A Day of Suddenly and Somebody
"I was walking along looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn't anymore"
- A. , author of 'Winnie the Pooh'
Erik was running late to work, the baby was crying, hadn't stopped crying since she woke them both up at 4am, the older children were trading fearful looks like their little sister had turned into some sort of sonic-scream-machine that was going to kill them all if they moved too quickly or spoke too loud or met each other's eyes, and Erik was so strung out on caffeine every metal fixture in the house was subtly vibrating in harmony with his shaking hands.
It was not a good morning.
"Vati?" Anya asked tentatively, shooting the wailing Lorna wary looks from under her overgrown bangs (dammit, he needed to take the kids to get haircuts weeks ago, no wonder the PTA moms were giving him dirty looks), "Do you really have to go to work?"
The stabbing pain through Erik's left temple has synced up to the rhythm of Lorna's cries. Wasn't that nice? "Yes," he told the seven year old bluntly, "Eat your breakfast."
"The toaster's smoking, Vati," Anya informed him, blue eyes wide.
"No toast, no toast, no toast," Pietro chanted. A new stabbing pain started up in Erik's right temple, this one in sync with his son's voice.
"Waffles?" Wanda asked gravely, staring at him with bottomless eyes.
"Waffles need the toaster," Erik said tersely, waving the smoke away from the sparking appliance, praying it didn't –
With a metallic shriek water rained down from the ceiling; sending arcs of electricity cascading off the toaster. The older three squealed in alarm, but the sudden downpour silenced Lorna. Erik glanced away from the electrical deathtrap scorching his kitchen counter to see his youngest daughter staring at the sprinkler-induced rainstorm with wide-eyed wonder, tiny little starfish hands reaching up, trying to grab the drops.
Well. Okay. Erik turned back to the toaster disaster just in time to see Pietro trying to climb the cabinets.
"Pietro, don't touch that," Erik barked. A bit too harshly, he realized in hindsight as not just Pietro, but Wanda (who was on the other side of the kitchen), cringed.
Emitting a sound that was half sigh and half groan, Erik scooped up his five-year-old son, pulling him away from the danger and cuddling him close. With an irritated wave of his hand and a foreboding metallic crunch, he shut off the sprinkler system and crushed the toaster into an unidentifiable metallic ball.
"Vati, you just killed the toaster," Anya was apparently a little too shell-shocked to manage much more than the obvious.
"Yes. We'll buy a new one," he told her.
"Does this mean we get cake for breakfast?"
"No-" Erik started to say, but Pietro cut him off.
"Cake for breakfast! Cake! Cake! Cake!"
Erik shot the leftover pound cake on the counter a dirty look.
"Cake has eggs and milk and flour," Wanda pointed out helpfully. When Erik gave her a hard look she smiled angelically and sipped her orange juice.
"That does not make it breakfast food," Erik said.
"Why?" Pietro interrupted his chant to ask. And poke Erik in the face. Because apparently it's not enough to see the same face for five years running. You have to periodically make sure it hasn't changed through aggressive prodding. Kindergarten logic was exhausting.
"Starbucks sells cake and breakfast food," Anya, looking proud of her worldliness, informed him.
"Cake for breakfast," Wanda said with a horrifying level of serene certainty.
Erik was 99% sure Magda was going to slap him when he eventually joined her in the afterlife. If there was an afterlife. Dammit, the woman was stubborn enough that she'd make an afterlife just so she could tell Erik off for giving their children cavities.
Meanwhile, in this life, Erik admitted defeat. "Fine. Cake for breakfast. Then you're all going to school and telling no one about this, do you understand me?" He didn't need any more dark looks from Mrs. PTA Incorporated.
Anya grinned at him, "Vati, you're the best."
That was it; Erik was going to live forever just to avoid the wrath of Magda.
…
"Charles. Charles. Charles."
"Wha-?"
"Charles!"
"What?" Charles rolled over, trying to disentangle himself from the blanket that seemed half eldritch abomination, half giant squid, and promptly found himself facedown on the floor, an unpleasant ringing in his ears.
"Hello floor," he said fuzzily, "I don't remember you having a rug…"
"That's because it's not your floor," Moira's voice…Moira's voice? Why was Moira's voice here? Why was Moira here?
"Moira?" Charles asked intelligently, lazily reaching out to her with his telepathy, spitting out bits of carpet fluff as he squirmed, trying to sit up without getting smothered by the possibly-demonic blanket.
"Yes?" Moira was indeed standing over him, impeccably dressed as usual, this time in a black blazer, trouser jeans, and a deep green collared shirt, her mind its' usual flurry of activity.
Charles squinted at her, pre-coffee brain trying to keep up, "Why are you here?"
"You spent the night on my couch, Charles."
"Why?"
"Because Raven had Hank over."
Charles felt his eyes widen comically, "Oh…right, I remember. That was…awkward."
Moira raised her eyebrows, "Mmmhmm. Maybe it's time for your sister and her boyfriend to get their own place?"
Charles shook his head, "I could never kick Raven out! And Hank's delightful when, well…"
"He's not having athletic sex with your sister?"
Charles could feel the blush consuming his face. Felt it and couldn't stop it. "Yes."
"Uh-huh. Charles, we can't keep doing this." The exasperation in her voice was mirrored and multiplied tenfold in her mind. Charles knew; he could hear it.
He buried his face in his hands, groaning "I know, I know, Moira, I'm sorry, but-"
"-but you can't kick your full-grown-adult sister out of your apartment."
"Raven's name is on the lease," he protested weakly.
Moira rolled her eyes. Moira did not roll her eyes much. It was disturbing. "Who pays most of the rent?"
"Me, of course, I have the most stable income, it only makes sense."
"Charles-" Moira threw her hands in the air, "Whatever. We've had this conversation. Now, get off my floor, get dressed and brush your teeth, we need to be at the university in 20."
