the fine print (2/?)

[minarchy]

TITLE: the fine print (WIP)
FANDOM: x-men: first class
PAIRING: charles xavier/erik lehnsherr
RATING: pg-13 (this part; nc-17 overall)
SPOILERS: x-men: first class
WARNINGS: au; language (triggers: brief descriptions of withdrawal, including vomit.)
WORD COUNT: ~10,880
DISCLAIMER: x-men: first class belongs to marvel and matthew vaughan. all the characters belong to marvel. anything you do not recognise is mine
SUMMARY: Raven had been less than impressed at the news that they had rats in the garden, but Charles had no problems with them being outside. The only creatures he had issues with were mice, silverfish and moths, because they ate the binding out of books.
A/N: de-anon from 1stclass_kink, based off this prompt this is parts 3a-o from the original thread here. fill thread: here.

CHAPTER|ONE&TWO

THREE
in which erik gives advice and sean has a date
"So," said Erik, taking a deep breath of the brisk air, "how exactly did you end up with five teenagers in your house?"

They were taking a turn around the local park, as the weather was favourable for once; and it was a Sunday, which practically required the children a trip to the play area. ("With cocoa afterwards," Charles said, and the children beamed in excitement. "But only if you're good," Erik added, firmly tugging their gloves on. Raven gave Charles a look over the top of the newspaper at he left, but he rolled his eyes at her. She hadn't seen the smile in Erik's eyes.)

Charles grinned, his hands buried deep in his pockets and his coat tails flapping around his knees as the breeze whipped leaves and dust up from the path. "I already told you that Raven hired Hank," he said.

"Yes," agreed Erik, before Charles could finish, his smirk signifying that he knew he was interrupting. "But how did he come to live with you?"

"You should have seen his apartment," Charles said, half-defensive, half-amused. "It was disgusting and tiny and I couldn’t very well live with myself letting him languish there." Erik snorted. "It would have been a crime against humanity," Charles declared, grinning, "to allow Hank McCoy's genius to fester within a miniscule, rotting bedsit above a crack den. I had to do something. It was my morale duty."

Which managed to draw a laugh from Erik, something that made Charles feel ridiculously pleased.

"And the others?" Erik asked. "The two brothers?"

"Scott and Alex," Charles said. "Honestly, that was all Raven and Hank. Hank rescued them, Raven adopted them, I am weak-willed and now they share a room in the attic."

"Hank rescued them?" Erik raised an eyebrow at Charles, disbelieving. Charles' shrugged.

"He's a powerful speaker," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he simply convinced the policeman to stop."

"Stop?" The tone of Erik's voice told Charles that he didn't have to answer, if he didn't want to; that it was okay to hold some things back, to keep this secret for his own.

"Apparently," Charles said, slowly, not looking at Erik and choosing his words with care, "the officer was being - over-opportune - with his baton." He had a sudden flash of the long, stripe bruises stark against Alex's pale skin, vivid where he had clearly moved to shield Scott and taken the beating over his too-visible ribs, and swallowed down bile and bitter rage.

Erik said nothing, but Charles felt the air shift between them in something like gratitude and understanding (and, Charles thought, the sense of privilege, but he was uncertain about that, uncertain why Erik would wish for Charles to burden him with his own family's past traumas when there was an empty place at the Lehnsherrs' kitchen table and a Luger in a glass case in Erik's workshop).

"And Sean," Charles said, after a moment, "practically fell out of the sky. Completely out of his head on everything under the sun and running from God-knows-what."

"If he was that high," Erik said, "how did you know he wasn't running from his own imagination?"

"If he was," Charles said, "then his imagination was rather loud, and rapidly catching up with him."

A pause, in which the air was filled with the murmur of traffic beyond the line of trees and the shrieks of children in the play park.

(Holding Sean up with an arm around his chest as he shivered and dry-heaved over the toilet basin, a thin trickle of putrid bile and saliva dribbling from between his lips. His face was damp with sweat and vomit-induced tears.

"I hate you," he snarled, voice raw and weak. "I need it. I need it."

"No, you don't." Charles had been awake with Sean all through the night; there was an impressive bruise forming across his cheek and mouth where Sean had managed to boot him in the face, and he had scratches down his arms. But Sean had asked, before the withdrawal had kicked in. He'd been sober - for once - and Charles had sat him down and Sean had asked for help. So damn it all if Charles was going to let him down. "You can have the cannabis, Sean, just like we agreed. But you don't need the heroin. You don't need the acid. You don't need it."

"Yes," Sean had sobbed. "Yes, I do. Please."

"This is ridiculous, Charles," Moira said, her fingers twitching from the sight of Sean so far gone. "Take him to the bloody hospital, already."

"He doesn't want the hospital," Raven snapped, pushing past her to kneel next to Charles and wipe Sean's face, tipping a bottle of water against his slack mouth.

"It's where he should be," Moira said. "Really, Charles, you're a professor, you know he needs a doctor - a real doctor, not just Hank; you know he needs a hospital -"

"It's his choice," Charles said, trying to keep his voice calm as Sean shuddered and heaved again.

"He's a child, Charles. He doesn't know what he wants."

"Moira," Charles said, voice deliberately calm but bitingly cold. "If you're not going to do anything useful, get out of my house."

She'd returned, three days later, looking for an apology that Charles hadn't been willing to give. They remained friends, as much as they could with Moira's belated realisation that the children always came first.)

"Well, Charles," Erik said, "you are indeed quite the Samaritan."

Charles laughed. "Or a gullible fool."

"I was being kind."

"And for that, my friend, I thank you." Charles smiled at him. "It's nice to be humoured in my fallacies every once in a while. Raven has rather despaired of me, I'm afraid."

Erik laughed again, and Charles caught Wanda watching them, and Pietro stopping as if by psychic communication to gaze across the park at the two of them.

"You play, correct, Charles?" He blinked, and looked at where Erik was gesturing to the chess tables, and felt a smile bloom across his face.

"Naturally," he said, "although I wouldn't wish for you to lose face in front of your children."

"Your concern, whilst appreciated, is hardly necessary." Erik's answering smile was light and easy, and Charles wanted that look to dominate all of his expressions.

Charles smirked. "We'll see. White or black?"

Erik elected black, allowing Charles to start - both a polite gesture and a method of gauging Charles' game early on; Charles wasn’t entirely sure which it was - and pulled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, offering one to Charles.

Four moves apiece and Charles was considering his fifth; they were easily twenty minutes playing, when Erik said, his voice absent, as if the statement held no weight at all,

"You haven't returned the question."

