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Charles tilts his head as he stands staring, with his hands on his back, down at the blond heap on the carpet in his bedroom. He squints as he looks at Alex, who's shaking with silent sobs with his hands over his face.
"You know, Alex, if you don't tell me what's the matter with you, I'll have to look in your mind. You're starting to worry me."
Alex's chin wobbles as he removes his hands from over his face. He sparkles with bright, red light like static electricity that cracks at his sternum. His eyes are rimmed red, and his chin wobbles as he inhales and tries to speak. "I'm pregnant."
Charles blinks in surprise as the pitiful admission finally comes out of him. A sentence he had never thought to hear from Alex of all people, not after all the precautions he's taken over the years, not after all the assertions that it would never happen to him. Coming home to find Charles in the state he finds himself currently, round and heavy, he had always been so adamant about loving the kids and wanting none of his own. Charles glances back at Erik in the doorway, who helpfully offers an equally surprised look on his face and a shrug.
"Oh, Alex. My darling, take a breath. You'll be alright—you don't have to stay pregnant. If you don't want this, we can arrange for a termination of the pregnancy, quick and easy."
Alex's mind hits a new frequency of distress Charles hasn't thought possible. He crackles with red energy, and breaks out into a new fit as he clings to the ottoman cushion against his chest with one hand, and covers half his face with the other as his hitching sobs spell "I don't want Hank to give me an abortion!"
Erik snorts a laugh behind them at the absurdity of it all, and gets a silent reprimanding as Charles flings a nasty, pointed look over his shoulder and mentally tells him to go occupy himself. He slips away silently, and Charles does his best to soothe Alex on the carpet.
"Well, then it behooves me to tell you that being pregnant and being a father really isn't so terrible." Charles holds to the bed post and the ottoman as he tries to lower himself to the floor. He can't quite find his balance like this, so he shifts his grip and tries again.
"You can't smoke! And you can't even drink! You can't have coke!" Alex motions at his struggling with wild gesticulations. "You can't even get on the fucking floor!"
And, well. Alex does have him dead to rights in that. He pauses his struggling, a hand cradling the underside of his bump as he nods acquiescently. The baby inside kicks and wriggles against the jostling, and Charles groans as he finally settles upon the floor beside him. It will be hell on Earth to get back up, as pregnant as he is, but hopefully Alex will be in a state to help him up.
"In all fairness, I very rarely get down on the floor, you know."
"That's because you're always pregnant!" The final word stretches, hitching and long as Alex makes an attempt to smother himself with the cushion.
Charles smiles fondly as he rests his temple against his fist, with his elbow balanced on the ottoman. “You're lucky you're so pitiful. You don't usually get this many shots off in a row.”
“I know! I’m on fire!” Alex continues to cry into the cushion. He sobs, unspeaking, for a few minutes more until he goes gentle and quiet, pressing his forehead against Charles’ plush thigh. “Armie really wants kids.”
Armie. It's sickeningly sweet, Alex wouldn't normally use it outside of a private conversation with Darwin and himself. But he’s searching for any comfort, now, and Charles makes no comment on the darling nickname for his paramour as he strokes blond hair affectionately.
“Darwin isn't the only part of the equation, Alex.” His hair is soft (despite its state of unwash in his distress,) as Charles strokes his fingers through it. “Erik would very much like a great many things he knows I won't tolerate. We try to find a middle ground.”
“Killing the president and having a baby are different.”
Charles hums. The baby within him moves again, visible this time through Charles’ shirt. Beneath his terror and mild disgust, Alex thinks to reach out and touch.
“Go on. She won't bite you.”
“David was a biter.”
Charles laughs softly, just once, and Alex sits up on one elbow. He extends a careful hand to press, his fingers spread wide, to Charles’ belly to feel his baby. She starts to hiccup beneath Alex's touch, and fondness washes over him like rain. Something in Charles lurches to feel it in him.
“What if Darwin leaves because I don't want to have this baby? What if I never want to have a baby?”