"Breakfast?" he asked hopefully.
"You slept through it."
He gave her his most pitiful look.
Another sigh, "Fine, we'll stop at Starbucks."
Charles grinned beatifically at her. Moira just said, "Go, go, I have a lecture to give to 50 bored freshmen in 40 minutes and I need that extra 20 to drink a liter of coffee and psych myself up."
"Yes, yes," Charles waved her off; scraping himself off the floor, ridding himself of the demon-blanket and grabbing his overnight bag from where he dumped it the night before. Pausing in the doorway to the bathroom, he turned to look at Moira, who was watching him, arms crossed, a look of bemused tolerance etched across her face and mind.
"Thank you, my dear, truly," Charles offered.
Moira sighed and smiled, "Anytime, Xavier. And I mean it about the 20 minutes thing. You're getting dressed for work, not primping for a date."
…
Anya and the twins safely deposited at school, Erik (still running late for work) broke several traffic laws getting to the daycare. Lorna, still inexplicably soothed by the earlier attack of the sprinklers, dozed in her car seat behind him.
Erik knew when he first woke up at four in the morning that this was not going to be his day. Erik knew this really wasn't going to be his day when the toast caught fire. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that some cosmic force was out to get him when the sprinklers soaked him (and his assorted rabble of precocious munchkins) to the skin. This was what he gets for having an apartment in a refurbished warehouse. No smoke detectors, just fucking sprinklers. So, frankly, when he saw the notice on the daycare door saying 'Sorry, we're closed today', he wasn't so much aggravated as resigned. Erik Lehnsherr had ascended past anger at the shit karmic hand he'd been dealt and had just settled on numb acceptance.
And his headache hadn't gone away.
Sighing wearily, he tromped back to the car, slid into the driver's seat; slammed the door shut with a twist of his abilities and just sat behind the wheel for a moment, absorbing the ten-car pileup that was today thus far.
Lorna, waking up from her nap, gurgled in the back seat. Scrubbing his hands wearily over his face, Erik turned around, meeting the baby's eyes. Looked like Lorna needed a haircut too, he observed with a kind of exhausted detachment. At a few months short of a year old, Lorna's green hair had worked itself into an Einstein puffball around her little face.
"How do you feel about journalism?" he asked her gravely.
Lorna giggled.
"Fantastic. Let's go to Vati's work, okay?"
Lorna cooed and Erik grinned like a shark. The way he was feeling, anyone who complained about Lorna's presence was going to get a swift punch in the throat.
…
"Moira."
"Charles."
"The Chem 110 class torched the lab I use for my next class. I don't know how they did it, but they did."
"I'm…sorry?" Moira choked on the giggles bubbling up her throat.
Charles gave her a wounded look, "I know they didn't mean it, but really, Moira, how could they be so careless?"
Moira gave up and just laughed until she was out of breath. Charles gave her a look that was half resigned patience, half wounded dignity, and she burst into another round of breathless hysterics.
"I'm going to have to cancel classes until the fire department declares the room safe," Charles sighed mournfully, "The students were so excited for this lab."
"They'll live, I'm sure," Moira reassured him, "take advantage of the free time. Grade papers, have extra office hours, the students will survive."
"I'll send the email."
…
"No."
"No is not an option here, Erik. Possible answers include 'yes' and 'yes, thank you, Emma, you are a goddess and I shall worship you until the end of my days'."
"No."
Emma smiled a sharp-edged smile and steepled her fingers. Erik hated when she steepled her fingers. Emma steepling her fingers meant she was about to rub your face in the fact that she was in charge and you weren't and then mock you for being irritated about it. "Erik, we have three writers out sick, one on maternity leave and another in Aruba for the next two weeks. I'm going to make this simple for you in case you can't infer it from what I just said: we are understaffed. And you are going to cover the fire at the university. Get some interviews, maybe take some photos, convince some stoned undergrads to send their shaky iPhone video and blurry pics in, generally make nice. You know, that thing that normal people do when they want other people to open up to them."
Erik gave her an unimpressed look and she smirked.
"Honey, I know I'm not nice," she said, voice dripping poisoned sweetness, "But I didn't get where I am today scowling at anything that moves. Now, while you're at the university I need you to get that interview with the dean and snag some quotes for the review of the theatre department's latest offering. It opens on Friday, yes, it's a dance concert, I expect you to make exactly zero sarcastic comments about tutus or leotards or the people who wear them, or I'll make you attend and write the review."
Erik gave her a bland look that had Emma slowly raising an icy eyebrow. The joke was on her, of course. Erik may hate dance with a passion rivaled only for his loathing of bigots, intolerance, and people who cut in front of him in traffic, but his children loved it. Every year since Anya was two, Erik's mother had taken her grandchildren to see the Nutcracker, despite the fact that Edie didn't celebrate Christmas and was not exactly a dance enthusiast herself. And every year, like magic, Anya and the twins would sit in silent rapture and watch dancers whirl across the stage in a vague outline of what might have been a story if Erik could manage to stay awake enough to track it.
Magda used to love the Nutcracker.
It had been nearly a year. Magda was less of an open wound now and more of a numb absence. Like nerve damage, a spot that had healed, but would never feel the same again.
Erik sometimes wondered if he would always be lonely.
Emma waited patiently for him to capitulate. Erik glared at her. She stared cooly back; completely sure of her victory. She would be, she was a goddamn telepath and never let them forget it.
"Erik, I'm waiting."
He could feel her on the very edges of his awareness as she oozed self-satisfaction at him. He slapped at her invasive mental fingers. She smirked at him, the fluorescent light of her office catching and glittering off her white, sparkling nail polish.
"Emma, I have a baby with me."
"Sounds like a personal problem to me," she said dismissively, waving him away, already turning back to her laptop, "Now go, before this lab fire story gets any older."