Charles didn't look up from the board, knew that Erik wouldn't either; the only movement between them the curl of cigarette smoke as it was stolen by the breeze. "It isn't my place to ask," he said, calmly, and caught the curl of Erik's smile - pleased, relieved, because Charles knew that Erik wasn't ready to tell him about the mother of his children, wherever she was.

He moved his knight, and took Erik's bishop. Erik's smile turned a little triumphant, and his pawn took Charles' knight. Charles had been expecting the move, of course, required the pawn to move in order to free the line to check, but there was something about the lowly nature of the pawn taking his best piece that dug at the rivalry built on a childhood of competitive sports and schooling.

"Check," he said.

The house was hardly in the best state of repair, but they made do fairly well; Hank was a more than competent electrician - although his tendencies to try and rig the wiring to be more 'efficient' almost always leant towards 'dangerous' - and the boys were more than willing to chip in with the generic manual labour.

(Sean was a monkey, all gangly limbs and strong fingers that had him hanging off the side of the building to reattach the guttering more autumns than not; whilst the rest of them stood below in the tiny yard, Raven calling distracting insults up at Sean in the hope of getting him to slip as Alex and Hank argued over the best way to seal a wooden window frame and Scott tried to convince the ratty stray to be his friend and their new mouser. Charles would hover with the ladder, and smile at Sean's fake-hurt comments about his lack of faith.)

It was all they could do to keep the damp away from the books when it was wet, and with a savagely cold winter followed by a depressingly wet spring, it was only matter of time until something went. And, in the manner of the sardonic humour of the universe, things always went spectacularly wrong at precisely the wrong moment.

Like the time that Charles had been prospecting the garden shed as an extra storage area, and the door had wedged itself shut with him inside, and no one else was home. He had ended up sitting on an upturned flower pot, making a careful, suspicious friendship with a worryingly large rat that had appeared to sniff at his foot until Alex had kicked the door in.

(Raven had been less than impressed at the news that they had rats in the garden, but Charles had no problems with them being outside. The only creatures he had issues with were mice, silverfish and moths, because they ate the binding out of books.)

This time, it was the roof above the boiler room - or, to be more accurate, the iron sheeting that they were using as a temporary roof for the boiler room; there was no warning creaking, as Charles would have expected, or any prior suspicious behaviour on its part. Instead, there was simply a loud, pulsing whump and the light bulbs exploded, scattering tiny shards of glass all over Charles' study.

"Fuck," Charles spat, freezing in place and trying desperately not to move him hand. "Fuck, fuck, shitting Hell -"

"Charles?" Raven's voice carried worried down the stairs. Charles grit his teeth and clenched his eyes shut, taking several deep, jarring breaths as he felt the warm trickle of blood wind over his hand.

"Buggering -" he snapped, automatically jerking his hand away from his books and simultaneously trying to hold it still to avoid aggravating the wound further.

He breathed sharply and fast through his nose three times as he wrapped his fingers around the handle, and breathed out hard as he tugged it free from his hand.

"Motherfuck."

"Charles!"

The door flew open, and he felt the air displacement as Raven appeared in the doorway.

"Careful!" he said. "There's glass all over the floor."

Raven stopped short, hovering in the doorway in her nightdress and bare feet. He couldn't see her, the pounding rain that had started a little less than an hour ago like someone had taken a knife to the heavens obscuring any moon that might had shone through the windows of his office; but he could imagine the look of her face, white and worried and angry for being worried.

"We heard you yell," she said. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," he said, pressing down hard on his injured hand with a mostly-clean rag, trapping it between his thigh and his other palm. "Fine, I'm alright. I just - I stabbed myself with the awl."

Raven snorted, but Charles could hear the throb of worry still prevalent in her tone.

"Did you check on the others?" he asked.

"The boys have gone to check it out," she said, and then gave a muffled shriek.

"Sorry," said Scott, voice small and apologetic from behind her. "Um. Charles? Are you okay?"

Charles smiled around a silent sigh, and pushed himself upright. "I'm fine, Scott. I just stabbed myself with the awl."

"You never swear," Scott said, serious and anxious.

"Because it's a filthy habit," Charles agreed. "It did really hurt, though." He slipped his good hand into Scott's; the boy might have been twelve, but he gripped it tightly. "Let's go see whether the other's have managed to set anything on fire yet," he added, leading the way towards the back.

"But it's pouring out," Raven said.

"And that's stopped them when?" Charles asked, and felt Raven's eye roll at the back of his head.

Alex, Hank and Sean were standing around the wreck that had been the boiler room; the roof had completely caved in, dragging the tops of the exterior walls with it; the boiler itself had managed to escape damage due to its saving grace of being against the interior wall, and so shielded from the collapse. The fuse box, however, was undoubtedly a mangled mess beneath the brick and iron.

As they approached, remaining in the doorway as protection from the sheeting rain, Sean picked up the broom, flipped it so he was holding it by the brush and cautiously prodded at the wreckage.

The pile flashed and sparked, and the three boys leapt back.

"Poking it with a stick," Charles said, drily. "Very scientific, boys."

They turned, Sean flexing his grip on the broom handle guiltily.

"Charles!" Hank said. "Are you okay?"

He waved his hand at them. "Stabbed myself," he said.

"Again?" Sean said, raising an eyebrow.

"That last time was not my fault," Charles said, accusatorily. "I wasn't the one who left the rake out."

"Inside," Raven said, clearly tired of the bickering; she was watching the remnants of the fuse box warily, "before you guys get electrocuted. And," she prodded Charles in the shoulder, rather harder than necessary, "I'll need to bind your hand, mister."

"Yes, mother," Alex said, smirking; Raven shot him a glare as they all trooped back into the darkened kitchen, the boys dripping everywhere.

"I'll, um, find some candles," Hank said, wiping his glasses on his sleeve and only really succeeding on smearing the water across the surface.

"Good idea," Raven snapped, tugging Charles down into a seat and glaring into the darkness until the match flared, sulphur-bright, and Hank set the candle down next to them.

"Ow," Charles said, sardonic, as Raven peeled off the rag with savage force. She glared at him.

"Baby," she said, reaching behind her to tug open the drawer, pulling out the first aid one-handed. Her mouth was twisted sideways as she examined the hole in Charles' palm, and he recognised that she was being rough because she was worried about him. He nudged her ankle under the table, and her gaze flickered up to his. "Idiot," she said, but the tightness in her face relaxed somewhat. "Who stabs themselves with an awl?"

Charles hissed as she applied the iodine, the brown tincture staining the skin yellow around the wound and mingling with the blood still dribbling from it. "They're drills, Raven," he said. "They're supposed to be sharp."

"Yes," she said, threading the crescent needle to stitch the skin together, "but they're supposed to drill through inanimate objects. Not your hand."

