research, which is fun. Sometimes we even manage to get Hank into the lab with us.”

“That sounds interesting,” Emma says, and takes another sip of her coffee. “What’s the course?”

“A specialty class on genetic counseling.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.” Moira pauses for a moment, looking unsure. “Um, are you doing anything over the summer?”

“I’m going home in a few weeks to see my siblings.” Really, Emma doesn’t care all that much for her parents. They’ve never been specifically bad to her, but they’re distant. Even more so after the whole Shaw situation.

“Oh, that’s nice! How many siblings do you have?”

“Two sisters, one older, one younger, and an older brother.” Emma shrugs. “They’re all incredibly annoying.”

“You love them.”

“I do.” Emma smiles. “How about you, sugar? Any siblings?”

“I… Have a younger brother.” Moira’s face turns a little sad. “And I had an older sister. Eloise. She passed away from leukemia, when I was five.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Emma closes her mouth before she says the word honey. God, when did she start with this endearments nonsense? It’s always been sugar. Just sugar. For everyone.

She’s turning into Charles, apparently, with his flippant dear’s and love’s.

Moira shrugs. “It’s okay. It was a really long time ago, now.” She smiles at Emma again, and then stands. “I should get going.”

“Alright. Thank you for the coffee, sugar. I hope your class goes well.”

“Thanks, Emma.” Moira smiles over her shoulder, pausing at the door. “You should start coming around again a bit more, okay? We miss you.”

“Oh. Sure, I will.” Emma smiles back, feeling warmth bloom in her chest.

And then Moira’s gone.

Well, Emma thinks, looking around her, I better get started on all this laundry.

Chapter Text

“You-You can’t be here!” Charles chokes out, feeling the words crumble, a sore defense against the sheer terror that is Sharon Xavier.

“Charles, I just… want to talk. Make amends.” Her voice is measured, clinical, the same way she talks to her guests at charity balls. Fake, like everything about her.

Charles shakes his head. “There’s no making amends! You, you let your husband- a-abuse me, for years! You didn’t even call an ambulance when I was bleeding on the floor with a spinal injury!”

“And I regret that, Charles, I really do, and I-”

“Stuff it!” Charles yells, and starts to close the door. “I never want to see you here again! I’m an adult, and you have no place in my life any longer!”

“I have cancer.”

The words make Charles pause, let the door fall open a little bit again. “What?”

“Stage four. It’s spread. The-The doctors say that there’s nothing they can do about it.” Sharon takes a shaky breath, and it’s a crack in her facade. “I’m here to get my affairs in order.”

The first thought that enters Charles’s mind is Raven is going to be so happy. Which is a little dark, and probably not entirely fair to his sister, but she has always joked that Sharon would die from alcohol-induced cancer someday. And now that’s come true.

The second thought is wondering why he’s not feeling anything at all about this. His mother is dying. His mother is dying, and yet he simply feels intimidated by her presence. His body is filled with anxiety, and yet his mind is entirely, perfectly numb.

“What about-Is… is he here with you too?”

“Kurt and I divorced, shortly after your… accident.”

“It was no accident, Sharon.”

“Yes… Well, in any case, he and Cain are out of the picture. Raven, too. I owe nothing to any of them. Everything, the estate, the money – it’s yours, Charles.”

Charles stares at her for a moment, at this woman who claims to be his mother, thinks of all the times she screamed at him as a child or insulted his mutation or just simply the times when she was not there at all.

“I… I don’t see why we couldn’t have just done this over the phone.” He whispers, because he knows if he speaks at any higher volume he’s going to cry.

He doesn’t want to see her, doesn’t want to think about her. He doesn’t want her to die, but he never wants to encounter this woman again. And yet she is dying. And all he can think about is getting away.

“Charles, please. Just come to lunch with me. I’ll… I can help you get your friend out of jail.”

“How do you know about that?” Charles’s head snaps up, feeling a wave of animosity rush through him. How dare she use Darwin as a bargaining chip? How dare she know anything about Charles’s life at all?

Sharon scoffs, “Oh, please, Charles – you post your life all over the internet. You expect me not to be curious about what my son and his friends are doing? I saw some post about that boy being arrested. I have connections that you won’t have, even after you have the money. I can use them – if you come to lunch with me.”

Charles bites back the words I’m not your son, instead grumbling. “He’s not in jail. He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s at a detainment center for mutants.”

Alex would be so happy. He’s been struggling, with Darwin gone and his mutation suppressed. Finally being able to get him out…

“Well. In any case, I can get him out. Just come to lunch.”

