X-Men Kink Fill: Desperate Measures

[temperance_k]

Now with an awesome Chinese translation by blurryyou!

Prompt: The inhabitants of Charles' estate (Charles, his conniving younger sister Raven, his adorable but mischievous adopted children, and their live-in handyman Erik) have been growing restless. To keep the children (who range in age from kindergarten to fifth or sixth grade) from destroying everything in sight, Charles comes up with a scavenger hunt of sorts. The objective? To find his "heart" (which is actually a heart-shaped photo of everyone).



The children are obviously distraught to learn that Charles' heart has been "stolen" and are more than willing to search every last inch of the property to reclaim it. When they finally do, they are quite confused to find a chunk of it missing.

Unbeknownst to Charles, Raven decided to play matchmaker instead of just hiding the heart, sick of all the sexual tension between him and Erik. She cut out the little portion of the photo with Charles and Erik in it and delivered it to Erik. (Bonus if she says something along the lines of, "This is possibly the most precious gift that anyone has ever given you. Damage it in any way and your body will never be found." and Erik is horribly confused.)

Hilariously, the children immediately assume that Erik must have the rest of Charles' heart (because Charles keeps making those funny faces at him, like he's Christmas and a puppy at the same time or something equally wonderful). They go assault him and somehow Erik comes to the realization that Charles may actually love him back as the children are climbing all over him demanding that he give them back the rest of Charles' heart.

Desperate Measures

Charles is six years old when Edie Lehnsherr moves into Xavier Mansion as yet another live-in maid. She walks bent at the waist, weighed down by fear and loss, and all of the beauty her face hints at seem to have been left as bread crumbs between New York and Poland, showing the way back to the home she knows she cannot return to. When she works, she is gentle and unobtrusive, and Charles might not have paid her so much attention if it were not for Erik.

Erik Lehnsherr is three years Charles' senior. He speaks Polish, German, Hebrew, and the small amount of English he had learned in school before he and his mother had left. Erik follows his mother around obsessively, as if afraid to let her out of his sight. Charles sneaks after them both because Erik is the only other child in Xavier Mansion, and even at the age of six, he is beginning to feel lonely.

His first attempt at asking Erik to play does not go so well. Edie leaves him outside of the basement while she goes down to get the washing for them to fold. Erik's frown and wrinkled brow shows his feelings about the matter, but he waits obediently in front of the door. Charles peeks around the corner, causing Erik to jump. Erik is extremely fidgety, his eyes jumping everywhere when they do not stare sullenly downward. For that reason, Charles goes slowly. He takes careful steps down the hall, slow enough so that his best Sunday shoes make distinct clacks on the hardwood floor. He keeps his hands visible, held up to his chest. Erik eyes him warily and freezes when Charles gets within three feet. Charles figures that's where he has to stop.

“Do you want to play with me?” he asks, quiet and soothing. He knows his English accent is charming by itself, but he tries extra hard to inject even more charm into it. Maybe he even widens his eyes a little to look more innocent.

It is no good. Erik shakes his head frantically, his hand reaching for the doorknob behind him.

“Wait, please!” Charles shouts, but Erik disappears behind the door before he can say anything else.

The second attempt goes better. This time, Erik is sitting with one of the handymen. They are chatting happily away in German, and Charles thinks he's never seen Erik so relaxed. They are sitting around the water valves that control the sprinkler system, and Mr. Beckenbauer, the handyman, is obviously teaching Erik while fixing the system. Charles sidles up to them, wanting to be a part of the discussion even if he doesn't know the language.

Mr. Beckenbauer smiles at the sight of him. Erik's eyes widen and he shrinks away. Charles' most charming grin dims a little at the sight. “Is something wrong, master Charles?” Mr. Beckenbauer asks in his slightly accented English.

“I-” he starts, nervous. “I wanted to ask Erik if he wanted to play with me,” he finishes in a rush. Charles watches as Erik looks over at Mr. Beckenbauer, who smiles down at him and says something in German. Suddenly, the tense look on Erik's face relaxes, and he smiles a little awkwardly at Charles.

“He does not know much English yet,” Mr. Beckenbauer tells Charles, “but I'm sure he knows a card game or two.”

Erik does know a card game or two. In fact, he beats Charles at every game they play. Charles, competitive and cocky as he is, would be angry if he weren't so happy to have a playmate. Erik looks more relaxed as well, and by the end of their play date, he even manages to laugh at how bad Charles is at Hearts.

Charles gets Erik back the next day when they play Hide-and-Seek. He always manage to find Erik within fifteen minutes, no matter how far he runs. Erik's face tells Charles that he would accuse him of cheating if he knew how to say it in English. Charles decides to teach him, grabbing his hand and leading him to Charles' favorite library in the mansion. They start to develop a routine like this. In the morning, they eat together before running off to play. Later, when they're too tired to run around anymore, they go to the library and Charles teaches Erik English. Sometimes, Erik will teach Charles some German or Polish, but only Hebrew if Erik feels particularly masochistic. Charles is a smart boy, but languages are not his forte.

This is how Charles learns that Erik is exceptionally bright. He picks up English at an amazing speed, and if he makes oddly hilarious determined faces all throughout their lessons, Charles doesn't laugh (too much) because they seem to help. By the time Charles is eight years old and Erik is eleven, they are capable of babbling at each other at high speed, perfectly comprehensible to each other.

Of course, Erik is not just good at languages. As he grows older, he begins to spend more time with Mr. Beckenbauer. He learns how to fix wiring, build cabinets, and maintain the mansion at large.

“You could be an engineer when you grow up!” Charles says around a mouthful of apple.

“Maybe,” Erik agrees, his wide grin showing more of his enthusiasm than his words. Erik gets tutored with Charles now, and Charles' father had promised Charles, Erik, and Edie that if Erik continues to progress at this rate, he will personally pay for Erik's college education.

“You could go to Oxford with me!” Charles pipes up again. Erik knows how much Charles loves the idea of going to Oxford, his father's alma mater. This time, Erik's grin is less sure.

“I don't want to leave Mother,” he mumbles, and Charles nods his understanding, but he cannot imagine going to Oxford without Erik. At this point, Charles cannot really imagine life without Erik.

--

But he has to, because his father dies, and his mother remarries, and Kurt Marko has not the fraction of his father's compassion. Charles and Erik's dreams die an early death. Charles is 10 years old, and Erik is 13, and Raven is 6 years old and stumbling after them both.

Charles is too bitter to be kind to her. “You're an ugly, annoying brat!” he shouts at her as she trips along after him. “You're not wanted here! Go away!”