Erik grit his teeth and left. He may have also reached out to her desk drawer and twisted all of her paper clips into useless lumps of metal.
…
"Moira, I'm bored."
"Charles, my office is in the building next door. You could just visit instead of beaming your thoughts directly to my brain."
"But this is easier."
"Show-off."
"Moira."
"Go away, Charles. You already invaded my home, can I at least have my thoughts?"
Charles radiated hurt at her and Moira was immediately contrite. She scrambled for some words to throw his way but he beat her to it.
"Sorry, darling, I'll leave you alone."
"Charles," Moira's brain churned, searching for words and probably throwing mental gibberish Charles' way before she sighed, "Charles, you calling me 'darling' is why half the faculty assume we're dating."
"We're not."
"They don't know that."
"Dating you would be…peculiar."
She sent him a burst of amusement, before sighing again and rubbing her temples, "Charles, I'm sorry for trying to kick you out earlier, but talking like this is giving me a headache, and I do need to focus."
"Of course, I'll leave you to it."
She could feel his presence growing fainter. "Go on a walk, get out of your office for a bit, Charles. It'll do you good."
A brief burst of affectionate (platonic, completely platonic, dating Charles would be a level of weird Moira was not, and never would be, completely comfortable with) thought, and Charles' mental presence drifted off. Moira sighed again and rubbed her temples firmly. Time to get back to work.
…
Lorna was not enjoying her time in the field. Erik was not enjoying his time in the field. And the field kept shooting him weird looks for carting a baby around. Expressions ranged from 'how cute is that baby – how dare he drag her to the scene of a disaster?' to 'what are they doing here?'. And of course there were always the few that took one look at Lorna's obvious mutation and drew their own conclusions about Erik and his family.
Erik purely and unequivocally hated them all.
But carrying Lorna around was making it very, very hard to do his job. People just don't take you seriously as a journalist if you're toting around an infant like a fashion accessory. And Lorna was either bored or fussy or getting into everything and there was only so much Erik could do while constantly running interference, playing keep-away with the many hundreds of small objects which his almost-one-year-old might find and want to put in her mouth.
Finally, it was too much. In the middle of an interview with the TA who witnessed the explosion/lab accident/fire-of-unknown-origins, Lorna began to slowly inch her way out of his arms. When she couldn't free herself with stealth tactics, she turned to full on flailing. The student watched sympathetically as Erik wrestled with his child-turned-chimpanzee until finally the writer turned to her and growled, "Ms. Salvadore, I don't suppose there is anyone nearby who isn't doing something vitally important and can be trusted to watch my daughter while I get some real work done?"
Ms. Salvadore, a young woman with dark hair, sun-bronzed skin and delicate insect-like wings, looked suitably intimidated by his growl. Lorna giggled. His children had terrible self-preservation instincts.
Erik just kept staring at her as the young woman scanned the crowd, presumably for someone who fit his criteria, occasionally shooting glances back at him as if to make sure her thus-far-failed search hadn't displeased him. It hadn't. Erik was already displeased when this day started. 'Displeased' was small potatoes.
Finally, Ms. Salvadore paused, straightened as if to look around some of the people in the crowd and pointed, "There, see, there. That guy."
Erik narrowed his eyes suspiciously and she swallowed tightly but kept pointing.
"Which one?"
"Right there."
"Floppy brown hair, ugly cardigan?" Disquietingly hot. Erik didn't say that last one. That was not how one described someone who might be a freshman undergrad for all he knew. (The man didn't look like a freshman undergrad, maybe just a baby-faced grad student, but thinking inappropriate thoughts about someone who might be almost a decade younger than you never went anywhere good).
Ms. Salvadore winced, "Yeah, god, it is bad today, isn't?" she laughed nervously, "He always dresses like my Grandpa, y'know? I mean, he's like 26, but that just makes it worse."
A year younger than Erik, then. Good. Now he felt less like a creepy old man.
"Ms. Salvadore, if we could continue your interview in a few minutes?" he tried to give her a smile. From the uncertain lip-spasm he got back, it came out a little less reassuring and a little more homicidal than intended, "I need to talk to someone about childcare."
…
Charles hadn't really set out to visit the scene of the fire, it just sort of happened. And judging by the gathered crowd, it seemed to be the destination of choice for all the other careless wanderers on-campus as well. Charles hung back, keeping to the edges of the crowd, mentally surfing the tide of emotion, getting the general gist of what was going on based on emotive imprint alone. (If there were more telepaths out there who might be interested in that sort of thing, Charles would have liked to do some research into emotive imprint. It was basically like fingerprints, but with leftover emotion rather than leftover skin-based grease. It would have been truly fascinating. Too bad there wasn't anyone else to appreciate it.)
The point being, Charles was a tad checked out and was therefore taken completely by surprise when the single most attractive human being he'd seen in his (admittedly short but relatively well-peopled) life, appeared in front of him. Holding a baby. A baby with green hair. Fascinating.
"I will pay you 50 dollars to watch her for an hour while I interview people. If she's here in one piece and not in any way traumatized, damaged, or disappeared when I get back, you get your money. If she is not, I will make you wish you were never born." The last line was delivered with such iron confidence Charles really didn't see any other option beyond nodding mutely.
The other man narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him. Charles wondered what he had done that was so suspicious. He tried a smile. When in doubt, fall back on good manners. "Hello, I believe we got off on a very…perplexing foot. My name is Charles Xavier."
"Erik Lehnsherr, Lorna Lehnsherr."
Well, not a verbose man, it would seem. At least when he wasn't threatening Charles' personal safety.
"Hello Erik, Lorna."
