Title: A Dressing Room and an Orange Julius

Prompt: Something about an Orange Julius.

Pairing(s); Cherik

Features: Charles, Erik, Raven, Alex, Sean, & Hank

Word Count: 500

A Dressing Room and an Orange Julius

Alex and Sean were going to kill the professor. Erik, too.

The day had started innocently enough. Raven had insisted upon a team bonding day at the local shopping mall, and though the men had been less than enthusiastic, Charles was never one to deny his sister. The group juiced up on smoothies together at the Orange Julius in the food court before Charles and Erik excused themselves. Once their leaders disappeared, the group split, Alex and Sean heading to the arcade, Raven and Hank disappearing into the bookstore, and so much for team bonding.

When the mall began to close four hours later, the teenagers met at the previously agreed upon rendezvous spot, but the adults were nowhere to be found. They split up once more to search for Charles and Erik, all screaming for the telepath with their thoughts, but it was one-hundred percent radio silence.

Apparently, when their fearless leaders left the food court, they stumbled around the mall all flirting and hand-holding and stolen kisses in an unhealthy and inappropriate amount of PDA only to end up necking in a department store dressing room like a couple of horny teenagers. Eventually, the make-out session got even further out of hand until they were unabashedly going at it.

When Charles and Erik had sex, the euphoria and ecstasy of the moment, the gloriousness of making love to Erik, the hot and heavy pant-inducing fucking, made Charles' telepathy go a little extremely haywire. He focused in on Erik's mind until the two became one and the rest of the world was blocked out. And so, lost in Erik's being, Charles hadn't heard the teenagers' pleas.

When Charles and Erik eventually emerged from the dressing room, sated and grinning, they were stunned to find the department store empty. That's when Charles felt for the children and realized what they'd done. Horrified and embarrassed beyond belief, a scarlet-faced Charles quickly relayed the situation to Erik who promptly barked out a laugh and clapped Charles on the back. "Now that's what I call a proper shag."

"They're murderous, Erik. How am I supposed to explain this to them? I can't-oh God, Raven. I could never look her in the eye again!"

In the end, Erik ended up dealing with the group's rage—a feeling he knew all too well. He concocted a quick excuse and told the children that it had all been part of training. He and Charles were testing them to see how they would handle themselves in a situation on their own. And they had failed miserably.

"Honestly, sitting in the food court whining about your lives. What ruddy good does that do? Charles and I won't always be there. You should have put your heads together! Figured a way out of this place!"

But Alex and Sean knew better.

And that's how the X-Men got trapped in a public shopping mall.

Trapped, Alex thought, at least until Magneto zipped up his pants and opened the fucking doors.

Title: Jackson Hole Mountain Ski Resort

Prompt: Write an entire scene using only dialogue.

Pairing(s); Cherik

Features: Charles and Erik

Word Count: 500

Jackson Hole Mountain Ski Resort

"Christ, this is high. We are so high! If we fall right now, our bones will shatter instantly upon impact with the earth. Blimey, Erik, it's so high. It's not natural for man to be suspended so far above the ground."

"Eh. S'not so bad, really."

"Ha! That's easy for you to say. You can fly!"

"Would you call it flying? I always thought of it more as levitating."

"I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm doing this...I-"

"Can't believe you're doing this. Yes, Charles, I heard you the first seventy times."

"This is no time for snark, Erik! We are approximately three hundred feet in the air, and well over two thousand feet above sea level, about to jump onto the side of a bloody mountain in a snow storm!"

"Snow storm? Don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration?"

"Look around, Erik!"

"It's a mild flurry at best. Besides, that's what the goggles are for."

"I'm going to die."

"Oh, stop being so dramatic, Charles."

"The fall alone! God, I can't. I can't jump. I—no, I refuse. The fall is simply too long. And won't the impact – what with the ground being packed with snow – snap our bloody ankles in half?"

"Not if you land properly. The way the instructor showed you."

"This is all your fault. I cannot believe I let you talk me into this. This is madness. Complete and utter madness. If we die-"

"Honestly, Charles, I had no idea you were capable of such cliched dramatics."

"-we have responsibilities, you know. Who will take care of the children? What will become of Raven? Hank? What will they-"

"They're hardly children anymore. Havok and Banshee will receive their bachelor's in the spring, Mystique is doing excellent in her classes, and well, Beast already acts thirty-seven-"

"My God! What was that?! I'm fairly positive it's not supposed to do that! Erik! Make. It. Stop!"

"It's just the wind, Charles..."

"The wind?"

"Mhmm."

"Erik, make it stop swinging, won't you?"

"Better?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Are you going to be alright? You look a bit faint. Not going to pass out on me, are you?"

"That remains to be seen."

"The jump is just up ahead. Now remember, Charles, put both of your ski poles in this hand so you can push off of the armrest with the other."