She runs away screaming, tears running down her face. Erik gives him an unhappy look, the one that makes him look so much more than three years older than Charles, and follows after her. He brings her back later, his much bigger hand wrapped around hers. Charles takes one look at Erik and knows what he has to do, knew all the hours he had spent sitting there, consumed with guilt.

“I'm sorry,” he tells her, though she turns away with her lip stuck around, her eyes a little watery despite the ice cream cone Erik must have gotten for her. “You're not ugly or annoying. You're beautiful and... you're my sister now.”

Raven soon becomes the best thing to come out of his mother's remarriage, and Charles really does love her. Even when she grows up a little and gets a crush on Erik. Even when she grows up a little more, and accuses Charles of having a crush on Erik. Even when, on his 18th birthday, he says goodbye to her at the airport, because he can't take her with him to Oxford.

--

“Take care of yourself,” Erik tells him. He is 21 years old now, and he towers over Charles. His hands are rough when they hold Charles, because Mr. Beckenbauer had retired years ago and Erik had taken over for him. When he hugs Charles, it feels crushing, and he can't breathe right until he's on the plane. His eyes are sad and proud and hopeful when he waves him off, holding a crying Raven to him with the other arm.

“I feel like such a coward,” Charles had told him the day before he left. “I feel like I'm running away from Marko.”

“Don't do that,” Erik had whispered back to him, lying next to Charles in his bed. It reminded Charles of when they had been much younger, when Charles had watched Dracula and Frankenstein the same night despite his mother's warnings and had begged Erik to stay with him while he slept. “Don't let him win. You had this dream before you ever heard of Kurt Marko.”

Charles keeps that with him on the terrible first few nights at Oxford. He settles in quickly and makes friends effortlessly, of course, but he still misses Erik and Raven. His patchwork family of scared children-the only people who call him on his birthday and send care packages of cookies (Raven), carvings (Erik), and condoms (Raven, probably, but Charles wouldn't put it behind Erik, who had traumatized Charles with the sex talk and was beginning to act too much like a dad).

Marko dies three years later, just as Charles begins his last year. Charles had planned on staying at Oxford for graduate school, despite the ache he felt every time Raven sent him a postcard or Erik wrote him a letter. Now, he shifts his focus back home, back where his family is, and when Columbia accepts him, he forwards the letter to Raven with his homecoming date scribbled in a corner.

“I thought you'd never come back!” she shouts at him in the middle of the terminal. In only four years, she has grown so much. When she throws herself at him, he is only too happy to catch her before scooping her up and carrying her over to where Erik waits, holding a ridiculous bouquet of flowers and much too many balloons.

“Welcome home,” Erik says, his soft, ever so slightly accented English the best thing Charles has heard in the last four years. He puts Raven down and throws himself at Erik, who grins wider than ever and ignores Raven's jokes about him scaring the kids.

“You didn't write me back. Where are you going to college?” Charles asks, his arm around his sister. Erik is driving, which is new, but extremely convenient.

“Barnard-they just accepted me. I guess we'll be close!” Raven announces, preening with pride. Charles is proud of her too.

“Are you following in my footsteps, then? Genetics, the world of true science?” he teases her.

“Women's studies, actually,” Raven corrects him. “Someone in our family has to be social.”

--

Raven, maybe, takes it too far. The next two years sees the Xavier Mansion filled with more people than Charles has ever seen. Raven's fellow classmates hold book clubs and girls' nights and political meetings in their many drawing rooms. Charles isn't sure he's ever going to get used to stumbling out of the bathroom in a towel to find an entire seminar class of females staring at him.

“You could give me some warning!” he scolds his sister later.

“Don't worry-at least a third of them aren't interested in dicks in general, and despite how charming you are, you aren't going to get them to start with yours,” she assures him, strutting off as he splutters.

“I feel as if she's grown up better than I did,” Charles whines to Erik later. He has just finished his qualifying exams and is already starting work on his thesis. This means his hair is in disarray, his shirt may be a few days old, and he feels incredibly rude sitting in his dirty underwear while in the same room as Erik's mother. Edie has grown to stand a little straighter with time, and Erik's fate as the Xavier handyman has fortunately not broken her entirely. Apparently, she's also glad to have her son by her side, even if she sneaks guilty glances at him sometimes, worried by her selfishness.

Charles is just glad to see the mirth back in her eyes, and how she manages to tease him without saying a word. He fidgets under her gaze, but he smiles watching Erik and Edie prepare tea and snacks for Raven's book club tonight.

“Isn't that a good thing?” Erik interjects, pouring Earl Grey into dainty teacups. He's changed out of his work clothes for the day and is walking around in a plain white tee and jeans faded by use and washing. When Charles had left, Erik had still seemed a little awkward-as if he hadn't quite finished growing into himself. Now, however, Erik's broad chest and shoulders are perfectly filled out, and his slim waist draws gorgeous lines all leading downward.

Downward where Charles' thoughts really shouldn't go. He fidgets again. “I guess so. It makes me feel as if I've been made redundant, though. I might start having nightmares where she walks into my office one day and fires me from my role as her older brother. Then what would I do? I'd be out of a reference for when I apply to professorships.”

Erik's manic grin is showing. He passes Charles' a teacup. “Don't worry about it so much. She may not look like it, but she is a merciful goddess. At the very least, your severance pay would be very generous.” He sweeps his bangs back before picking up the tray. With a quick peck on Edie's cheek, he is out the door and headed toward whichever drawing room Raven has reserved for the night. Charles bounds up, delivers a similar peck to Edie's cheek, and races to catch up with Erik's long strides.

They enter the room together, and Charles helps Erik distribute the teacups. He chats a few of them up, flirting without any real intent. The women he talks to seem happy to chuckle at his English accent and ask him about his studies. They distract him long enough that by the time he looks up, he is absolutely gobsmacked to see that Erik has been pulled down onto one of the couches, smiling women on either side of him. He engages one of them in German, and another one in halting Hebrew that he smiles at. Raven grins from the side, looking smug and happy.

Charles should be happy too, because this must be more outside interaction than Erik gets in a week, but he can't bring himself to pretend. He sneaks out, instead, easing the doors closed quietly behind him.

-

“Really, Charles? This is mature.” He spares a glance up to see Raven holding the Hebrew-English dictionary in her hand. Her stare would be condescending, if it weren't so worried. “You suck at Hebrew.”

He really does. Charles had tried to learn a bit more once Erik had neared his Bar Mitzvah age, and his attempts had at least cheered Erik some, taken his mind off of the fact that his father and family weren't there-that even then, neither Edie nor Erik really knew what had happened to them.

“He was just talking to them. You know he doesn't get out much,” Raven reminded him, and Charles feels like the biggest first grader but refuses to show it. Instead, he grabs the book out of Raven's hand and slams it onto the desktop over his thesis notes. She doesn't flinch, just looks unimpressed.