Erik gave him a single hard stare that made Charles want to squirm and possibly hide. He stood his ground anyway. If Kurt and Cain couldn't intimidate him, neither could this (extremely attractive) man. And his stepfamily actually wished him bodily harm at least some of the time. While this man, (Erik, he reminded himself) certainly radiated enough intent to make it clear he could and would follow up on any threats he made, he didn't actively want to hurt anyone. Charles desperately wanted to know what wheels were turning behind the grey-green eyes in front of him, but kept himself from actively going after any coherent thoughts. Charles had rules. When in public, he limited himself to just skimming the surface of peoples' minds, reading their emotional states, tracking them; observing them like a sailor mapping the wind. Of course, with personal friends like Moira, he could go far deeper, but this was not Moira, this was Erik, a strange man who wanted to pay him to babysit and was obviously assessing his worthiness based on some sort internal rubric only Erik could understand.
Finally the man nodded tersely. "I'll be back in an hour. He's my number." He handed Charles first a business card, then the baby, taking care to kiss the little girl on the forehead first (she slapped his cheeks lightly with tiny hands and he bore the abuse with good grace), and deposited what Charles had originally assumed was a standard canvas messenger bag but turned out to live a double life as an extremely durable diaper bag at his feet.
Then he was gone. Just in time for Charles to remember he had never babysat in his life and this might be quite a bit harder than he thought.
…
This was a terrible idea. Erik hated this idea. Only the constant warm hum of the little steel earrings in Lorna's ears in the back of his mind, assuring him she was safe and whole, kept him from turning back around.
This was a fucking terrible day. But he'd bought himself an hour to work and he'd better use it now because there was no way in hell he was leaving his baby longer than he had to.
…
Charles was glad he'd grabbed his laptop bag on a whim when he set out a few minutes before. Now, three minutes and counting since he'd been entrusted with a small person he had no idea how to tend to, Charles made the executive decision to remove the two of them from the action a bit and set up shop on a bench a few yards away from the outer edges of the crowd of gawkers. After making sure the infant (Lorna, he reminded himself, Lorna) was properly settled in a nest of blankets at one end of the bench, Charles pulled out his laptop, a copy of the most current draft of Hanks's thesis, and a red pen. Every few lines into it Charles would pause, tap out a few notes into a word doc on his desktop, scribble a note or two into the margin and keep going, Lorna watching him, wide-eyed and amused. Her thoughts, colorful and fuzzy clouds like cotton candy, shapeless and indistinct but sweet, crowded at the border of his mind, a sort of soft insulation against the onslaught of the world's mental noise.
Not really thinking about it, only half aware of his own natural response to such a warm, attentive presence at the borders of his senses, Charles began to share his thoughts on Hank's work with the inexplicably fascinated Lorna.
"Hank has the general idea here, but he keeps getting sidetracked…"
"This study's very interesting, but it actually connects to his point in paragraph two far better…"
"I'm sure it's very flattering to have one's grad student quote one's research, but I haven't done near enough work in this area for Hank to consider my contributions to the field 'definitive'."
"Ah, lovely turn of phrase."
"Clever Hank, throwing a pun in there, does a good job of lightening the mood. I'd share it with you, Lorna, but, well, most people don't get it."
"Hank needs to stop letting Raven edit his work. You can always tell when she gets bored or distracted and stops paying attention to semicolons…"
Lorna gurgled in agreement.
"Exactly, Lorna. You're very insightful."
"Charles." Moira. Why was Moira here?
Charles looked up, blinking dazedly, already mentally reaching out and confirming that yes, his ears did not deceive him, Moira was indeed standing in front of him, arms crossed and eyebrows sky-high.
"You have a baby. You're on a park bench, narrating Hank's thesis to a baby. Which you have. You do know that, right? That there's a baby right there. Because really, I don't care how powerful a telepath you are on scientific scale, you are really terrible at the paying-attention-to-other-people-in-the-area thing sometimes."
"Hello Moira," Charles said, awkwardly raising the hand with the red pen.
Moira was not to be deterred, "Where did it come from? What did you- ? Charles. Do not tell me you stole a baby. Because you steal my coffee and Hank's pens - yeah, I see what you have in your hand - and Raven's shampoo and Azazel's still looking for the skull you walked off with 2 months ago, but going from accidental coffee-thievery to full-on kidnapping is a pretty big jump and I don't want you to go to jail- Charles? Charles?!"
Charles blinked, looking up from the paragraph he'd been skimming, "What? Sorry, darling, I stopped listening for a bit there. What were you saying?"
"DID YOU KIDNAP SOMEONE'S KID?"
Lorna whimpered. Charles sent out a soothing tendril of thought and she went back to burbling happily.
"…No… No, I didn't kidnap anyone. Lorna's just visiting."
Moira sighed. Charles could sense her gathering the tattered remnants of her patience. Her thoughts were restless and very, very loud. "Then why, dear Charles; is there a tiny person sitting with you?"
Charles blinked and stared abstractly into the distance in that way that drove Moira mad. "I'm babysitting. I've never done it before, but a very handsome man offered to pay me fifty dollars to keep Lorna here out of trouble, so."
Poor unflappable Moira looked well and truly flapped. "Charles."
"Yes?"
"I really don't know what to say here."
"Hmm. Could you get me a sandwich? I wasn't able to pack my lunch last night due to Raven and Hank's…activities and the dining hall closes in thirty minutes."
Moira raised her eyebrows, "And you can't get your own sandwich because…?"
"I promised I'd watch Lorna for an hour and if I'm not here when her father gets back I may be subject to swift and vicious retribution."
"Her very handsome father."
"Yes."
"Charles, we've talked about your taste in people."
"I have excellent taste!" he protested, "I'm a human lie-detector, Moira, I automatically have splendid taste."
Moira just gave him a look and a few choice variations on the theme of 'exasperated and slightly pitying patience'.
Charles, mature adult that he was, pulled a face at her and went back to reading over Hank's thesis.