"Shut up," he said, cheerfully.

Sean was sweeping the floor, knocking whatever might be on it out into the yard; a sensible precaution, Charles thought, remembering that his entire study was probably coated in glass.

"I'll make some tea," Scott said, eyes on Charles' hand.

"Not with the kettle!" Charles said, sharply; Scott's hand stopped mid air. "Boil it on the stove," he said. "That's gas-powered; we don't want to risk the electricals until we know how bad the damage is."

"Right," Scott said, changing direction to dig the old whistling kettle out of the cupboard.

Raven cleaned the stitches carefully with Dettol and cotton wool, her movements more gentle now; she had clearly got over her fright at Charles' outburst upon injuring himself, and her anger over being frightened by it. The Dettol and iodine smells mingled in the air, filling the kitchen with a clean, sterile smell as the stove clicked alive and the water stared to shudder within the kettle.

"There," she said. "Lucky the awl is tiny; better than the rake, anyway."

Charles grumbled in his throat, experimentally flexing his hand and feeling the tug of the stitches against his skin. "Yeah, well," he said. "It was an interesting experience, anyway."

"You re-enacted a scene from The Railway Children," Sean said, propping the broom against the wall and grinning, his teeth glinting in the candlelight. "That's got to be the geekiest injury yet."

"At least I do it with class," Charles said. "Thank you, Scott," taking his mug one-handed from him, the tea swirling dark and steaming as he sipped it. "Where's Alex got to?"

Scott glanced over his shoulder, and Alex reappeared from the corridor, stripping off the heavy, rubber-lined gloves that they used for the rewiring.

"I've disconnected all of the appliances," he said. "In case of shocks and shi- stuff."

"Good idea," Charles said, smiling as Alex joined the table, accepting his tea from Scott. The six of them sat in silence, listening to the rain shatter off the flagstones outside, and the hiss and spark of the fuse box. Charles would have covered it with tarpaulin, to stop the danger from the loose electric current, but the rain caused an extra hazard in an of itself; if the electricity sparked whilst they were standing out in it, then there was no telling whether they would be shocked or not.

"We can't afford an electrician, can we?" Scott said, after a long minute. Charles sighed.

"We'll get by," he said. "We always do."

"The shower's electric," Raven said. "Even if the boiler's gas-fired. We're going to have to take baths, now."

Hank rubbed his forehead with the heel of one hand. "Rebudget for the whole year," he said.

"In the morning," Charles added, firmly. "We all need to sleep this off, first; come back to it with a clear head and, with any luck, a dry day to solve it under."

"Yeah," Alex said, nudging Scott with his shoulder. "Hank can do most of the wiring, anyway. And we can rebuild the shed, no problem. A good excuse to do that remodelling that Charles has wanted."

"Does this mean that I'm going to have to spend days tiling again?" Sean moaned. "Tiling is really fu- bloody. Really bloody boring."

"Don't use English swear words," Raven said. "You can't pull them off."

They abandoned their mugs in the sink, for dealing with in the morning, along with all the other problems the night had brought, and padded single-file up the narrow staircase. Charles tugged off his clothes and pulled on his pyjamas, falling sideways onto his bed.

A moment later, he threw back the covers on the unoccupied side and shuffled closer to the edge.

"Come on, Raven," he said. "I'm not waiting all night."

There was a flurry of movement and the bed creaked as Raven clambered in; and then shuffling sounds from the rest of the room. Charles opened his eyes to see the others creeping in, Hank and Alex and Scott making piles of bedding on the floor whilst Sean claimed the ancient, dilapidated armchair, spreading his long legs out onto the windowsill.

"Goodnight, everyone," Charles said.

"'Night, Charles," the boys replied, sounding only a little caught-out.

Raven prodded him in the small of his back as she shuffled closer. "You know you love it," she said.

"Oh, drat," he said, grinning into his pillow. "That was supposed to be a secret."

Charles woke the next morning to find his room empty, with only the piles of sheets and pillows folded neatly into the corner any sign that the children had slept in there at all; also, his clock informed him that it was half-past ten. Swearing under his breath and into his pillow, he forced himself upright, hissing and biting the inside of his cheek when he pulled the stitches in his hand.

He slumped downstairs, the need for caffeine his only driving force; he almost caught his foot on the stairs, his bare toe clipping the edge of the step and causing him to stumble. Rubbing a hand over his face as daylight assaulted his vision, he blearily entered the kitchen to see Erik Lehnsherr sitting at his table.

Blinking, he stopped short, and stared at him. Erik was holding a cup of what smelled suspiciously like coffee, which distracted Charles enough from the smirk that was fighting to appear on Erik's face as he saw Charles.

"Morning!" Raven trilled, appearing from nowhere at Charles' side and handing him a cup. "Did you sleep well?"

Charles gave her as accusatory a look as he was capable of, refusing to be fully placated by the gift of coffee. "Why didn't you wake me?" he asked. "And why -" he shifted his gaze to Erik- "why are you here?"

"I called him," Raven said, her chipper tone grinding against Charles' still mostly-asleep brain. "He's an engineer by trade, you know."

"Yes," Charles said, rubbing between his eyebrows. "Of course. I'm going -" he waved his free hand vaguely behind him.

Raven beamed at him, and Erik called after, "nice pyjamas, Charles."

Charles stuck his head under the faucet in an attempt to both tame his hair, which had never grown out of its desire to defeat basic physics and almost always ended up vertical when he awoke, and to wake himself up. The cold water ran down the back of his neck and into his eyes, clearing the sleep from his eyes and the fog from his brain; and he suddenly realised that he had just stumbled into his kitchen, in his pyjamas, with Erik sitting as his kitchen table.

He resisted the urge to just hide in the bathroom (because he was an adult, God damn it), and instead settled for knocking his head mournfully against the lip of the sink; which hurt, but made him feel a little better.

Rubbing his forehead and shaking the water out of his eyes, he dressed quickly in casual clothes, the shop obviously not being able to open due to the lack of electricity. They really should have woken him up; there was almost no way that the boys hadn't managed to kill themselves in his absence.

"Your faith in our abilities is flattering," Sean called, from where he was wedged between the house proper and the outbuilding, "but you really needn't have worried."

"We've got it all under control," Hank added.

"A lie," Raven said, leaning against the doorframe. "But whatever. You'd almost electrocuted yourself eight times before Erik arrived."

"Why did Erik's arrival stop Hank from being electrocuted?" Charles asked, dragging his eyes away from where Sean was shuffling about over empty space, disconnecting the external electricity lines from the transformer.

"He turned off the electricity," Raven said. Charles stared at Hank, who had the good grace to look rather embarrassed.