“What do you need?” he asks, anything to get her off of the subject.

“Remember when I mentioned my friend, Moira?”

“I can't say I do,” he apologizes, pushing away from his desk.

“Oh. Well. This is going to be an awkward conversation,” she mumbles under her breath, and then she is rushing over to the door. Before Charles can say a word, a woman who looks sort of familiar wanders in. She gives him a nervous smile, but her shoulders are straight and her professional dress tells Charles this is as much about business as it is a social call. He stands up a little straighter to match her before holding a hand out to offer her a seat.

“I'm Moira MacTaggart,” she introduces herself, “I'm a social worker.”

The conversation that follows is dizzying, and Charles can only sit there with wide eyes as Raven asks questions and then offers Moira a tour of the mansion to “see if it's suitable.” Charles collapses at the door to his office, staring off after them with his mouth hanging open.

“Something wrong?” Charles turns to see Erik, a familiar sight covered in the lawn's dirt.

“Did you know Raven wanted to foster kids?” The way Erik's eyes widen, in surprise and vulnerability and maybe consent, says no.

“Were you going to discuss this with us?” Erik asks later, when they're at dinner together. They always eat at the same breakfast nook, because it has the smallest table in the house. Just enough chairs to fit Erik, Edie, Charles, and Raven.

“I thought I did discuss this with Charles!” Raven shoots back, glaring at Charles from a corner of her eye. He doesn't back down.

“When I was in the middle of reading for my thesis, you mean?” he scowls.

“Well-maybe,” she concedes, and Edie giggles into her pasta while Erik shakes his head. “Don't you think it's a great idea, though? I've been thinking about this since-a long time!”

“Since when?” Charles asks, shocked when he realizes Raven is staring at him.

“Since you left,” she said. “It was so lonely here with just me and Erik and Edie. It's a big mansion, and it's never been full! That's such a waste.”

“We might have the room, but that doesn't make us qualified to be raising children, Raven!” Charles shouts back, and he glances over to Erik for support.

The look on Erik's face tells him he isn't going to be getting it. “She might be right, Charles,” he whispers, low and clear. It's the sound of the voice of reason, and the entire table quiets to listen. Erik glances over at his mother, who smiles at him and says something in her quiet German. Erik seems to blush. “I-I wouldn't mind having kids around. Having people around again.”

“Just think of us!” Raven explodes, wanting to capitalize on her sudden upper hand. “Where did we come from? Everywhere! And who raised us? Your absentee mom and my bastard father? We took care of each other, taught each other, and look how we turned out! Not so bad, right?”

Not so bad, Charles thinks, remembering how much he missed his patchwork family and of all the postcards and letters he still keeps tucked away under his bed. He reads them once in a while, because he did love Oxford, but a part of him will always regret missing those four years of watching Raven mature and Erik grow confident.

“We could do so much good,” Raven pleads, “and think-it'll be like practice for when you become a professor!” The joke is only because she knows she's won.

-

Erik starts kid-proofing the house. Raven buys a few 'must have' toys. Charles works frantically on his thesis when he's not doing paperwork to be certified as a foster parent. After a week, his stress must be coagulating into its own entity and haunting the mansion, because in the evenings when he's closest to explosion, Erik always manages to wander into his office. At first, he sits and reads quietly, and Charles relaxes and enjoys his presence. Eventually, Charles realizes he is wasting perfectly good quality time. His desire to make up for four missing years has him running around the house until he finds it.

In between Hide-and-Seek and cards, Charles and Erik had occasionally played chess. That had ended when Charles' father had died and Marko had made it clear that he would spend no time with Charles beyond the necessary meals. In pain, Charles had stashed the set away, and if Erik has ever been curious as to its absence, he had never said anything.

Now, Charles unearths it again, shaking the set temptingly under Erik's nose. “I'm a little rusty,” Erik tells him, but he's smiling.

Charles takes white, and they stumble through the game, reminding themselves of the rules. He watches the way Erik's hands move gently over the pieces, the way his brow wrinkles ever so slightly in thought, and he thinks he hasn't been this relaxed in years.

They play every night, even after Charles gets cleared to be a foster parent, even after the phone call from Moira telling them that their first child will be coming tomorrow. Charles is anxious that night, his knee bouncing up and down. He doesn't notice until Erik's hand lands warm and huge on his thigh, and he glances up nervously.

“Sorry, my friend,” he strangles out. Erik's eyes are laughing at him, and maybe commiserating a little as well.

“Don't worry, Charles. You've already helped two children-what's a few more?” he jokes.

“Two?” he asks, because he understands Raven. Marko hadn't been cruel to her, but he hadn't been affectionate either. After Charles had gotten over his childish dislike of her, transferred over from his hatred of her father, he had been able to hold her while she cried and listened to her most chilling fears. Despite his doubts, he knows he has helped her a little, and that from there, she had managed to grow up amazing all by herself.

“Do you remember the little boy who couldn't understand you when you asked him if he wanted to play with you?” Erik's smile seems embarrassed, but Charles just grins back, fond.

“That little boy helped me out a lot too, you know,” he replied. “He was the most important person I've ever scared into running into a basement.”

They play the rest of the game carelessly, exchanging grins and sipping brandy. Before Erik leaves that night, he wraps his arms around Charles.

“I felt bad for never saying thank you,” Erik murmurs into his hair. When he leaves, Charles is left behind, flushing and oddly bereft.

-

Hank McCoy is a high school sophomore, even though most children his age are in the sixth grade. He does not want to talk about what happened to his parents, he does not like it when people stare at him, and he stutters every other word. Raven can hardly go near him before his eyes start watering from anxiety, and Hank refuses to admit that he likes it when Erik carries him. Charles isn't sure what to do with him when it comes time for him to spend some time with Hank, so he sits them both down in the library and spreads out his thesis notes instead.

Luckily for him, Hank is fascinated. He has just learned about alleles and Mendel, and his eyes widen and shine when Charles teaches him even more. By the time Erik and Raven anxiously invade the library under the excuse of dinner, they are flabbergasted to see Charles waving his arms above his head, ranting about genetics, and drawing all over a blackboard. Hank is frantically taking notes.

“Maybe this won't be so bad,” Charles concedes.

Then Alex comes, and Charles never has time to work on his thesis because Alex is always causing trouble. He acts out, swearing about the foster system, and bullying Hank. He is a little monster up until the day Erik corners him in the yard, where he had been pulling out the flowers Edie loves so much, and sits him down for a talk. Alex is much quieter at dinner that night, and he even sits down to watch a move with Hank and Raven.