Moira sighed. She seemed to be doing that a great deal today. "I'll get your damn sandwich."
"You're an angel, darling," Charles murmured distractedly, already engrossed in Hank's thesis again.
Moira thought some very derogatory things at him, but followed them up with a swift burst of warmth as she walked away.
"Moira is an excellent friend, Lorna. Even if she doesn't understand microbiology."
…
Erik was fluent in French. (And German, and Yiddish, and Spanish, and could make do in Italian, Portuguese, and a handful of Eastern European dialects if necessary). That did no mean he wanted to spend a solid 45 minutes discussing ballet positions with over-enthusiastic dancers and choreographers. At this rate he was going to have to retrieve Lorna and take her with him on his interview with the dean.
He reached out to her earrings on reflex while what's-his-face debated the virtues of modern vs. classical technique with what's-her-face while Erik looked on impassively. There Lorna was, where he left her, the little earrings warm with her steady heartbeat. Stretching his range, Erik ran his awareness over Anya's necklace and Pietro and Wanda's matching bracelets. All safe and healthy and where they were supposed to be. Excellent.
Now he just needed to get through these interviews without turning homicidal or collapsing from sheer exhaustion.
And the headache hadn't gone away yet. Goddammit.
…
The cool, focused angles of Erik's thoughts reentered Charles' loose sphere of awareness (he had been a bit more attentive since Moira managed to get the drop on him earlier). Charles looked up to see the narrow, dark figure approaching; long, loping strides eating up the ground. As Erik grew closer, Charles couldn't help but notice the tight cast to his features, the stiff, taut way he held himself. A stabbing headache hummed under the other man's surface thoughts and Charles again wondered what brought a man with a baby here to interview people at the scene of a university lab accident.
Don't pry, he told himself. Prying into other people's thoughts had only gotten him into trouble in the past.
"Hello again," he called, looking up from the mess of papers that had grown around him since he'd first pulled out Hank's thesis over an hour ago. Moira had come through on her promise of a sandwich, and its' wrapper and a half-eaten bag of chips sat on top of the mess.
Erik blinked at him; Charles could almost hear the metallic shriek as the other man's train of thought was abruptly forced to change tracks from 'thinking in solitude' to 'speaking to other human beings'. A blunt "Yes," and a general nod in Charles' direction was all Erik seemed capable of coming up with at the moment.
Now, closer up, Charles could see the dark circles curling under Erik's eyes, lines the other man was too young to rightfully have sketching their way around his eyes and mouth. Small signs of strain that a few nights' rest and a good meal or two might erase, but stood a good chance of becoming permanent should the physical abuse continue. Erik's cheekbones were like knives under his skin, sharp, highlighting the tight planes of his face. He was a very…geometric man, Charles reflected. Lots of lines and angles. Not much softness or give.
But his face melted into a soft smile when Lorna waved her hands and babbled at him.
Crouching down to her level, he murmured something vaguely Germanic at her and she giggled, patting his short, dark auburn hair.
Smiling the smile of the tired and the patient, Erik scooped her up and stood, his daughter cuddled close, her baby eyes wide and full of glee at seeing her daddy again.
"So?" Charles asked, smiling wryly, "What happens next?"
Erik furrowed his brow and looked at him, as if surprised he was still there. Charles extended a tiny fraction of his awareness out to the other man and immediately recognized the haze of pure exhaustion permeating his thoughts.
"Long day?"
"Yes." It would appear Erik was going to be monosyllabic until he either caffeinated himself or collapsed. Charles felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor fellow.
"Would you care for a cup of coffee? I know a place on campus that isn't completely horrid."
Erik looked like he was going to say 'no'. His thoughts clearly said he desperately wanted to say 'no'. But in the end he just blinked owlishly at Charles and said: "Yes," in a worn-out voice that Charles really shouldn't have found that cute.
Honestly, though, the man was holding a baby and looking so utterly wiped out you'd have to be heartless not to at least have some warm fuzzy sympathy for him.
"Just let me pack up my things and we'll be on our way, then." Charles had unintentionally slipped into his 'teacher voice' as Raven called it. The soothing, rhythmic tone that reassured high-strung, highly intelligent undergrads know they were doing just fine, and he was only here to help, not to punishing them for daring to get an A-.
Erik just sort of stared at him, but wasn't being overtly hostile anymore, so Charles considered that a victory as he gathered his things then sort of gently herded the little family over to the campus student-run coffee shop.
…
Erik wasn't entirely sure how he ended up ordering coffee (black as his soul and strong enough to wake the dead…it would probably just barely make a dent on the haze eating up his higher-level brain functions) with the strange man he'd hired to babysit Lorna for an hour. But here he was, in what was possibly the most indie, stereotypical, hipster-haven of a café he'd ever set foot in. Of course it was run by a string of over-enthusiastic undergrads who helpfully pointed out that all of their to-go cups were biodegradable and they ran mostly on solar energy.
Erik's very intelligent response to that last factoid was a terse 'I can tell'. Because he could. He could sense the metal wiring running through the walls and up to the roof.
The redheaded beatnik taking his money at the register stared at him goggle-eyed and only Erik's glare (still deadly even with Lorna clinging like a tree-monkey) deterred him from asking some ill-advised questions.
Of course, when Charles (that was his name, yes? Yes. Charles. Interim babysitter. Charles.) placed his order, the ginger hipster brightened and chirped "Sure thing, Professor X!" before bustling off to fill his order (something unpronounceable with an ill-advised amount of whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and three different kinds of syrup).
Professor.
Wait.
Erik's tired, under-caffeinated brain clunked and churned its' way toward a conclusion.
Holy shit, he'd offered to pay a professor 50 bucks to watch his kid for an hour. And the guy actually did it. What the fuck?