"Henry McCoy," Charles said. "You have - how many degrees? - and you didn't think to turn off the electricity before playing with the shattered fuse box? What were you thinking?"

"Sorry," Hank mumbled. Alex, who was supervising Scott nailing together a temporary house for the boiler, looked up at Charles tone. A pink flush was spreading up Hank's neck. "It won't happen again."

"Damn straight," Charles said, looking back up at Sean just as he slipped, whitewash and grit skidding down the wall to clatter onto the flagstones.

"I'm okay!" Sean called, catching himself on the edge of the roof.

Charles rubbed at his temple. It was going to be a long few days.

"They're really very capable," Erik said, appearing at his side and watching Sean cut the wires. "You should be proud."

Charles sighed. "You're encouraging them to perform unnecessarily dangerous acts in the name of DIY," he said.

"They haven't died, yet," Erik pointed out, "or killed anyone. That's something, isn’t it?"

Hank was carefully dismantling what was left with the fuse box, the line of his back clearly indicating that the sting of Charles' reaction was still being felt. He sighed again.

"You're probably right," he said, reluctantly. "I'm sure I couldn't do any of this without them, anyway. I'd just have Raven, and she's pretty useless at man's work."

A lump of mortar smacked into his arm. "Hey!"

Raven glared at him from the doorway, already rearmed. "Man's work?" she said, flinging another lump, which Charles dodged. "What does that make you then, nerd boy? You've never done a day's manual labour in your life! Hank has done more 'man's work' than you. Hank!"

"Thanks," Hank said, drily. Sean had been forced to pull himself onto the actual roof; he was laughing so hard at Charles attempting to avoid being hit that he had been in danger of falling.

"But you can paint!" Charles said. "That's what you do!"

"That's woman's work, you mean!" Raven was a surprisingly good shot. Charles was definitely going to bruise.

"Sexist, Charles," Erik said, grinning. "There's no reason why a woman can't do anything a man can do. Brave new world."

"No," Charles said, stopping and pointing an accusatory finger at Erik. "Side against me with my sister all you want, but you don't get to quote Huxley at me. You haven't even read the book!"

"Oh my God, Charles!" Raven stopped hurling rubble at him to stare in laughing disbelief. "You are such a nerd!"

"What's going on?"

Pietro appeared at Raven's hip, white-blond hair falling into his face and paint all over his hands.

"You brought your children to my building-site of a house?" Charles asked, turning to Erik, who shrugged.

"Raven called, and they don't have school today - free babysitting," he said.

"In payment for services rendered," Raven said.

"What, precisely, does that entail?" Charles asked.

"Raven said your shed exploded," Erik said. "I'm going to help rebuild it. Engineer, remember."

"Right." Charles looked around the yard, at where the boys were all occupied, and at Raven, who was apparently supervising Erik's children. "Right. Well. I'll be cleaning my study if you need me."

There was glass everywhere. The force of the electrical feedback from the collapse had caused not only the lit bulbs to explode, but every other bulb in the room to do so as well; and, due to the nature of Charles' work, there were a lot of lights. He could only be grateful that he hadn't been using adhesive when they blew.

As it was, it looked to be merely a laborious sweep-up; some of the glass pieces were so small that Charles was fairly certain he'd have to go through the bindings of some of the books with a fine-toothed comb in order to clear them out fully.

His palm itched around the stitches, and it twinged savagely as he flexed his fingers. It was going to be a long job; not only would he have to be supremely thorough in his cleaning, but he wouldn't be able to go as quickly or efficiently as he otherwise would with one damaged hand.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed at the mess of his study, before straightening his back and picking up the dustpan and brush.

"It's the job that never gets started as takes the longest to finish," he said to himself, and grinned.

Cleaning was always therapeutic. The physical process is in itself a repetitive one, which is why Charles had detested it so as a child - it offered no interest or challenge - but as he grew older he realised that it allowed his mind to wander; and, in cleaning things, it was almost as if he could clear out his thoughts.

When he was younger, he had combated the boredom that inevitably walked hand-in-hand with tedious tasks by attempted to memorise whatever text he had been reading, reciting it aloud to himself as he worked. It was a habit that he'd never really grown out of. Which was why he was currently, on his knees, carefully dusting glass of a stack of books and talking to himself in a low voice:

"The afternoon buzzes like lazy bees round the flowers, round Mae Rose Cottage. Nearly asleep in the field of nanny goats who hum and gently butt the sun -"

"- she blows love on a puffball."

He twisted around, almost dislodging both the books and the dustpan but managing to do neither, just, to see Erik standing in the doorway.

"You know Thomas?" he asked, surprised. He wouldn't have thought it was to Erik's taste.

"Burton sends my children to sleep most effectively," Erik said, by way of explanation.

"He does have the most soothing cadence, doesn't he," Charles said, smiling.

"Hank says that lunch is ready," Erik said, leaning back out of the doorway. Charles got to his feet, dusted off his knees.

"Excellent," he said. "I missed breakfast. And this is the perfect opportunity for you to try Hank's savoury range."

"It's just sandwiches," Erik said.

"Yes, well," Charles said, tilting his head and smiling. "Sandwiches are my favourite."

"I'll need someplace to wash up," Erik said, as Charles stepped out into the hallway.

"Yes," Charles agreed, glancing down at his own, dishevelled state, "I probably should to. The boys'll be using the kitchen; come on."

He lead the way upstairs to the single bathroom: tiny and cramped, with a bath that was barely five foot long and a shower head that, despite being wedged into the highest position, still forced Sean to hunch to get underneath it; the sink was practically hovering over the toilet, which made it useful for when there had been a really bad bout of stomach flu going about but was otherwise a hazard for knees.

With practise, it was still possible to get three people in there at one time; four, if two were sharing the shower. Charles sat on the rim of the bath, remaining upright only due to years of practise and his heels braced against the base, as Erik carefully scrubbed his hands, wrists and forearms clean of brick dust, dirt and grease.

"I never thanked you," he said, abruptly, watching the muscles shift in the small of Erik's back as he rubbed a lather around his nail beds. Erik glanced up, catching Charles' gaze in the mirror. "For coming over," Charles clarified. "I mean, there was no reason for you to drop everything and come to our rescue."

Erik smiled, a crinkling of one cheek, the lines spidering out from the corner of his eye as he dropped his gaze back to his hands. "I could hardly leave you to burn," he said. "The children would never have forgiven me."

Charles raised an eyebrow. "I had no idea that they were so fond of the place," he said.

"Not at all," Erik countered, lightly. "Pietro merely disapproves of any fire he doesn't start himself."