“He has a brother somewhere,” Erik tells Charles, who nods and makes a phone call to Moira. Scott joins them not too long afterward, and Alex calms a little, but not completely. Scott seems to adore Hank, glasses and geekery and all, and Alex seems a bit annoyed and a bit relieved to see his brother have another favorite.

Angel and Darwin come at the same time. Charles, Erik, and Raven are exceptionally lucky that Darwin is so well-adjusted, that he takes instantly to playing with Alex, Scott, and Hank, and that they all seem to adore him, because Angel is the exact opposite. She can handle the boys, but she withdraws completely from Charles and Erik. They know to give her room, to make sure they're never alone with her, or putting her in a position where she feels helpless. She spends most of her time with Raven, but even more time with Edie, who smiles and brushes her hair and speaks to her in broken English as they sit together in the yard.

Erik smiles whenever he sees them together. “She always wanted a daughter,” he tells Charles before Alex tackles him in the back, and they have to tell Alex that while this is football, it's the proper kind and tackling is against the rules.

Sean rounds out their group. Charles worries about him at first, because he's the youngest and the loudest, but Scott seems to adore having a younger sibling at last. He gives Sean piggy back rides around the estate, and when he gets tired, Alex and Darwin or Hank team up to run them both around.

The mansion is suddenly full of noise and so different from the days when Charles was a lonely six year old, stalking a wary Erik in the hopes of finding a friend. Now, there are toys tripping him in the halls and food found in odd places. Erik always has someone following him, wanting to learn something new, and Raven makes time to read to all of the kids, who adore her to an impossible extent.

Charles likes this new life, and he would even love it, if it weren't for the fact that he still hasn't finished his thesis.

“Children have short attention spans,” Erik reminds him over another evening game of chess. He takes a sip of brandy and licks the remainder off his lips. Charles stares at them for too long, not noticing when Erik takes his queen. “You'll just have to find an activity for them to do. Check.” Charles sighs, distressed at the situation and the myriad of emotions he feels at being the target of Erik's smug grin.

-

“Don't play with your food, Sean.” The scolding comes automatically to Charles now. Erik is somewhere behind him, making yet another batch of eggs. Raven is carefully combing back Alex's hair, freezing him in the middle of his fidgeting with her best glare. Edie is straightening Hank's bowtie.

“Do we really have to do this?” Alex whines, his one burst of rebellion before a glance from Raven silences him again.

“Of course we do! Family pictures are extremely important,” Raven replies, stopping in her torture of Alex's hair to smile at him. He offers her a quirk of the lips in return.

“Is Erik taking the picture with us? He's not dressed like we are!” Scott comments, coming up behind Erik to latch onto the leg of his pajamas.

“He will be, after he finishes cooking breakfast for us,” Charles reassures him, giving Scott a moment to hug whatever part of Erik the small boy manages to reach before scooping him up to eye level. Erik gives him a wide grin. “You should smile exactly like that for the picture! And you can wear grey and be a shark!”

Charles is about to chide Scott for the words, but Erik just laughs it off. “I'll see what I can do,” he replies before sliding another set of fried eggs onto a plate.

Erik doesn't own a lot of grey clothing. In fact, he doesn't own a lot of clothing at all. He favors white tees and jeans to work in and to wear comfortably. When he has to go for whatever reason, he favors black polos and (generally, but there was an odd purple one) black turtlenecks paired with a leather jacket that goes with his motorbike. In fact, the only thing grey Charles can think of Erik owning is a three piece suit he had worn for Charles' high school graduation.

While the children are dressing up nicely-dress shirts, sweater vests (but only with much pleading from Charles), and bowties for the boys; dresses for Angel-none of them plan on looking formal. Raven has on a beautiful blouse and skirt, and Edie is wearing a nice dress that Charles and Raven bought for her just for the picture. Charles himself will be wearing his tweed jacket with the elbow patches, but that's because he always wears that.

So he is surprised, and no small bit delighted, to see Erik wander into the library in the full grey suit. The children awe over how impressive Erik looks-the suit makes him look meters taller-but Erik is giving Charles a desperate look.

“I can't ever tie these things,” he complains, holding out the strip of purple silk to Charles. Charles grins, but swings the tie over Erik's neck. The suit really does look good on Erik, fitted perfectly over his shoulders and against his stomach. Charles runs his hand down Erik's chest, pretending to sweep away some dust. “Is too much?”

“Maybe lose the vest?” Charles concedes, and Erik does.

“The tie isn't grey,” objects Scott, and all the children nod along. Charles has his hands on the tie before he can even think about how Erik, while incapable of tying it, could take it off himself. Erik doesn't seem to mind, letting Charles remove the tie and smooth his collar back down.

“How about now?” he asks the children, who all obediently grin and offer him a thumbs up. He smiles back at them, and Charles is glad the kids are there to distract Erik from Charles' pathetic eyes trying to memorize every line of the suit. With all of the pieces, Erik looks distinguished. As he is now, he looks the perfect mix between approachable and godly.

Raven has to elbow him in the ribs before he snaps back to attention, and then the photographer is moving his equipment in behind her, and it's a mad rush to get the children to line up and behave. They take three different 'serious' family photos, all proper enough to hang up in a frame or put on an office desk. Raven then requests a silly photograph, and the quiet children suddenly burst into laughters and funny faces.

Charles doesn't realize until after he gets the photos back that Erik had been pretending to be a shark, his toothy grin as he contemplates taking a bite out of Charles' throat looks both hungry and hilarious. It is one of the kids' favorite parts of the photo, aside from their own faces staring up at them, and they all insist on having a copy to themselves.

-

On days when Raven has to meet with her undergraduate thesis advisor and Erik has to drive into town to buy supplies, Charles is left in charge of the kids. He mostly enjoys these days, despite never being able to get any work done. On this particular day, he is sitting with them in the library, his favorite place to congregate. They all bunch up around him as he reads a new book to them, and while he doesn't manage funny voices quite as well as Raven does, they seem to find his varying posh English accents just as amusing.

He takes a break after chapter 7, sipping water while he watches from the corner of his eye as the student suddenly start elbowing each other and hissing whispers. Charles puts the glass down and opens his mouth to stop them when Angel, sitting right next to his elbow, looks up at him and bats her eyelashes innocently.

Charles feels a tingle of fear running down his spine.

“Professor,” she begins, and Charles feels impending doom all the way down to his bones. The children never call him 'professor' unless they are teasing him (egged on by Raven) or want something desperately. He takes another gulp of water. “How old are you?”

Charles sighs in relief. “I'm 25 years old,” he tells her, ignoring the horrified faces on some of the younger children who cannot really fathom knowing someone that old.