Erik turned his head to eye the other man. The professor, Charles, was in profile, eyes tracking Artsy-Ginger's progress behind the counter with an amused glint in his (startling blue) eyes. Backlit by the eclectic, yellowed light of a dozen thrift-shop light fixtures, he looked far too young to be a professor of anything.
As if he sensed Erik's bewildered train of thought, Charles-the-professor turned to eye Erik back. "Yes?" he asked, British accent tidy on the consonants and soft on the vowels.
Erik, filter completely wasted by the past week's (scratch that, the past year's) complete lack of sleep, said, "You're a professor. I asked a dammed professor to watch my kid for an hour. For fifty dollars."
Charles smiled, sharp blue eyes crinkling generously, "Yes, yes you did."
Erik blinked and looked forward, voice sort of toneless and tired, "I am an idiot."
Charles chuckled. It was a warm sound. "It was certainly the most unusual thing that's ever happened to me at the scene of a disaster."
"I am an idiot," Erik repeated numbly.
Charles chuckled again, "No, just uninformed."
Erik glared at the wall in front of him, "I'm a journalist. I'm always informed."
Charles laughed out loud at that. The sound filled Erik with an unaccountable warmth. He wanted to hear it again. He wanted to take that laugh home with him and wrap it around his brain when the world was too much and hide inside it.
Erik shut that thought down and tidied it away to a far-flung corner of his mind where it couldn't disturb the rest of his more sensible thoughts.
A moment or two of silence and Charles tipped his head to the side, staring off into the distance with a contemplative look on his face. "You have questions."
Erik, not up for small talk after the morning he'd had, compounded with almost an hour of dancer chatter, made a vaguely affirmative noise. He did have questions. He always had questions. It's why he was doing this ridiculous job in the first place. To get the answers a young and angry teenage Erik always wanted. But with bosses like Emma, opportunities for world changing journalism were thin on the ground.
Charles made a soft, surprised sound. Erik raised an eyebrow and peered at him out of the corner of his eye.
Charles, realizing he was observed, raised his eyebrows and turned his head slightly to look at him straight on. "You don't have the usual questions."
Erik narrowed his eyes at him, a realization nagging at the back of his mind. Stalling until his sleep-deprived brain could catch up, he said, "I rarely do. What are you used to hearing?"
Another chuckle and an awkward shrug, "Mostly about my age, how someone so young ended up, well," an awkward little gesture, "here."
Erik shrugged, "If you weren't competent you wouldn't still be employed. Seems like a strange thing to ask about."
That startled another laugh out of Charles and Erik resolutely ignored the warm feeling that gave him. Especially when Lorna, catching on to the fact that something was funny, laughed along with him.
The red head with the ironic t-shirt and overlarge headphones slung around his neck interrupted Charles' moment of hilarity with their orders. The professor halted his laughter to say "Thank you, Sean," and offer a smile so genuine the kid grinned right back.
"No prob, Professor X." He gave a sloppy salute and turned back to the counter.
Charles sighed, shaking his head at the student's retreating back before turning and leading them to a table. "There'll be rumors all over campus by sundown."
Erik arched his eyebrows and said flatly, "You mean to tell me you don't caffeinate every sleep-deprived journalist that comes through here? Shocking."
Charles grinned at him, "I don't babysit their children, either."
Erik winced and Charles' smile broadened, "It was no trouble, really, I've just never babysat before."
Erik just sort of stared at him before saying, voice toneless and perhaps reflecting how dead inside he felt a little too much, "I am a terrible parent."
Charles twitched and his face seemed unsure what to do exactly, but whatever it was doing was supposed to be reassuring. "No, no, you're a wonderful parent, Lorna loves you."
Erik narrowed his eyes at him again, the realization that had been tugging at the edges of his brain minutes before finally coming center stage, "You're a telepath."
Charles had the grace to look sheepish before recovering admirably and saying, outwardly the perfect picture of serene dignity, "Yes, I'm rather good at it, actually." The effect was spoiled a bit by his long bangs falling in his eyes again, making him look even younger.
Erik shook his head. With a little caffeine in his system his brain was coming back online bit by bit, "You can't be good or bad at being a mutant, that's just stupid. You are what you are. Your abilities are you. You can't be bad at being you, that's idiotic."
Charles beamed at him. It was adorable. And Erik did not just think that.
"Exactly!" he was grinning now, blue eyes alight, "Although it is a little extreme to say your abilities are you per se; it's more as if they are a part of the larger picture of you. Like, hmm, eye color. I fundamentally cannot do a bad job of having blue eyes. It's a simple fact. It doesn't make me evil any more than it makes Sean over there soulless for being red-haired."
"Up for debate, Professor," Sean called over his shoulder.
Charles rolled his eyes, "Yes, yes, the ancient Greeks believed red-headed people were demons who sucked out souls and ate them, but that's just unfounded superstition."
"Check Urban Dictionary sometime, Prof," Sean suggested.
Charles sighed, "Not the point. But Erik, Erik, you get the point, right?"
Erik allowed himself a small, slightly bemused smile, "I did, until Urban Dictionary became valid reference material."
Charles grinned at him, then seemed to hesitate, "It doesn't…bother you?"
Erik, still a bit too groggy to come up with a PC answer, just decided to levitate the metal napkin-holder instead. Lorna, fascinated as always by Erik's casual displays of power, giggled and clapped.
Charles' eyes grew wide, "Telekinesis? No, wait, metallokinesis. Brilliant!"
Erik quirked his lips into a small smile and dropped the napkin holder back onto the table.
"Does anyone else in your family display the same ability?" Charles asked, eyes bright, "Oh, terribly sorry, I specialize in genetics and mutation inheritance – Occasionally abilities can be tracked through lineage, but it's exceptionally rare – "
Erik realized he should probably cut the man off before he got too lost in the Wonderful World of Science. "My parents were both human and none of my other children have manifested, if they will at all."