"Both poles. One hand. Got it. Bloody hell, Erik, I can't do this."

"When we stand, let the back of the lift press against your legs. It'll help you balance and help you push off. It's important to make sure your ski tips are pointed skyward. Otherwise, when we hit, they'll get caught and trip you up."

"Don't trip. Yes, I think I've got that. Thank you, Erik."

"And Charles?"

"Yes, Erik?"

"The most important to thing to remember is that no matter what, I'll catch you."

"Who's the one for the cliches now?"

"Shut up."

"Is that the-?"

"Yes. Jump!"

"Jump?"

"Jump!"

Title: Fortune Cookie

Prompt: "Hey, I'm just doing what the fortune cookie said. Who am I to stand in the way of fate?"

Pairing(s); Alex/Sean bromance, squinty Raven/Hank

Features: Raven, Alex, Sean, & Hank

Word Count: 500

Fortune Cookie

"One, two, three!" A series of satisfied crunches sounded in succession. The teenagers were quiet for a moment as they inspected their fortunes, their collective chewing the only sound in the den."Oooh," Raven eventually grinned, pleased with her results. "'All your hard work will soon pay off.' Hmm. What does your's say, Alex?"

The blonde lifted the white slip of paper and frowned. "'Do not sleep in tomorrow as the day will be full of opportunities.' Yeah. Whatever."

"Well, it certainly knows you," Hank smirked. Alex's brow straightened into a glare, "I work out every morning at 5:00a.m. for your information, Beast."

"It's true. He does." Sean backed up his best friend. Polishing off his sesame chicken, the ginger read the slip from his fortune cookie. "'Good luck and fortune will follow wherever you go. Do not be afraid to let good things happen.' Huh. Hear that? I'm gonna get lucky."

The others rolled their eyes at Sean's shit-eating grin and raised eyebrows. Alex scoffed at his best friend. "That doesn't mean you're gonna get laid."

"Hey, you never know." The redhead released a deep-bellied belch. "God, I love Chinese food."

Raven's nose wrinkled in repulsion. "You're disgusting."

Two days later, Charles sent Raven on a grocery run and Sean, bored now that his classes at university were over and having absolutely zero luck when it came to finding a summer job, decided to tag along just to get away from the mansion. It was a quick shopping excursion – Raven was highly efficient – and on the way back to the car, something on the asphalt caught Sean's gaze.

There, right in front of the shopping cart return, was a brown leather wallet. "Ha!" Sean whooped, snatching up the worn billfold. He opened the creased fold and thumbed through the wallet's contents, his face splitting in a toothy grin. "Must be my lucky day."

Raven rolled her eyes and pulled their shopping cart to a halt. She began to turn around. "Come on. We'll go back inside to return it. Someone's going to come back looking for that."

"What? No way. There's at least seventy bucks in here and a half-off coupon for Shakey's Pizza Parlor. Besides, there's no I.D., no business card. If I turn it in, anybody could claim it. So, why not me? I mean, for all I know, this thing just fell outta the sky. Like it's meant for me."

Raven shook her head, a little blonde curl falling into her face. "It's not right. Charles wouldn't want you to keep it."

Her words were meant to inspire some greater sense of morality in the redheaded mutant, or at the very least strike fear into his heart. But Sean knew that despite her threat, Raven would never tattle to Charles, so he just flashed his pearly white grin and stuffed the wallet in his back pocket. "Hey, I'm just doing what the fortune cookie said. Who am I to stand in the way of fate?"

Title: Revenge, or Inflicting Harm for Wrongs Suffered

Prompt: An escalation of pranks including itching powder and male escorts. Hilarity ensues.

Pairing(s); squinty Cherik

Features: Charlies, Erik, Raven, Alex, Sean, & Hank

Word Count: 1,000

Revenge, or Inflicting Harm for Wrongs Suffered

There was little planning involved. Growing up with three older brothers and five rowdy cousins, Sean was a natural in the prank business. He took things slow in the beginning. A little itching powder on Erik's toilet paper, cutting "moth holes" in Erik's shirts and sweaters, tearing out the bottom of Erik's pants' pockets... It was a slow game he was playing, one meant to make Erik go crazy mad, and if the metal bender's generally irritable mood of late was any indication, Sean was succeeding.

After about three weeks, Sean upped his game. Whenever Erik would set something down – a cup of tea, a book, a pen – Sean would move it just so, or set it on Erik's other side. He began taking the left shoe of every pair that Erik owned until the mutant's closet consisted of only right shoes. He stole a syringe from Hank's lab and injected hot sauce into Erik's food when he wasn't looking. He stashed sushi in the air vent in Erik's room – the smell was fatal after just two days, and Erik destroyed his room searching for the source of the stench. Then, to top off the month of pranks, Sean placed an advertisement in a few local newspapers for a premium male escort service under Erik's number.