There is another round of hushed whispers, elbows, and maybe a few kicks before Angel turns back to him with a pleasant expression on her face once more. He feels the fear trickling back. “Professor,” she begins again, hesitating before she puts her hand on his thigh and giving him a few pats, “why aren't you married yet?”

His first response is to freeze and his second is to stave off hyperventilation. Honestly, it's not such a difficult question, but his mind takes things too far. Which answer should he give them? The philosophical “not everyone wants to get married?” The more relevant “not everyone is allowed to get married?” He settles on, “Well... because I don't have anyone to marry” before he realizes what a terrible idea it is.

The children all look at him with large sympathetic eyes. Angel gives him a few more pats to the knee, Darwin nods his head sympathetically, and Scott's eyes seem to be watering. Charles holds his arms out and lets both Scott and Sean run to him before enfolding them in a hug.

“It's all right, though!” he soothes them. “You don't have to be married to have people to love.”

“T-The professor is quite right,” Hank pipes up, and all of the children turn to look at him as if he's crazy. He returns their stare steadily. “Well, I mean. He has Erik.”

“Yes, and Raven, and Ms. Lehnsherr, and all of you!” Charles picks up, thrilled when he sees the children begin to smile at the thought. Angel even giggles a little. “Now, what do you say we continue the story?” he tries, and he is glad when they all chime with enthusiastic 'yes's!

Later that evening, while Raven helps all the children to sleep, Charles collapses in front of the chessboard Erik is setting up. “Long day?” Erik asks, the glint in his eye more telling than anything.

“Have the children asked you why you aren't married yet?” Charles bursts out before feeling a little foolish at the sudden explosion. Erik looks a little boggled.

“Well, I know they've been following me around more than usual. I mean, I expect Alex and Darwin, and Hank occasionally, but I've had Scott, Sean, and Angel start to crawl after me now. I guess they might have been waiting for the right time to... ask that question. They didn't come after me today, though,” Erik explains, reaching for a knight before he falls back, his face bemused. “Why did they ask you that question?”

“I don't know,” despairs Charles. “They felt so sorry for me when I replied. It's making me feel like a lonely, old fart, and I'm not nearly at that age yet.”

“I hardly think you're alone, my friend,” Erik jokes, reaching out to wrap his long, calloused fingers around Charles' hand. Charles' breath catches. “You're the father of half a dozen children.”

“Very true,” Charles agrees readily enough, ignoring how awkward his chuckles sound. Erik doesn't seem to notice, just gives him that shark grin before moving a pawn instead.

-

The deadline is now two days away. Charles has spent the last three days wearing either a dressing gown or the clothes he pulled out of his closet three days ago. He still has an annotated bibliography to finish, and he wants to read through at least three more reference books. Charles takes all meals in his room, delivered promptly by either Erik or Edie, but sometimes Raven if she wants to see for herself that her brother is alive. The children have not seen him for all of those days, barred from entering Charles' office as they are.

Raven had warned him that doing so was a terrible plan, but it had seemed to work so far. Unfortunately, three days did seem to be the limit, and as Charles annotates furiously, he realizes he can hear sobbing from the other side of the door. It sounds like Sean. Jumping to his feet and throwing his highlighter down onto the book, he sneaks over to the double doors before throwing them both open.

All of the children are sitting there, waiting for him. They grin at his appearance, and Scott and Sean throw themselves at his legs. He struggles not too fall and wonders if they mind how he smells. They don't seem to, much too enthusiastic about finally seeing him.

“I'm sorry, children,” he laments.

“We thought maybe you were angry with us,” Darwin tells him, a calm leader in a crowd of sniffling children. Charles smiles at him.

“I would never be so angry as to ignore you. I just... I have work to do,” he tells them, but he can already see from their expressions that it is a poor excuse. Charles tries to think of something for them to do, something he can be involved in.

He thinks back to his childhood, to playing Hearts with Erik and teaching him English. Charles remembers always being able to find Erik when they played Hide-and-Seek, like there was a slightly stupid compass in his heart that always pointed toward the other. Raven had thought it was hilarious, laughing every time Erik made an unhappy face at being caught first. She never had so much luck with him-Erik was very good hiding, just not from Charles.

The idea strikes him then. “How about a scavenger hunt?” he asks them. Their cheers make him forget the misery of thesis work for a few moments.

Unfortunately, Charles had always been the worst at hiding when they had played Hide-and-Seek. For that reason, he decides to enlist Raven's expertise. While both Erik and Charles had managed to stumble upon her a few times, she was by far the best at the game, and Charles felt sure her hiding prowess would be invaluable at setting up a scavenger hunt.

He didn't even mind when she started laughing at his idea. Or, he didn't mind much. “What's so bad about it?” he whined.

“It's not bad! It's... cute. It's very you,” she assured him in between giggles. “Now, where exactly do you expect me to hide 'your heart?'” she asks, attempting a straight face and failing.

Charles splutters. “The whole point of me asking you is so that you hide it! I'm not supposed to give you suggestions, because I know you'll just shoot them all down.”

“Yeah, but that would have been fun,” Raven teased. After a few more chuckles, she conceded, and Charles handed her one of his extra copies of their family photo.

“Before you go, have the children been stalking you or asking you odd questions about your... age?” he settles on.

“I think I've raised the boys well enough that they know not to ask a lady her age, Charles,” Raven drawls, but her eyebrows are up, and Charles curses his idea of asking her. Now, she's interested. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened, my darling sister,” Charles deflects, but Raven gives him her best stare down, the one she developed to use every time he said something sexist and she was determined to fix him. “Okay, so maybe they asked me about my marital status.”

“Your marital status?” Raven exclaims, looking too amused for Charles' liking. “But why?”

“I don't know!” Charles splutters again, running his hand through his hair.

“What did you say?”

“That I wasn't married because I didn't have anyone to marry!”

“Bad choice, bro,” Raven scolds, and Charles nods along.

“I know, but they didn't look pityingly at me for too long. They know I have Erik and Edie, and you, and all of them...”

“Erik, huh?” Raven pointed out, because she had never grown out of her belief that he had a thing for their tall friend.

“I used chronological order,” Charles objected, but Raven shook her head and laughed.

“Whatever helps gets you through those late night chess games,” she dismisses. “Anyway, I have an appointment to get to-will you be all right here?”

“Of course. I'll inform the kids, too. That will cheer them up,” he enthuses, leaning over to give Raven a peck on the cheek before settling back down to work for however long fate grants him before Scott or Sean or Hank come looking.

He doesn't notice the mischievous look on his sister's face as she leaves the room, and he certainly doesn't hear her asking Erik for scissors before she heads out.