Charles tipped his head to the side like a curious bird, face open and curious, "Lorna's siblings, I assume?"
Erik raised an eyebrow, "Yes. Did you think I just carried an infant around for fun?"
Charles shrugged, "No, but she could have been a niece."
Erik shrugged, "No nieces or nephews."
"Siblings?"
"One younger sister, human."
Charles grinned, "Me too. Well, I have a younger sister. She's a mutant, though. Her mutation is lovely, although our parents were never particularly enamored with it." His face momentarily tightened into old, bitter lines before smoothing over into a sort of resigned magnanimity, "We don't speak with them much anymore."
Erik nodded, childhood memories of his mother's casual acceptance of his more…unusual traits popping up unbidden in his mind's eye. Nothing much fazed Edie, even her twelve-year-old accidentally magnetizing every scrap of silverware they owned.
Charles seemed to shake off the ghosts of the past and refocused his attention on Erik, "So, Lorna's siblings."
A small smile snuck onto Erik's face against his will, "Anya, Wanda, and Pietro. All older. Anya's seven, Wanda and Pietro are five year old twins."
Charles smiled. He seemed to do that a lot, just radiate warmth and comfort. "Children have wonderful minds. Adults are so structured and limited sometimes. Children don't suppress or control creativity the way we try to."
Erik nodded, eyes crinkling at the corners despite himself. Charles was the sort of person you wanted to smile back at. He took another gulp of coffee and tried not to think about how casual small talk had started to feel vaguely date-like.
…
Charles felt a little guilty taking up Erik's time like this. The other man was technically at work; he was obviously exhausted, and had a child to think about (apparently multiple children, and no spouse, judging by the empty ring finger, which explained why he looked dead on his feet in the middle of the week). Charles hated feeling like he was taking advantage.
But Erik was fascinating. His tiny expressions, his sharp eyes, his mind (like a fractal; infinite, geometric, and mathematically stunning, even just on the surface), everything about Erik was just plain interesting.
So Charles kept talking to him as their coffee grew colder and tried not to think about how this was sort of like a date.
…
Erik had never dated much. A handful of casual things that might have turned into somethings if he'd been more interested and less a mass of trauma and trust issues and directionless anger after his father's death, when he was still in high school. And Magda. And when Magda got pregnant with Anya when they were still at university and they decided to try to make it work anyway, that was it. They got married after they graduated and Wanda and Pietro sort of happened along the way. They were happy. A family.
But when Lorna came along Magda got sick. Or maybe she'd been sick before but hadn't told him until she couldn't hide it any more. She couldn't carry Lorna to term and when their youngest daughter was born, over a month early and so, so tiny, Magda was failing fast. She got to hold the child who'd been her constant companion in her last months a grand total of three times before Magda's strength failed her.
And then, well, Erik was neck-deep in hospital bills and the needs of four tiny people, three of which were just old enough to not understand why Mama wasn't coming home. So he stopped doing freelance work and took the job with Frost. Emma was a hard boss but fair in her own funhouse mirror version of it. And life went on.
So no, Erik hadn't been much for dating before and hadn't dated at all after and now here he was, across the table from Charles, with Lorna beside him, struggling through the realization that not only did this feel like a date, he sort of wanted it to be one.
…
"I still need to do an interview with the dean," Erik broke what had been a nice, quiet moment with a tired sigh.
"Oh," Charles blinked shaking himself out of his own thoughts, "Yes, of course, you mentioned that."
"Yes."
Dead silence.
"I can show you the way."
"Sure."
Awkward shuffling in the vague direction of the door. Finally outside, the first bite of an autumn afternoon sneaking through the sunshine, Erik paused, uncertain and uncertain about being uncertain. (Charles could sense the strange hitch in the other man's mind as he realized, with surprise, that this was what other people felt when they weren't 100% sure about everything all the time. Charles valiantly resisted the urge to chuckle at the poor man's expense.)
"Yes?" he couldn't resist asking, eyes crinkling into a smile as Erik scowled at him. It was a soft sort of scowl; the type one directed at precocious-but-adorable kittens that destroyed one's socks.
"I probably shouldn't bring a baby to interview the dean."
"Well, it would certainly be an unconventional approach. Although, who knows, Lorna may ask some good questions-"
The soft scowl was back. It made Charles feel warm inside in a way that was probably not healthy. This was most likely yet another example of why Moira said he needed therapy. Scowls should not be this heart-warming. They really shouldn't be heartwarming at all.
"If I give you another 50 dollars, will you watch Lorna?" Erik's gaze was deadly serious. It was incredibly sweet...and Charles really needed to stop thinking things like that…
"I will watch Lorna for however long you need for whatever you want to pay me." Okay, Charles really needed to reassess his brain-to-mouth filter.
Erik just gave him a sideways smile. "Stuff like that is how nice people get taken advantage of."
Charles gave him his best charming smirk, "How do you know I'm nice?"
"You bought me coffee and watched my kid."
"A clever ruse."
"Indeed?"
"I wanted to talk to you." Were they flirting? They were flirting. Charles really wished Moira had given him more time to get ready this morning. Also, now was not the time realize he had a smudge of red ink on his face from the pen he'd used on Hank's thesis.
Erik just gave him a doubtful snort, "Your skills at subterfuge astound me," he remarked dryly.
Charles huffed, "As they should."
"So, will you take Lorna for the next hour?"
Charles grinned at him, "Well, I do need to finish explaining microbiology to her. I need at least one friend who understands it."
"I'm going to pretend I get that. Just don't get her lost, hurt or all of the above. Otherwise I'll have to kill you and that gets messy."
Charles couldn't really stop smiling, even though he knew that, despite his joking surface, Erik really would kill him if harm came to Lorna, "I promise."