"Pietro likes to burn things?" Charles asked, surprised. "I would've thought he was a little young to have discovered such infatuations."

"One can never be too young," Erik said, moving to lean one shoulder against the doorjamb so Charles could access the sink. "He's rather more fond of creating friction fires, however; so there's never any real danger of him setting the flat alight."

Charles glanced sideways as he carefully cleaned his hands, trying his best not to rub soap into his stitches; but Erik's expression was one more of fond amusement at his son's antics than of any parental irritation. Erik must have caught his gaze, because one eyebrow twitched minutely.

"It's no more dangerous than the other things that eight-year-olds become obsessed with," he said, blithely.

"Like what?" Charles furrowed his brow, trying to remember what he had been obsessed with when he was eight, other than books and staying out from under his stepfather's palm.

"Soil, dog shit," Erik said, waving a hand as if to encompass all other kinds of dirt that pre-pubescent boys like to examine and, presumably, ingest. "It's far more difficult for him to hurt himself trying to start a fire than it is eating animal faeces."

"True," Charles conceded, and then hissed as he accidently washed soap into the wound. Erik's gaze zeroed in on his hand as Charles ran it carefully under the cold tap.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Nothing," he said. "I mean - our blackout startled me somewhat and, ah, I may have stabbed myself through the hand."

"I see." Erik's expression was in danger of making Charles flush, and he'd already embarrassed himself enough for one day; Charles concentrated on drying his hands rather than look at the other man.

"It's only a tiny hole," he said, "really; it probably won't even scar. Raven does an excellent job of stitching me up. Last autumn, I stood on the rake - it went right through my foot, and fractured my knee. The doctors were worried that I might not be able to walk on it again."

He turned, and saw Erik still watching him with his eyebrows drawn together, the corners of his mouth beginning to angle down; his gaze was on Charles' leg, as if he could tell which one was injured even through Charles' trousers.

"Hey," he said, cocking his head and giving Erik what Raven called the 'reassuring smile'. "It's no one's fault, there's no lasting damage; everyone wins."

"No lasting damage," Erik repeated, still watching Charles as he lead the way back down towards the kitchen.

"Well," Charles admitted, "I won't be running any marathons again, but apart from that -" He shrugged. "I've no complaints."

Lunch threatened to be a subdued affair, with Hank evidently still feeling the lash of Charles' earlier rebuke; but Raven had knocked his ankle under the table and Charles asked what he thought their best options were for replacing the fuse box, and everything shifted back to normal. Hank spent most of his explanations darting his gaze between Charles and Erik, as if to confirm his postulations with the professional; Erik didn't dispute any of Hank's ideas other than to query how, precisely, he would effectively transmute the kinetic energy of a basic hydro pump into decent electrical output, and Charles rapidly lost track of the conversation as they slid deeper and deeper into technicalities.

There was also the small fact that the other boys were rapidly coming down from the adrenaline high of the morning - one that Charles was all too familiar with, the one that grips tight to the scruff of the neck and jolts you through the day with yes, yes; there's something I can do - and were drooping over their sandwiches, ploughing through them dully and waiting for the energy kick.

Whatever lethargy the boys brought to the table was completely cancelled out by the twins, however. Raven had been right about them being ridiculously well-behaved for a pair of eight-year-olds, but she appeared to have made it her personal mission to drag the twins out of their shells and force them to have fun. Raven's idea of what eight-year-olds should deem as 'fun' mostly seemed to involve anything that made a lot of mess.

She still, obviously, had problems with the way that Wanda and Pietro were so well-behaved (despite the fact that Charles had tried to explain that maybe, maybe, that was how normal eight-year-olds behaved, and she had just been ridiculously rambunctious), and still evidently blamed Erik for being overly-strict with them; when they had first sat down for lunch, the twins had come barrelling into the kitchen covered in dried paint and food colouring and flour, and had skidded to halt in front of Erik, hands held palm up.

Erik bent onto one knee so that he could examine their hands carefully - and Charles watched Raven watching them, and thought at her do you see, Raven, do you see the way he looks at them; how could you ever think that he wants anything but the world for them, because the corners of Erik's eyes and mouth had relaxed into something fond and practised, and the twins were looking at him inspect their fingernails for evidence of missed dirt with bright eyes and laughter twitching in their cheeks.

"Satisfactory," Erik declared, and the twins beamed at him before clambering up to the table.

"Raven let us paint her wall!" Wanda said, practically glowing with excitement. Erik twitched an eyebrow at Charles, who flicked his gaze skywards as if to say it's her wall; since when did she listen to me, anyway?; Raven threw him her favourite desquamatory look that Charles had long since developed resistance to, and simply raised his eyebrows at her, slightly.

"I painted a dinosaur!" Pietro said, enthusiastically. "With robot augmentations." He said the last word slowly, carefully enunciating each syllable, and then beamed when Erik inclined his head, slightly - an indication that Pietro had said it correctly - and waggled his hands on top of his head to demonstrate.

"And then I drew a troop of ninjas!" Wanda said. "Loads of them! With katanas and shuriken and everything! Because ninjas could totally beat a dinosaur."

"Nuh uh!" Pietro protested. "The only way your stupid ninjas would win is because there's loads of them and that's like cheating."

"Cheating's only bad if you get caught," Wanda said, primly. Pietro scowled at his sister, chewing furiously on his sandwich; Erik was calmly working his way through his own, projecting an air of practised innocence despite the topic of conversation between his children.

"You didn't just paint, though, did you?" Raven hinted, stepping neatly into the gap in the argument to direct it elsewhere.

"No," Wanda said, before Pietro interrupted,

"We made cakes!"

It was positively amazing how rapidly the boys perked up at the mention of 'cake'. Charles bit down on his smile as they focussed in on the far end of the table, where Raven was opening the massive tin that Charles was certain had once been used to house his tools; he'd wondered where it had got to.

"Rainbow cake!" Wanda said, beaming, as Raven held one out to demonstrate. "We were going to choose one colour each;"

"But then we couldn't decide which one we wanted," Pietro said.

"And so, instead of getting food colouring everywhere," Raven said, handing the twins each a cake, "we decided it would be best to swirl them all in."

Charles looked down at his cake with minor trepidation; it did look suspiciously like Raven and the twins had simply up-ended the bottles and folded the colour in (Charles was grateful that Raven knew not to stir it, at least not very much, or else it would have looked unappetising rather than just amusing), and Charles knew the layout of the kitchen well enough that there was probably a bunch of flavourings thrown in there as well.

He caught Alex looking at his cake like it might spontaneously grow legs and run away, whilst Hank was blinking at it like the colours were hurting his eyes, and Scott was grinning at it like it was the best thing he'd seen in ages. Sean, however, took it calmly in his stride, and was already halfway through his.