-

Charles sits the kids in the garden to explain the rules of the scavenger hunt. He feels like it's the least biased starting point, and he has Erik and Edie as backup if he needs help bringing their excitement down. Elbows are already going everywhere, and the children bounce in place as he stops pacing in front of them.

“Children, I have a very important mission for you all today,” he begins.

“Can we have a team name?” Alex shouts out, his hand reaching out with his chubby fingers waving for attention.

“What?” Charles questions, confused.

“If we're going to go out on a very important mission, we should have a team name,” Darwin explains, ever the diplomat.

“Something cool,” agreed Sean.

“Like Xavier's 6 or the Six Musketeers!” Scott chirps. Charles' eyes narrow-Raven has been letting them watch too many movies.

“Or the X-Men!” shouts Alex, “Since we're Charles' kids!”

“But we aren't all men,” Angel objects, and that quiets them down. Charles' eyes widen this time-he is impressed by Raven's influence over the kids.

“How about he just calls you all his Agents?” Erik proposes from where he is pruning the roses, the capital A in the word gaining special treatment on his tongue. Charles gulps, glad the children are too excited to notice.

“Well, then, Agents,” he begins again, trying to add the proper gravitas to the children's new title, “I have a mission only you can complete.”

The children eat it up. Even Hank, going to school far above his age, seems excited.

“I have lost something quite dear to me,” he laments, putting as much pain into his voice as possible. The children gasp. “I am ashamed to admit that in my truly Homeric struggle against my thesis, I have lost... my heart.”

Sean tries to ask what 'Homeric' means, but he gets shushed rather quickly. Angel's eyes seem to say she knew this was coming. “I knew we should have forced him to get married!” she hisses at the boys, who all look regretful and guilty.

Erik, of course, is chuckling to himself. Even Edie seems to be taking too much enjoyment out of this. Charles has to clear his throat three times before the children stop bickering and trying to assign blame and turn their attention back on him. “Everything is not lost!” he says at last. “You can find my heart. I am positive that it is still on the grounds somewhere.”

They all nod their understanding. It would have to be somewhere in the mansion-Charles hadn't left for several days now. “Can we start now?” Alex bursts, already pumped with adrenaline.

“We should get your heart back as soon as possible,” Sean pipes up, well-meaning and fueled by no small amount of guilt.

“I agree,” Charles says, smiling, and then they are off. The children are surprisingly organized, splitting up into teams. Hank, with Sean on his back, and Angel take the lawn. Alex, Darwin, and Scott dart inside. They scream and pull and run, and Charles smiles because the mansion has never seen so many happy children before, he's sure.

“Where did she hide it?” Erik asks, coming up behind him. He's sipping the lemonade Edie sits with, and his eyelashes seem to catch the sweat rolling down his brow. Charles almost can't tear his eyes away long enough to answer.

“I don't know,” he admits. “I was horrid at Hide-and-Seek, if you remember.”

“You always found me,” Erik objects.

“Well, maybe you're horrid at it too,” Charles shoots back.

“Only when you're playing.” They start grinning at the same time, and it's a little ridiculous, but Charles loves when that happens. “By the way, are you missing a copy of Darwin's On the Origin of Species? I found it in my room earlier, but I don't remember taking it from the library.”

“Well, even if I am missing it, I certainly don't need it at the moment. Have you read it yet?”

“No-haven't had the time.”

“You should!”

They exchange a few more words about books before Erik shrugs off the volume's sudden appearance. “I guess I'll read it now, then,” he says. “Anyway, don't let me keep you from your thesis. That's what this whole thing was all about, wasn't it?” He leaves with his signature grin, and Charles finds he is still smiling when he gets back to his office.

-

Hank, by virtue of being Hank, does not often find himself confused. Now, however, he is quite befuddled, and as much as Scott claims that massaging his head will give him ideas, Hank thinks he and Alex just want a legitimate reason to mess up his hair.

“Well-we want it to help you think, too!” Scott capitulates. Alex is still messing with Hank's hair.

Rather than being annoyed, Hank simply holds up the object in his hands. The much prized possession, “Charles' heart,” is just one of the copies of their family photograph. It's one of the silly ones, where everyone is making faces, and someone has cut it into the anatomically incorrect but imminently identifiable heart shape.

Hank looks at his attempt at a silly face, and it seems the saddest of all of them, but Scott and Sean assure him this is not true. Even if it were, Angel tells him, he can always improve. Alex and Darwin are pros, and they are more than happy to teach him.

But his face isn't the confusing part of the picture. Even the wrong-but-right heart shape isn't the odd thing. The hole is.

“But why would he cut out the picture of himself and Erik?” he asks again, lying under the smallest breakfast table in the house. It had taken a while for them to search the nook because nobody ever used it anymore. The table was too small to accommodate their big family.

Angel shoots him a condescending look. “Really, Hank, for such a smart kid, you can be a real dummy sometimes.” She says it with warmth, so Hank doesn't take offense. He just widens his eyes and looks to her for wisdom.

“You're the one who pointed out that Erik was different,” she says. “He's special to Charles.”

“That's true,” he agrees. He slaps away Alex's hand when he tries to stick a finger through the hole where Erik's face should be, doing its best impression of a hungry shark. “So, did he hide it somewhere else?”

“No doubt about it,” Alex confirms with an easy confidence. “People in love do crazy things. I knew a girl once? Never managed to keep a pencil. Every day, she'd come in with a new pencil, and by recess? Poof! It was gone. Turned out the boy sitting next to her had a crush on her and kept stealing her pencils so she'd ask him to borrow one of his. One day, he accidentally let her borrow the pencil he had stolen from her, and the game was up. She beat him up so bad for that.”

“That is crazy,” Scott agrees, eyes wide. “Why would you ever do that? Of course she's going to hate him!”

“Love,” Alex repeats, shrugging.

“And we all know adults are even crazier than kids. Look at what Charles wears,” Angel chimes in. Hank pats his clothes protectively.

“I think he looks good!”

“Not good enough to get married,” Angel objects, and Hank has to admit she sort of has a point.

“Anyway,” Darwin speaks, managing to restore order, “I think we can all agree that the hunt isn't over yet. Crazy love pranks or not, Charles entrusted us to find his heart, and we can't go back to him with something like this. We need to get the last piece.”

“You have a plan,” Alex perks up.

“There's only one place that missing piece can be,” Darwin agrees, “and we're going to have to be the best we can be if we want to have any hope of getting it back. I won't look down on anybody who wants to back out of this mission now.”

No one does, because they're Charles' agents. They have to be the best. Besides, they'd feel guilty eating the grown up agent lunches Edie had prepared for them if they backed out now.