Six hours after the ad was published, Erik shattered his phone out of pure rage.

Yeah, Sean was a natural in the prank business.

After that, Erik and the others began to grow suspicious regarding Erik's unfortunate string of bad luck. Sean had to carefully guard his thoughts around the professor, and the redheaded mutant knew he couldn't keep the gag up for much longer, deciding to finish his prank assault in style.

"Hey," he smirked to himself as he set up the final stages of his grand finale. "Go big or go home."

Sean grinned devilishly at his handiwork and joined his friends in the game-room downstairs. Now, all he had to do was wait and enjoy.

~xXx~

Erik concluded his workout with another fifty push-ups, swiped a towel across his sweaty face, and slunk off toward the bathroom. His body ached with a familiar pleasure, his muscles loose and yet tight all at once. He hadn't had a work out that good in ages. His shower steaming hot, Erik bathed himself slowly, washing away the day's filth before washing his hair. He scrubbed his scalp, and as he rinsed his hair, Erik was quit alarmed by the bright blue ribbons running down is chest. "Wha...?"

He brought his hands to his face to examine the blue liquid, finding that his palms and fingers were stained the same blue tint. "What the hell?" he growled, snatching his shampoo bottle off the shelf. The bottle dripped bright blue and smelled of chemicals. "Fucking hell."

Slamming off the water, Erik yanked back the shower curtain and screamed as if he were on fire. For weeks, he had thought he was losing his mind. That he was going mad. The missing shoes. The misplaced books and car keys. The foul stench. Charles and the others had assured him that he was simply having a bad spell, but he had known, and now he had fucking proof.

Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

Storming out of the shower, Erik made it all of two steps before he slipped and crashed to the floor. "Ugh," he groaned, fighting the floor – slick with some oil of sorts – attempting to scramble to his feet. He reached for the doorknob to give him leverage only to jerk away in disgust at the minty goo now covering his fingertips. The handle had been coated in toothpaste. "Motherfuck."

The doorbell rang again.

Slipping all the while, Erik managed to pull himself up using the sink and snagged a towel off the rack. Grumbling angrily to himself, he hastily swathed his waist and winced when the doorbell rang once more. "Will someone get the damned door!"

The ringing continued as Erik stomped downstairs. Apparently, no one else was going to answer the damn thing, and if that ruddy ringing didn't stop, he was going to explode. Erik – in his towel, bruised from his fall, with slick skin and fluorescent blue hair, all red-faced and furious – wrenched open the door and bellowed, "What?!"

"Mr. Lensherr?"

"Oh, bleeding hell."

Two Jehovah's Witnesses stood on the stoop, Bibles in hand. They poorly concealed their surprise at Erik's current state and forced awkward smiles. "We're from the Kingdom Hall on Groveton. We received your message and are here to talk to you about the word of God."

Erik slammed the door without so much as a second glance.

Giggles and laughter erupted behind him. Erik spun to face the children, their faces pink with amusement at his expense. Then, Alex was all "Nice hair," and before Erik could strangle him, Charles appeared in the foyer. "Good God, Erik, what-"

Hackles rising, Erik ignored his friend in lieu of growling, "Which one of you is responsible?"

"Now you couldn't possibly think that one of us...?" Hank looked downright offended, Raven scoffing, "As if we're stupid enough to mess with you."

At this point, the metal bender was seeing red and was two seconds from homicidal, so Charles used his telepathy to calm Erik down, and it wasn't all that different from the night in the water when they first met. Only this time, instead of snatching away from the hand Charles' rested on his shoulder, Erik leaned into it. Suddenly, he felt exhausted. And very naked.

"Yes, perhaps we should put some clothes on," Charles drawled in his ear, a teasing smile playing at the telepath's lips. "Love what you've done with your hair, by the way."

And as Erik and Charles turned to leave, Sean grinned at the couple, finally revealing his sweet revenge. "Hey, you know what this reminds me of? That one time...when you pushed me off that satellite dish-"

"Banshee!"

Title: Midnight Snack

Prompt: Ice cream. Midnight.

Pairing(s); None.

Features: Raven, Alex, Sean, & Hank

Word Count: 1,000

Midnight Snack

It took Sean twelve minutes to find the kitchen. Scratching his mass of tangled curls, he pushed the swinging door open to find Raven sitting at the table, a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream in one hand, a spoon in the other. On the table in front of her were three other spoons. Sean felt a lazy smile tug at his mouth. He swaggered forward, moving around the table to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, yawning widely. "You expecting someone?"

"Yes," the blonde beauty replied with a small laugh. She took another bite, and then elaborated around a mouthful of ice cream, "You."