"So."

Erik and the twins had left, Wanda and Pietro visibly lagging as Erik bundled them into coats and shoes, Raven having fulfilled her task as babysitter and worn them out; but they didn’t leave before extorting a promise to come back tomorrow from their father, who'd glanced briefly at both Charles and Raven for permission before agreeing.

Now, Charles was sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by papers; his last cup of tea had cooled before he'd finished it, but it was now full again and steaming, and he blinked at it in confusion for a few seconds before registering Raven's presence opposite him. The boys were there as well, all taking seats around the table.

"How're we looking, prof?" Sean asked, characteristically blasé.

"And don't lie," Raven said, with her own special brand of fierce seriousness. "I can always tell."

Charles sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, you can," he said, pushing himself back from the table and taking a sip of his tea. He looked at them, his odd little family, all of them evidently worried by displaying it in entire different ways; Raven's rigid posture was practically oozing furious determination, Sean and Alex the most nonchalant of the five - but Charles was fairly certain that Alex especially was feigning it for the sake of Scott, who was looking at the papers on the table with a mixture of anger and nervousness. Hank was blinking very quickly but evenly, which Charles took to mean that he was probably trying to work out how fucked they were in his head.

"We are going to have to make some serious cutbacks," he said, keeping his voice calm and easily meeting each of their gazes. "Even if we do all the work ourselves, we still need to buy all of the equipment necessary to fix up the fuse box and reattach it to the grid; and all of the materials to rebuild the boiler room. Not only that, but we're going to chalk up some serious expenses simply due to the fact that we're going to have to work around not have electricity."

"Well," Scott said, after a moment; Charles looked at him, and he was still frowning at the table but he didn't seem to be too worried about the situation. "We can use public services for, like, a lot of washing and stuff -"

"Ew," said Raven, "but he has a point. Doesn't your school have showers that you can use?"

"We could ask Armando to move back in," Alex said.

He was watching Charles with an almost challenging expression on his face, as if daring Charles to say that it was a bad idea.

"He could share with me," Sean said, with a shrug.

"Sean," Charles turned to face him, "you have the smallest room."

Sean shrugged again, meeting Charles' incredulous gaze with his own, rather more relaxed version of fuck you; the one that angered his teachers when Sean turned it on them, when he had clearly won the argument and they refused to admit it. "We can build bunk beds," he said. "It's not like I haven't shared before."

Charles rubbed his finger over his eyebrow, easing the beginnings of a tension headache he can feel building behind his eyes.

"Sean," Charles said, again, as if repeating his name will make him listen - a tactic that Charles uses without thinking about it, now, even though it never works; perhaps because it never works. "I cannot ask you to share your room with Armando. It's basically a cupboard -"

"Darwin wouldn't care," Scott said, his eyes lit up with the idea of Armando moving back. "He didn't mind when he had to share with us."

"We were going to suggest that one of us move in with you," Alex said. "And then Darwin could have their place."

"Wait." Charles looked very hard at the boys, narrowing his gaze. "You've already asked him, haven't you?"

"We - we might have mentioned something," Hank said, guiltily. "But think about it, Charles: Darwin would be another person to split the utilities between, and he's more than capable at manual work."

"It makes sense," Scott pressed, gazing at him earnestly.

"And then, of course," Raven put in, "there's my trust fund."

"No," Charles snapped, wheeling on her. "No, I am not letting you blow away that money on this."

"It's my money!" Raven said, angrily. "It's my money, as you are so damned fond of telling me -"

"That money is supposed to go on your education," Charles said, "or a house in Bermuda, or a - bright pink stretch limousine!" He sighed. "Darling, that money is there for you to be entirely selfish with," he said. "Not to bail me out."

"But I don't want to be selfish with it!" Raven snapped. "I want to be able to fix up our house; I want to be able to see you sleep more than twenty-six hours in a week; I want you to let me do things for you!"

"Selflessly selfish," Charles said, his smile crooked and self-deprecating. "I'm sorry, but I can't. Too arrogant, I suppose, to take money from my baby sister."

"What if you don't have a choice?" Raven said, her eyes flashing. "What if it's a choice between your stupid pride and the house - your livelihood, our entire life?"

"Then, dear Raven," Charles said, "I'm sure you'll be there to box my ears and knock some sense into me."

"Is that a yes to Darwin, then?" Scott asked, eyes bright and hopeful. Charles pressed the heel of his hand into his eye, and sighed.

"Yes, I suppose. If he wants to."

"He does," Scott said, quickly, beaming. "Can I run down to the depot and tell him? Please?"

"I'll go with him," Alex said, with a quick grin of his own, standing and catching his brother by the neck of his t-shirt before he'd escaped completely out of the door. "Coat, Scott."

"What about Erik?" Hank asked.

"Oh, God, yes," Charles said, putting his head in his hands. "He'll want to be paid."

Raven snorted. "Maybe in ways that only you can provide," she said, smirking; Hank and Sean winced, Sean whining,

"God, Raven; some things we just don't need to hear."

Charles flushed up the back of his neck; Raven could tell. She had a wicked glint in her eye.

"I mean, seriously, Charles," she continued, "how many dates have you been on now?"

"I don't recall," Charles said, weakly.

"Liar," Raven said, smirking. "Have you even kissed him, yet?"

Sean pushed his fingers into his ears and screwed his eyes shut, singing 'Here I Am, Lord' to drown her out; he missed, therefore, Hank fleeing the room.

Charles didn't reply, and Raven oozed triumphant glee.

"I hate you," he said.

"Oh, hush," she said, patting the top of his head.

"The finest bread I will provide, until their hearts be satisfied -"

"Sean!" Raven snapped, flicking a cake case at his head. "For God's sake, shut up."

It was a late night for all of them; there was still an awful lot to do just to tidy up the house, let alone prepare things for the following day's work. Charles wondered just how, considering the physical size of the apartment, it managed to house so much stuff. Sean calmly informed Scott that this was because the house was bigger on the inside; when Hank added, sarcastically, that old money families obviously had many such heirlooms of scientific anomaly, Sean shushed him with a correction of 'magic'.

Scott had found it hilarious, up to and including Sean's declaration that, because the house was indeed bigger on the inside, thus it should be perfectly feasible for him to fit all of their things into one cupboard. Alex, opening it a few minutes after the boys had forced it shut, was promptly buried under a myriad of pointless items, and spent the best part of an hour chasing Sean around the house with a broom.