-

Erik finishes his work early that day, and after making sure his mother doesn't want or need anything else, he decides to resign to the library to read the mysterious copy of Darwin. He changes into sweatpants and a t-shirt, grabs a cup of tea, and settles down onto yet another ancient chaise. The curtains are drawn back, and it's a beautiful day to laze about and read. Raven still hasn't gotten home yet, and Charles' office has remained closed. Erik doesn't sense too much stress coming from that direction though, so he figures he's cleared to start.

Yet, when he picks up the book to flip through the pages, a note falls out onto his chest. He lifts the familiar letterhead of Xavier Mansion and stares at a cutout heart taped to the bottom. Inside the heart are the images of him and Charles, his teeth bared and converging on Charles' throat. His lips quirk up of their own volition as his eyes trace over Charles' funny expression-not so much funny as drunk. Erik has seen Charles at his worse, and the expression is very recognizable.

His eyes finally drift upward to read the message in a very familiar hand. “I think we can both agree that this, that he, is the most precious gift you could ever receive,” he reads aloud, just to make sure this is actual reality, “and I think that we can also agree that should you hurt him, I could easily make your life a living hell. Goddesses are not always merciful! Love, your sister-in-law.”

Erik gapes. He's not sure which part is more boggling-the fact that this has happened at all or the fact that Raven managed this all in the five minutes she was in his room. Either way, it's a sweet thought. He reads the letter a few more times, admires Charles' goofy face for longer than he should, and then tucks the note and photo back into the book. Despite his faith in Raven's intuition, he knows she's been too close to them for too long to be able to trust her on this. He'd like to believe Charles had feelings for him too, but he can't imagine what Charles-despite all his good nature-would see in him, the family handyman.

Raven has been rooting for them for years, and while Erik might have believed her when he was 20 years old, Oxford had changed that. There are more important things in Charles' life now, and Erik is content with his secondary position in the universe that seems to revolve around Charles Xavier's brilliance.

-

When Raven calls him out for dinner, Charles feels both refreshed and accomplished. Not only will he meet his deadline, but the continued silence of the children throughout the day seem to confirm his plan's success. He's not sure where Raven has hidden the photograph that has worked so well against the children, but he has beautiful plans to congratulate her and maybe taunt the kids a bit.

These beautiful plans die a sudden death when he enters the kitchen to find Erik with the widest eyes and the most baffled face he's ever managed to conjure. Scott and Sean are attached to a leg each, and Alex and Darwin are attempting to hold down both arms between them. Hank, being the tallest, has a firm grip around Erik's waist, and Angel has just managed to swing herself around Erik's shoulders. Her legs wrapped around his neck and her arms flung around his forehead, she screams, “Give it up!”

“Excuse me?” Erik asks, and Charles has never heard him sound so faint.

In the corner, Raven bursts out laughing, and Charles feels the tingle of impending doom making its way into his bones again.

“Don't play dumb!” Alex shouts. “We all love you, Erik, but stealing isn't cool!”

“Especially when you're stealing hearts!” Scott adds.

“Or, well, a piece of it,” Hank corrects.

“Excuse me?” Erik echoes, sounding more lost than ever, and that jars Charles into action.

“Angel, get down from there! Hank, let him go. Scott, Sean, Alex, over here! Darwin, your plans are usually better than this,” Charles barks out in short order, and the children freeze at the sound of his voice. They are left staring at him, as paralyzed as Erik. “Now!” he snaps again, and they all start moving at once.

Angel wobbles a little, but Erik with newly freed hands manages to right her. Scott and Sean crowd into Raven's arms, making the accurate assumption that she would be the more lenient sibling. Alex sticks by Darwin, forever loyal, and Hank gives Erik an awkward pat on the back in apology. “This was the only thing we could think of if we didn't want to hurt him, and we didn't!” Darwin explains in a rush. “Or else we would have gotten Alex's shoelaces and tripped him.”

“Excuse me?” Charles takes his turn asking. “Why?”

“Because we were looking for your heart!” Angel shouts from her perch on Erik's shoulders. She seems to have relaxed already, her little legs swinging.

Alex, excellent timing as always, reaches into his pocket and withdraws a heart-shaped photograph. Charles unfolds it and finds he can still see Erik's bewildered expression through a heart-shaped hole in the middle of the photo.

“Raven,” is his first reaction. A deep red blush is his second.

“Well, dinner time,” Raven dismisses, and she has all of the children settled before Charles can object. Even Edie is already passing out the bread, patting her son on the shoulder. Erik looks like he doesn't remember making the journey over to his seat.

Charles decides to keep the peace for now and moves to his own chair at the head of the table. The children begin to eat as if nothing odd had just transpired. They chatter as usual, providing constant white noise. It stops once, halfway through the meal, when Erik finally manages to ask, “Why me?”

“Who else would Charles give his heart to?” Scott chimes in, old enough to understand this is lovey-dovey stuff, yet too young to be embarrassed to vocalize it. The response has Erik ducking his head, and Charles refusing to look anywhere but his garlic bread. Raven smiles and passes Scott an extra meatball as a reward.

-

Charles starts setting up the chessboard but abandons his efforts halfway through. They aren't going to be playing chess tonight.

He barely hears the soft rap of Erik's knuckles against the door, sounder shier than before, and Charles feels his heart drop. Darn Raven and her machinations. He had always intended to tell Erik, at his own pace, much, much later. Charles isn't ready for Erik's awkwardness now, for his kind rejection, and refusal to leave Charles alone to drown in his own frustrations. Erik would give him the most tender of 'no's, which any bitter ex knows is the worst kind.

Still, Charles cannot bring himself to be rude to his friend. He opens the door. Charles tries to keep his eyes down, but they cannot help but flick upward before making a smooth slide down. Erik is no longer wearing the sweats and t-shirt he had worn to dinner. Instead, he has on his jeans and a dress shirt he must have thrown on. It hangs down except at the front, where Erik has stuffed his hands in his pockets and the shirt rucks up around his wrists.

Erik has always managed to look so casually handsome, and Charles cannot stand it on the best of nights. Tonight, he's afraid he'll die of the other man's perfection.

They do an awkward dance around each other. Charles pours them both brandy, hoping that a drunk conversation will go better than a sober one. Erik takes the drink and immediately puts it down. Of course, Charles thinks, this could never be easy.

“Charles,” he says at last, and Charles inhales deep and holds it. “Were the children...”

Right? Absolutely, he thinks. They knew him entirely too well, and a part of him is proud while another part is fond, but an even bigger part is mortified, and he almost chokes on the brandy as he downs it.

“Charles,” Erik says again, and he's managed to slip into Charles' space, place one large, warm hand on the inside of Charles' elbow, and the other to rest on his waist. “Do you... Do you want to play with me, or run into the basement?”