Charles is saved from considering her offer as his eyes catch a bit of motion out the door, behind Sharon. Erik, somewhat awkwardly carrying a duffel bag on his shoulder as he crutches his way towards the house.

“Erik!” He calls before he can stop himself, the name tumbling from his mouth in a tidal wave of relief.

Sharon shuffles to the side, allowing Erik in the house. “Hey, Liebling." He says, smiling just a little at Charles, probably still too unbalanced to risk leaning down for a kiss or releasing his crutches for a pat on the shoulder.

Then, inevitably, his gaze turns to Sharon. “Who’s this?”

Charles sighs. “This… is Sharon. Xavier.” Not that he needed to clarify – Erik’s face had already hardened into a steely glare as soon as he said her first name.

“Moth-Sharon, this is Erik. My boyfriend. Although you probably know that, if you’ve been stalking me and all my friends.”

Sharon, on her part, ignores the jab, extending a hand to Erik and saying “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“I can’t shake hands.” Erik says flatly, and Charles almost wants to smile.

Sharon retracts her hand, instead turning her increasingly icy smile back on her son. “Why doesn’t your boyfriend join us for lunch?”

Erik glances at Charles. He’s not sure how much or little Charles wants him to be involved in this situation – and Charles has reneged their mental bond ever since the collars went on, to relieve mental strain. Which Erik is wholeheartedly in support of, he wants Charles to take care of himself and to be able to feel healthy.

But it would be very useful right now to have a read on things.

Do you want me there? Erik decides to project instead, hoping Charles’s shields are still low enough to let something through.

If… If you wouldn’t mind. His mental voice is small, and tinny, like it’s coming from far away – nothing like the warm, glowing presence that he usually is.

Erik didn’t think he could get any more angry at the fuckers who put them, put Charles, in the collars.

Of course I don’t mind.

She’s a particularly unique brand of awful, Erik, just know. If you don’t want to be subjected to that, I won’t be upset.

And let you face it alone? Erik meets his eyes then, trying not to be so saddened by how tired Charles looks, how deep the bags under his eyelids are. Never. I’m here for you.

Thank you, darling.

“You do realize that he is my boyfriend?” Charles says aloud, addressing Sharon. “You heard that, right? I’m dating Erik. We are romantically involved. Us. Two men.”

“Yes, Charles, I’m aware of the meaning of the word ‘boyfriend.’ And your… preferences. He can come along or not, nobody’s telling either of you what to do.”

“I’m going to need a little time to get ready. I wasn’t anticipating an outing.”

“That’s fine,” Sharon says. There’s a pause, the woman looking expectantly at her son.

Charles scowls. “I’m not inviting you in. Wait in your car, or tell me where you want us to meet you.”

“Fine. I saw a nice-looking steakhouse downtown. Will that suffice?”

“Yes, that will be fine, we’ll see you there.” Charles says, and all but slams the door. Then he slumps over in his chair, holding his head in his hands.

Erik drops his crutches and drops to the floor, kneeling next to him. “Liebling?”

“I-I can’t do this, Erik.” Charles whispers, turning watery eyes on him. “She’s dying. I should- I should want to talk to my dying mother, shouldn’t I? But all I- all I can feel- I can’t-”

“Don’t feel guilty.” Erik says, holding his shoulders. “Charles. You feel sorry for her, obviously – but you don’t have to want to talk to her. That woman has made your life a living hell since you were just a little kid.”

“I know, I just… Bloody hell, Erik, I hate this.”

“You don’t have to go. You have no obligation to talk to her.” Erik reminds him.

Charles sighs, scrubbing at his eyes and pushing his hair out of his face. “I know.” He leans forward and quickly presses his lips to Erik, “I need to go get ready.”

Erik follows him upstairs, bringing his duffel bag with him.

“Is what I’m wearing fine for this?”

“Yes, dear, you look lovely. I look like a slob. Oh, I should call Raven…” Charles mutters, fumbling for his phone.

Erik sits down on the bed, opening his phone to Blockblast, because if he looks at the news or his social media right now he’s going to fucking loose it.

How dare Sharon Xavier just show up like this? After all she’s done?

“Okay, Raven’s not picking up. I guess she’s busy.” Charles says, coming out of the bathroom with newly-brushed hair and a still distressed face. He starts grabbing clothes out of his drawers, exchanging his sweatshirt for a nice button-up with a brightly colored jumper over it. “I suppose we should get going.”

Erik nods, standing and moving towards the door. The car ride is silent, but he keeps an arm extended on the center console, just barely brushing against Charles’s as he maneuvers the hand controls.

It’s not enough; it’s a small comfort.

But in this day and age? Well, they have to take what they can get.