“It's something the two of you will need to discuss, if that’s true. You won’t want to live in a home full of resentment, in either case. Yours, if you have a baby you truly don't want for him, or his, if you never want the family he does. But I’ve felt what the two of you feel for each other, Alex.” Charles tucks overlong hair behind Alex’s ear as he strokes his thumb across his cheek, flushed red with his upset, soft from his tears. “I believe that love can survive this. No matter the outcome of your decision.”
Alex, for what might be the first time in his life, leans fully into Charles’ touch. His sigh is shaky as he closes his eyes, his brows turned in. He still doesn't know what he wants; his mind is a web, confused and afraid. He doesn't think he’d be a good father. He thinks Darwin would be. He conjures the image, not for the first time, of a little boy with coiling dark hair and Darwin’s nose. Dark eyes and feathered brows, he cannot bring himself to imagine a child that has anything of his. He doesn't want a baby to be hitched to the burden of his father.
“Oh, Alex.” The words are a gentle, wobbling whisper as he brings Alex close, tucking him against his shoulder, now, just to hold him close.
Alex’s arms wrap around him without hesitation, and he clings to the sweater at Charles’ back as though he will drown if he doesn't. Charles cradles his head, and nuzzles close.
After a long moment, he speaks. “You made me sure I wanted them.”
Alex sniffles before he speaks. “What?”
“All those years ago, when you lot first came here. It’s no secret that I cared for you a great deal, even and especially with all your adolescent rage.” Charles holds Alex’s face in both his hands, thumbs brushing over ruddy cheeks as watery grey eyes peer up at him. “I love you, Alex, so much more than you will ever come to understand, and that has been one of the greatest gifts in my life. Loving you made me certain that I could love these children how they needed. That they might be brought into a world unready for them, but that their family would always hold them with loving hands. Nothing brings me greater joy, Alex, than knowing you are part of their family.”
Charles’ voice is throttled, tight with emotion by the end. He watches as Alex’s eyes fill with tears again, and a gentle sob erupts from him as he bundles close.
Charles feels himself sob just the same, and holds his eldest son against his chest.
Erik’s mind is a warm hum as he approaches, sliding one hand against his back to wrap around and press firmly against the swell of his rounded middle. He tucks Charles against his side, and the two of them watch as Alex settles onto the bench beside Darwin some paces away.
“He seems to be doing better. Is he going to get rid of it?”
“I don't know.” Charles answers honestly as he shies away from the cold breeze into Erik’s warmth. “I don't think he does, either. They very well might have a fight about it.” He twists his mouth into a frown, thumb soothing over the top of his bump more for himself than for the baby’s sake.
“You and I shake the house with our arguments about once a term, you know. They’ll be alright.”
Charles glances up at his husband as his face settles into a softer expression; warm and sweet. Erik is a loving thing, when push comes to shove, and Charles is hard-pressed to remember anything else when Erik bends to give him a quick kiss on his temple.
“He always was your favorite. The others might get jealous.”
“Oh, hush, you. Angel and Sean are just glad it keeps my attention off of them for a while.”
Erik laughs.
The late October air is a welcome chill against his over-warm skin, this baby leaving him too warm. Unlike with her siblings, Charles always feels feverish with this babe. She must run warm.
They watch, together, as Darwin reaches for Alex’s hand to hold in his own, and regards him with such softness that Charles has always thought Alex deserves. He doesn't know how this will end, but the two of them will always come home, he thinks.
Charles’ thoughts are cut short as his brow furrows. He makes a soft sound at the back of his throat as his hand moves to rub at his back, and Erik’s is quick to join, like an instinct.
“Erik?”
“Hm?”
“I think your daughter,” A cautious breath,”is as dramatic as you, and as nosy as myself.” Charles’ mouth turns in a frown as he leans forward to steady himself on the cold iron of the railing. Erik’s mind zips to confusion, and then dawning understanding and elation.
“Coming to say hello for the drama, is she?”
“I think so, yes.”
Erik beams as he bends to nuzzle into Charles’ hair, leaning to grab his hand. “Let's get you and Jean inside. You can both be nosy from a distance.”
“Erik…!” Charles pouts, a soft whine at the edge of his words as he’s guided back into the house, even as the contraction lingers. “They’re just getting to the good part!”