"Me?" His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline, and Sean gave a shit-eating grin. Raven rolled her eyes at the young, Irish mutant, scoffing, "Not just you. The others, too. They'll be here soon. My first night here, I couldn't sleep either. There's just...something about this place. It's too big."

Sean took the seat across from her and propped his feet on a chair, ankles crossing, his mix-matched green and yellow socks contrasting nicely against the dark furniture and his stock red hair. He slid one of Raven's extra spoons to the edge of the table and pushed it until it teetered off the side. Lifting his hand high, he brought his palm down to slap the spoon. It catapulted into the air, flipped twice, and landed in his lap.

Snickering, Raven slid the ice cream toward her new roommate. "Eat up. It's starting to melt."

Hoisting his spoon like a weapon, Sean conceded with a "Don't mind if I do," before downright assaulting the tub of ice cream. Sean was easily on his way to devouring the entire tub of ice cream when Raven laughed, grinning, "Whoa! Slow down! Save some for Hank and Alex."

Sean conceded her point and surrendered the dessert back over to her. Licking his spoon clean, he began to balance the silver utensil on the very tip of his nose. "So, do you come here often, or...?"

As Charles' little sister had so instinctively predicted, Hank rolled into the kitchen thirty minutes later, his white lab coat and coke-bottle glasses absurdly askew. Raven and Sean met the mad scientist with mirrored grins. Sean wiggled his toes at the young genius. "Late night, Dr. Frankenstein?"

"I, uh, I-" Hank leaned against the counter top, arms crossed awkwardly over his chest. "-wanted to get settled in the lab before we begin testing tomorrow." His voice picked up excitedly as he added, "You know, for a private lab, Charles has a surprisingly sophisticated-"

Sean cut him off with a lazy wave of his freckley, pale hand. "Yeah, yeah, we're sure it's spectacular. Ice cream?"

Raven waggled a spoon in the young genius' direction, sing-songing. "It's mint chocolate chi-ip."

Hank's lips pulled into a sheepish, somewhat sleepy half-grin as he took the proffered utensil with surprisingly little protest. Or not surprising, when one considers that said utensil was proffered by the prettiest girl that Hank had ever seen, much less actually talked to.

Alex was the last to stroll in that evening. There were red rings around the teenager's eyes and a crazy tightness in his shoulders. The kitchen stilled when he entered the room, and even Sean seemed to sense the need for delicacy. The redhead said nothing, but kicked out the chair next to his and shot a warm smile at his new friend.

"What are you all doing up?" Alex's voice was raw and oddly authoritative, like an older brother scolding his younger siblings for staying up passed their bedtime. Alex swallowed thickly and stepped back as if to turn and leave. It was Hank who shrugged and said, "It's a new place...adjusting will take some time, but...we don't have to get used to it alone."

The cause of Alex's apparent torment was no mystery. The terrifying image of Darwin's molten face still lingered fresh in all of their minds. It was only the night before, after all, that the teenagers had been cooped up in the CIA's off-sight base and had lost their new friend to the mutant terrorist known as Sebastian Shaw. It had been obvious then, as it was obvious now, that Alex blamed himself for Darwin's death. It was with Alex's gleaming red beams that Shaw had ended Darwin's life, but the other mutants knew that was not Alex's doing. Alex and Darwin had been trying to help. They had been trying to protect the others—Raven, Hank, and Sean—and save Angel from making a terrible mistake. It wasn't Alex's fault that Shaw was more powerful than they could ever image, or that Shaw chose to end Darwin's life for taking a stand and fighting against them.

Raven was just glad that Shaw hadn't decided to kill Alex, too. Or kill them all, for that matter.

"Yeah, well," Alex croaked at Hank's verbal olive branch. "You've seen what I can do. Maybe it's better for me to be alone."

Raven frowned softly. "Darwin's death wasn't your fault, Alex. He wouldn't want you to do this to yourself." She slid the last spoon across the table. "Come on. We saved you the last bit."

Alex shuffled his feet. "I don't eat ice cream," he said lamely.

"Everybody eats ice cream!" Sean exclaimed, and even Hank looked baffled. Raven pointed at the final spoon, tilting her chair backwards, her feet dangling delicately above the tiled floor. "You know, I met Charles for the first time in this very room...have a seat and maybe I'll tell you about."

The blonde boy scoffed. "Who says I want to know?"

Three expectant faces peered at him. A beat passed. Feet shuffled. Hank coughed. Sean stifled a giggle. And then Alex sighed and crossed the kitchen, plopping down into the chair like it was the most arduous task he'd ever been mandated in his life. He snatched up the spoon and stole the pint of sugary desert.

"Okay, fine. Talk."

Is it time for Apocalypse to come out yet? I'm in desperate need of a Fassbender/McAvoy fix.

Review? Maybe? Pleeeeeeease?