They only escaped a minor incident by the arrival of Armando; he had been passing on the way to pick up his next client, and stopped by to drop off his diesel-powered generator. Hank had immediately set about designing the best set-up for lighting the shop - because there was no way they were going to able to afford repairs without opening - whilst Raven made tea and Sean, Scott and Alex made excited conversation that was mostly them quizzing Armando on what he'd been up to in the hours of the day that the elder boys didn't see him at the café.

Charles had managed to catch him just before he disappeared to finish his shift.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, leaning against the wall of the corridor, arms folded. Armando turned around, his hand on the doorknob. "Get back into this crazed family? We've got a lot of baggage, Armando."

Armando nodded, and grinned easily. "I've dealt with my shit," he said. "Besides, I kinda missed your crazy."

Charles wasn't certain as to whether the children slept in his room again, because he was still in his office when the grandmother clock chimed half two. He'd heard them troop upstairs at various points before midnight, Scott worrying about where Armando was going to sleep before they put a bed in for him.

The office was dimly lit, more so than usual; Charles had refused to have the generator stored in there, both due to the damage the fumes would do to the books and because of the noise, and so he was using a camping lamp balanced on the end of his desk. The quality of light once you moved over two feet away was incredibly poor, but seeing as Charles hadn't moved for over three hours he hadn't actually noticed.

He took a drag of his cigarette, smoke folding out of his nostrils as he reached blindly over for his coffee. It had gone cold; Charles' face wrinkled automatically at the taste, and he noticed Raven standing in the doorway.

"How long have you been there?" he asked, downing the remainder of the coffee and grimacing as he replaced the cup.

"Long enough," she said. He couldn't see her face - because Raven, apparently, had preternaturally impressive night vision, and so regularly wandered around without a light where mere mortals would immediately slip and break their necks - but he could hear the blatant disapproval in her tone. "Charles, you need to sleep."

He didn't look up as he shuffled papers around his desk, trying to find the right one. "No, I need to get this done."

"Charles -"

Charles leant back in his chair, balanced his elbow on the arm and observed her silhouette in the doorway. "Well, then," he said, taking another pull. "What would you suggest we do about all these outgoings that need to be rebudgeted; or, perhaps, you have an idea on how to increase our income by three times our monthly revenue in order to cover the cost of the repairs?"

Raven's outline shifted, upset. "Charles," she said, again. "Please. You're not going to be any good for any of us if you don't get some sleep."

"I'm not going to be good for any of you unless I get this sorted, either," he replied. "And I think this is the slightly more pressing matter, don't you?"

He heard her pass someone on her way along the corridor, and Armando leant in through the doorway.

"Alright, boss?"

"Armando," he said, dropping the butt into the ashtray. "I know you said that you're happy to move back in here, but I'm not entirely sure you've thought this through."

Armando steps inside the room, manoeuvring stacks of books and papers with practised ease to seat himself opposite Charles. He always managed to project an air of confidence and ease that Charles appreciated, mostly because of the endlessly calming effect his presence had on any room. He folded his hands in front of him, interlacing his long fingers, and waited for Charles to continue.

"It's not that we don't all love having you," he began, "because we really do; you're great with the kids, and it's really good for the boys to have someone to look up too."

"Apart from you," Armando put in, and Charles smiled crookedly.

"I don't think that they're really going to follow in my footsteps," he said, "except for Hank; and he's already done the academia thing to death."

Armando just watched him, in his quiet way, until Charles had the feeling that he was being disagreed with. He sniffed, blinked, and continued.

"Yes, well. The thing is, Armando, we're not exactly swimming in space here. And I know we worked it out before - and Sean's offered to have you share with him, which was nice of him, if a little impractical -"

"Why?" Armando asked.

"Did he offer? Probably something to do with you being -"

"No," he corrected. "Why would it be impractical?"

"Because," Charles sighed, and leant forward on the desk, "Sean's bedroom is tiny. You'd be sleeping on bunk beds. And, besides; Sean's quite a bit younger than you. Are you sure you wouldn't mind sharing with him?"

Armando shrugged, one shouldered. "No, man; Sean's a good kid. I hear he's dry now, though," he glanced at Charles for confirmation, "so I guess I'd be missing out on his hilarious trips." He caught Charles' sceptical gaze, and shifted himself forwards a little. "Charles," he said, seriously, "I've been sleeping on the depot sofa and in the back of my cab for the past two months. I've slept in far worse places than that in my time. Trust me; your place? Like a dream compared to what a lot of us go through."

They shared a long look, and Charles huffed an assent through his nose.

"Only if you're sure," he said, rubbing his temple as he looked at Armando. "I don't want you putting yourself out just to keep the boys happy."

He grinned. "If I didn't know you better, I'd be offended at the fact that you keep saying it's just the kids that want me here. But I know it's because you're just too emotionally constipated to properly display your affection for me."

Charles laughed, properly laughed despite his headache and the fatigue dragging at his joints like fever-swelling, and scrubbed his hands over his face.

"That is definitely the problem," he agreed, still smiling. "My repressed upbringing has squashed all ability to show affection from my being; I'm so grateful that you're astute enough to notice, Armando. Pray, stay and teach me how to properly express myself."

"Well," Armando said, grinning and stretching his arms over his head, pulling his spine until it popped, "seeing as you asked so nicely."

"On occasion, I have been known to remember my manners."

Armando pushed himself upright using the arms of the chair. "I'd best be heading up," he said, heading over to the door. "Don't you stay up too long now, boss. Leave the budgeting until the morning, at least; and wait to talk to this Erik cat about the repairs before you give yourself a stress-related heart attack."

Charles saluted him with his pen, and said, "Armando?"

He stopped, one hand on the doorjamb as he leant back around it.

"It's good to have you back."

Armando smiled, and tapped the jamb as he left.

Charles didn't go to bed. He did put the budgeting aside until morning, both taking Armando's advice and because he was terrible at doing so effectively when sleep-deprived. There was plenty of other work that he needed to complete, however, including a rebinding of Madame Bovary for a customer that had inherited it in a particularly sorry state. When Charles had originally taken the commission, the customer had mentioned that they'd had trouble finding a decent restorer before, for other books that were falling apart. He was hoping that, should they approve of his work, he might be able to get another commission from them. Collectors of earlier editions tended to be willing to pay rather a lot more money for a decent job.

Moira had also given him a heads-up concerning a couple of people she knew from work who were looking for some rarer editions; she never failed to send people his way, despite their differences. If it weren't for the fact that Charles had five dependants and his livelihood to care for, they would have made an excellent couple. As it was, their individual career paths took them in opposite directions; Moira spent all day picking up after thankless people, and all she wanted when she clocked off was to relax. Charles spent all day amongst literature, one of the great loves of his life; so when he clocked off, he was more than willing to offer his time to the children.