His first thought is What? and his second thought is a bubbling joy. Well, at least he isn't the only one that's bad at this.

“A little bit of both,” Charles admits, and Erik's eyes can't seem to decide if they're lighting up in joy or dimming in confusion. “But the basement part is only because I know I'm so very bad at this.”

“I'm not exactly doing a great job either,” Erik consoles him, but there's confidence in his smile now. Charles loves it when Erik grins because his entire face changes, lifts and brightens when he's happy. He's a little awed whenever its directed at him, and even more so now, because there's a little confusion in there, as if he's not sure if he's dreaming or what act of martyrdom he managed in a past life to deserve this, and Charles wants to kiss him and shout, I feel the same way!

He settles on saying, “No, no, you're perfect. Everything you do is extremely groovy,” like the terrible nerd he is, and he does kiss Erik, moving his hands up to wrap around the back of Erik's neck and stroke over the lines of his cheeks and jaw.

They kiss for much longer, long enough for Charles' shirt to come untucked and Erik's hair to fall out of its usual, orderly shape. When they part, panting, they avoid looking at each other, still a little too awkward, but when they do glance at each other, they burst out in laughter.

“Outsmarted by our children!” Charles marvels.

“We were right,” Erik tells him. “We made the right decision.”

The following kiss is meant to be short and agreeing, but instead it drags out, lengthens, and doesn't quite end until sunrise.

-

The pizza party is a little indulgent, Charles concedes, but the ice cream is a necessity. Who has pizza without ice cream?

Raven, of course, doesn't buy it, but she's always been smarter than her older brother. Besides, being the merciful goddess she is, she doesn't say anything about the motivations behind the party or the stupid grin on her brother's face. She doesn't comment about the matching one on Erik's either, simply plants a hat that's vaguely shark-shaped on top of his head and tells him to, “Go chase Scott around, it'll make him happy.”

Erik seems too happy to argue, and he runs after Scott with perhaps less dignity than a man his age should have. Scott, a bit too thrilled when faced with a pursuing shark, apparently approves. He runs screaming all over the estate, eventually drawing Darwin in as an alligator and Sean as a killer whale and Alex and Angel as yet more potential victims.

“This is wonderful, isn't it?” Raven asks, settling next to Charles with her long glass of ice tea. It's a rhetorical question, of course, because they both know how perfect this is. It's a dream they'd never dared dreamt when they were children, and to be living it now is-

“Well, don't get too big a head,” he taunts. “The scavenger hunt was my idea. Really, if anything should get the credit, it should be my thesis-”

And then he's up and running, scooping Scott up into his arms as Raven joins the crowd of predators as an angry goddess. Charles has got no chance, but if he's extremely lucky, the shark will catch him first.

And, at the request of x_merlin, the ~wedding-fic~ 'sequel.'

Charles, in the extra civics classes he insists on holding, tries to teach the children a sanitized version of what injustice is: the fact that some things aren't considered rights--that some people just aren't allowed to do very important things that others are.

The children, being children, don't quite get it. So, he tries to phrase it a different way.

"For example," he tells them, "I can't actually marry Erik."

This causes an uproar.

"You're getting very good at telling them bad things," Raven tells him when he finally cracks and calls her. The children have been crying and screaming for twenty minutes, clearly dismayed. Erik is cradling both Sean and Scott in his arms, but even his best shark impression is doing nothing to console the boys.

"What's wrong?" Charles asks again, trying to appeal to them. He turns finally to Darwin, always the most level-headed of them all.

"We thought you and Erik were already married," he shouts back.

"Even though there was no cake!" Alex added, a bit of a whine in his voice.

"You're sharing a room!" accuses Angel, and all the adults freeze. Raven shoots Charles a look, but these are sixth graders at the oldest, and Charles is not ready to give them any kind of talk.

"Well, there is only one solution to this, isn't there?" Edie pipes up, her accented English as welcome as the sound of her tea tray's wheels squeaking in.

"What's that?" Charles asks, anything to keep the room silent and calm.

"We'll have to throw you a wedding, of course," Edie says, and suddenly, she is not welcome at all. Charles falls into the nearest chair, panting maybe a little too deeply.

"Mama!" exclaims Erik, and yup, Charles is definitely hyperventilating now.

"I always wanted to walk you down the aisle," Edie tells him, quiet and unassuming, and that is when Raven smirks in triumph and the kids start to cheer and chant 'cake, cake, cake!' over and over. To Charles, it is the sound of firm defeat, because Erik could never refuse his mother anything, and Charles would never be able to say no to that voice.

The ceremony is very small. Charles opts for a new suit over a tuxedo, because Scott was going to force Erik to wear grey no matter what. It's not really a Jewish wedding, although Erik builds a chuppah, and he's wearing a yarmulke. Erik gets escorted up by his mother, Scott, Sean, and Angel. Charles is practically being dragged by Alex, Darwin, and Hank. Raven leads them in the traditional Christian vows, and Edie says a few things in Hebrew because they couldn't imagine trying to find a rabbi who would be okay with this.

When Erik finally breaks a glass, much to the scandalized gasps of the children, he breaks out laughing. There might be tears, but Charles' vision is too blurry to tell. "I never thought I'd get to do that," Erik whispers in his ear. "I love you," he finishes.

"KISS!" shouts Angel, her expression allowing no protests. Charles quickly pecks Erik on the cheek, which receives a glare, and again on the lips, which is apparently even less impressive. Erik is the one to scoop him up and soundly kiss him, and Charles is too happy to pay attention to Alex, Scott, and Sean's fake gagging.

Edie has almost soaked a handkerchief through completely by the time they cut the cake, one of the children's handmade masterpieces. It is not quite rainbow, and there are grey sharks, argyle sweater vests, and squiggles that might be the faces of each of the children piped on. Charles thinks it's absolutely perfect, and he hesitates to make the first cut.

"Oh, come on! We'll make you another one later. I want cake!" Alex shouts, and that whips them into action, although the first cut is ruined by their laughing.

"So, can we start calling Erik Dad now?" Scott asks, his mouth half full of cake. He beams at them when they choke on their crumbs, and Charles would suspect Raven of putting the child up to this, if she wasn't looking so pleasantly surprised.

"Well, this might make a good lesson on alternative families," Charles decides, and before any of the children can groan, Erik has reached over and rubbed frosting all over Charles' face.

"Later," he agrees, before moving forward to lick some of the icing off of the tip of Charles' nose. There are louder fake gagging sounds, but Charles can't hear anything over the rush of happiness in his ears and nothing seems more important than giving Erik a beard of rainbow frosting.