This time Erik did offer him a smile. It was small and surprisingly kind. "Thank you."
The same infant handover as before, and Erik was gone. Charles, newly burdened by a small child and her attendant baggage, settled onto a new park bench with Hank's thesis and a wide-eyed audience of one.
"So, Lorna, where were we? Ah, yes, Hank's charts…"
…
The interview with the dean was boring. Erik spent most of it flattening the coins in his jacket pocket and folding them into increasingly complex pieces of origami with his mind. (Anya had gone through an origami phase; for two weeks their house had turned into a menagerie of clumsily-folded paper animals. The upshot of this was Erik had unintentionally become an expert in the ancient art of paper-folding, and when Anya eventually lost interest Pietro and Wanda snatched all the animals to stage epic and increasingly strange battles between the paper creatures. Erik was still finding decapitated cranes in odd places. Sometimes he wondered who would need therapy by the time they reached adulthood; his children or him.)
The dean didn't seem to notice Erik's distraction, he was perfectly willing to natter on whatever topic Erik steered him towards. The article definitely wouldn't have a dearth of quotes. Erik hoped he wouldn't have to write it.
He wondered what Charles and Lorna were doing. He thought about the way Charles' hands moved when he talked. He imagined Charles telling Lorna about microbiology, his blue eyes alight, his bangs flopping in his eyes, Lorna watching, fascinating despite not understanding a word.
It was a nice picture.
And now time to refocus on the dean. In his pocket Erik had turned three pennies into cranes, one into a tulip, and another into a boat.
…
Charles felt Erik's sharp, angular mind long before the sharp, angular man slid onto the bench on Lorna's other side, bracketed the little girl between the two of them. Charles just kept narrating Hank's thesis to Lorna. He could hear the sluggish, sleepy rise and fall of Erik's mind, the technical terms and meaningless jargon soothing his weary brain.
Finally, Charles finished the paragraph and turned his attention to the two Lehnsherrs beside him. Both father and daughter were drooping, Lorna worn out from a day surrounded by new and exciting people and things, Erik worn out from the day itself.
"Hello again, my friend," Charles said gently.
Erik blinked and looked at him. He didn't really know what to say; Charles could hear the thoughts clicking and sliding through his brain like gears in a clock.
"You're easy to listen to," he finally said, tone definitive, as if him saying to made it completely and totally factual, rather than a matter of opinion. "Why did you agree to watch my kid? You didn't have to."
Ah, the question he wanted to ask before, in the coffee shop. Charles shrugged, "No real reason."
"Liar."
"I thought I was the telepath."
A snort.
Charles sighed, "You seemed like you needed the help. And it wasn't any trouble."
Erik just sort of narrowed his eyes at him. He had a very expressive face.
Charles sighed again, "My sister says I'm constantly reaching out to other people, trying to make connections, especially with people who pull away from me. She says that I seem to have made it my life goal to help people who don't want help."
Erik just nodded. Charles wondered why he was telling him this; Charles wasn't really much for sharing personal details with other people.
"Truth be told, my sister doesn't really mean it in the most complimentary way. I suppose she thinks I'm a bit of a busybody, always poking my nose where I don't belong."
Erik tipped his head to the side, "Little sisters don't like being taken care of. It's the way they are. Try letting her fail sometime. She won't thank you for it; but give it a decade. She'll appreciate it eventually. Or stop talking to you altogether."
That startled a laugh out of Charles, "Well, my friend, that's…interesting advice."
Erik just shrugged, "I have a younger sister."
"Does she talk to you?"
"On all the major holidays." Erik deadpanned, "And periodically when we're not squabbling for appearances' sake, we actually like each other."
"For appearances' sake?"
"Yes, can't have Mama thinking we're joining forces. She'll feel superfluous if she doesn't think she's keeping us from killing each other 24/7."
Charles actually laughed full-out at that. He tried to imagine a relationship like that with Raven. He loved his sister dearly, but things had been…tense lately. Perhaps Erik and Moira were right, it was time for Raven to fly or fall on her own.
"I'm glad I met you, Erik," Charles found himself saying.
Erik nodded, "You're not bad. Although your sweater seems to be having an identity crisis of some sort."
Charles hugged his tatty sweater to his chest. Yes, its pattern did leave something to be desired, but the maroon and beige grew on you after a while. "I like it."
Erik chuckled, without any real venom, "Of course you do."
"Can I see you again sometime?" Charles really needed to reassess his brain-to-mouth filter.
"Sure."
Wait, what?
Charles stared at him. Erik stared back. Finally he said, "Worst. Telepath. Ever."
That startled a response from Charles "Hey! I'll have you know I'm a very powerful telepath."
Erik raised an eyebrow at him and Charles huffed, drooping, "Just give me your cellphone number and put me out of my misery."
…
…Fifteen Years Later…
"Lorna, I'm pretty sure your dad hates me."
"Alex, babe, he's warming up to you, don't worry."
"He keeps glaring at me and muttering under his breath in German!"
"Oh, that's just Vati."
A-blur-that-might-be-Pietro whirled into the kitchen, catching himself before he crashed into the island, "Alex, buddy, Vati's already made up his mind to hate you. The only person who can change his mind is Dad, so just focus on impressing him and you'll be okay."
Alex turned almost-but-not-quite panicking eyes on Lorna, "Is Charles really warming up to me?"
She shrugged and smiled, "Dad likes everyone, babe. You'll be fine."
Author's Note: Would you believe me if I said this was supposed to be super short? Because it was. The plan was for this to be a short little bit of fluffy prequel nonsense set before a longer fic I was planning…and then this happened. So this is now a standalone, but I do have more headcanons about this universe, so let me know if anyone is interested in hearing more from this AU.
As always, thank you for reading. I love reviews, so if you have a few moments, feel free to say hi.