It probably didn't help that they were as stubborn as each other. It made for a wonderful and always interesting friendship, though.

He'd been working on the cover for a couple of weeks; the customer was willing to pay extra for him to recreate the original, first edition cover, and Charles was more than happy to comply.

There were several books that he had previously recovered from a similar period, and he had been able to get his contacts at the library to let him take a set of detailed photographs of a first edition they had in storage (although they'd left a security guard in the room with him; apparently they were worried that he might run off with it).

Despite the fact that the boards and leather had succumbed worryingly to rot, the binding itself was more or less intact, meaning that Charles would simply have to restitch it into the spine once he'd finished it.

He moved the lamp closer to his position, mounted the leather onto his desk easel, and continued to carefully emboss the spine.

Raven found him at eight am, still carefully pressing gilt into the design. She stepped cat-like across the room, and touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. His face was cold.

"Charles," she said, when he looked up, irises quivering as they attempted to focus on her face, "it's time for breakfast."

"Yes," he said, dazedly, "in a minute."

She didn't move, rubbed her thumb over his cheekbone and into the edges of his hair. He leant into the touch, ever so slightly, and she felt him sigh.

"Five and a half grand, Raven," he said. "Just for a recover. You know how much that means to us."

"Of course," she said. "But it can wait a few hours whilst you eat, and sort out what we need to do today."

Charles didn't say anything, but after a long moment he laid down his tools and pushed himself upright, and she knew she'd won, at least for now. She hoped that the reappearance of the Lehnsherrs later on would distract Charles from working himself into the ground long enough to get him to relax. She followed him as he wandered towards the kitchen, stretching the kinks from his back; pressing her fingers into the corners of her eyes, she stimulated enough moisture to conceal the glaring bloodshot nature.

When Charles didn't sleep, he wasn't the only one. Of course, she would never tell him, because he did so enjoy the illusion that his martyr complex offered him; that he was the only one suffering and, in doing so, was protecting the rest of them from it. He always seemed to forget that fretting about the welfare of the family wasn't a trait that he alone carried, and Raven would often lie awake, listening to see if Charles would come up the stairs.

(She supposed it was a reaction learned from childhood, but she didn't fear the sounds of Charles' sock-clad feet creaking up towards her. Instead, she lay awake listening to the sounds of her brother shuffling around downstairs, and waiting for him to haul himself up to his bedroom. She could always tell that it was him over one of the boys, because Charles limped slightly after a long day at his desk. It was so different, so completely different to how she had felt as a girl, listening for the heavy tread on the stairs outside her room.)

Raven didn't sleep when Charles didn't sleep, because she lay awake wondering if she was going to lose the only family she had.

The boys had already congregated around their tiny table (and Raven made a mental note to get Alex to build them a larger one, because they really wouldn't all fit now that Armando was back); Sean appeared to be sleeping standing upright, his head resting against the cabinet with his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling steadily, as the kettle shook and bubbled below him.

Armando and Scott were making breakfast, Scott still mostly asleep but happily pouring milk into the bowls of porridge that Armando passed him. Alex, as usual, appeared to be trying to drown himself in orange juice. She caught Hank's eye, from where he was setting the table and trying to fit an extra chair into non-existent space: did he sleep?. She shook her head, and he closed his eyes briefly in agitation, his mouth twisting.

Someone had pressed a mug of coffee into his hand - he assumed Sean, because he had been manning the kettle, but he could never really be certain whether Sean was actually present first thing in the morning, because his eyes never seemed to focus properly before nine-thirty - and Charles inhaled the promise of caffeine. The coffee helped him come alive properly, and he couldn't help but smile at the way that Scott was practically falling asleep in his porridge. He only seemed to be upright because Alex and Sean had braced him between them.

Charles wondered just how long Scott had stayed up the night before, waiting for Armando to come back.

"Oh, here," he said, just remembering, and passed a book over the juice jug to Armando. "I thought you might like this."

"Murakami?" Armando said, turning the paperback over to read the blurb.

"Hey, isn't that the Wind-Up Bird guy?" Hank said, looking up from his bowl.

Charles nodded. "You said you liked Vonnegut," he said to Armando. "So you'll probably like that."

"Hear The Wind Sing," Armando read. "Sounds cool. Thanks."

"Do you know when Erik and the kids are coming round?" Hank asked Raven. "I wanted to talk to him about amping up the generator."

"If you break that -" Charles started.

"Then I don't care," Armando interjected. "It's a piece of junk, and I don't use it anymore. Have at it, Hank."

Raven smirked at Charles, who rolled his eyes at her, and burned his tongue on his coffee.

"Erik said something about ten o'clock," Raven said, "but I don't know how punctual he'll be."

"But he's German!" Sean protested, grinning. "Do they have another setting? Like their watches; always on time."

"That's Swiss clocks, Sean," Charles said.

"And German trains," Raven added.

"For God's sake, Raven," Charles said, putting his head in his hands as the rest of the table appeared to conspire against him. "It's far too early to bicker with you."

"Banter, sweetie," Raven said, patting his head with a patronising hand. "There's no animosity, not from my end at least."

"What did I do to make you hate me?" Charles groaned into his hands, and Sean started laughing.

Much to Raven and Sean's endless delight, Erik did indeed turn up at ten o'clock on the dot, twins in tow (literally, because they were bickering over something and not managing to focus properly enough to keep step with their father). Charles could tell that Raven was going to rib him for that later, and he could only pray she wouldn't break out the innuendo. After the initial greeting, the twins and Raven disappeared off to clear out and paint the shed (for some reason that Charles could not fathom), and Hank immediately engaged Erik over the generator.

Charles, checking that everyone was okay and no one was doing anything potentially suicidal (Armando grinned at him, and assured him that he'd keep an eye on everyone; Charles had rolled his eyes at him in return), disappeared back into his study to continue work on the cover.

Now that it was daylight, he was able to open the blinds enough to illuminate his work; even the cloud-wrapped daylight was better than the tent-light that he had been using the night before, and his eyes welcomed the rest. He flexed his shoulders and cracked his fingers, and bent back over the leather.

He emerged, a few hours later, to find Erik crouching on tarpaulin in the yard, his fingers crooked around and behind part of the generator engine; it had been stripped of the casing, which was lying in oily pieces around Erik's knees. He had oil on his arms and his shirt, and smeared across his neck where a part of the generator had brushed against it. Free hand occupied by tilting the generator up onto its rear supports, Erik was smoking hands-free, cigarette clamped between his teeth as he found the washer that had slipped down into the engine by feel alone.

Charles turned on his heel, and went back inside.