Hello thar! So this took a bit longer and is not as wordy as last time and also there's no porn, but some RL stuff came up (mostly my partner wanting to actually see me again sometime) and anyway this is definitely still being worked on and I hope this part is interesting! It's sort of a breather from the intensity of the last few chapters, and gives me a chance to flesh out the world and characters a little more.
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Charles was shocked when Raven come through his door looking as if she had just moments ago stepped from his memories, pale and blonde and beautiful. Although he had never considered her natural blue shape unattractive, he had also never really looked at her as being a potentially sexual creature whilst she was covered in scales; in fact, for both their sakes he had tried as hard as possible to not regard her in any manner approaching sexual, especially after Raven had entered her teenaged years shortly after himself and come to the inevitable realization that they were, in fact, not brother and sister.
Since then the scales had always seemed like an extra barrier, but it surprised Charles to discover that as he had spent more and more time around Raven as she really was, the blue had become secondary to the woman beneath, and it was unsettling to see her now wearing the smooth skin and loose curls Raven had adopted all those years ago.
Raven, in turn, paused mid-step upon seeing Charles. "You're sitting," she observed. "I mean, not in your chair."
Charles set his book—Raven's book, actually, on loan—down on the arm of the couch and showed her a softly triumphant smile. "So I am," he stated. "Would you care to sit next to me?"
Cautious glee crept and then sprang onto Raven's face, and she all but jumped into the spot next to him, hesitating for a fraction of a second before leaning their shoulders together. "I missed this," she confided, after a moment of revelatory silence.
A grin pulled at Charles' lips and he surrendered to it, ducking his head. "It's just like old times, isn't it? I could grab something boring to read for you."
"No, I just woke up a few hours ago; I'd rather stay awake." Raven peered at him curiously. "I don't usually see you from this angle—did you know you need a haircut?"
Charles tried in vain to smooth down the tangle of hair that had, in the past few weeks, begun to pile up at the nape of his neck. "Yes, I've heard as much, thank you. I don't know who to ask here; I'm half-worried whoever I go to will shear it all off."
Raven laughed in disbelief. "Why would anyone do that? You have beautiful hair!"
"Well, I was rather hoping it was dashing, or handsome, but thank you," Charles replied. "It's just that, oh, this is technically a military base, after all, and they do seem to favor their buzz-cuts around here."
Raven hugged his arm tightly and said, "Oh, don't worry, Charles, I'll protect your hair! I know of at least half a dozen girls who'd love to fondle it." Then she laughed at Charles' flatly unamused glare. "Honestly, you and your hair—I can promise you at least one of them has actually been paid money to wield scissors before."
"Where those scissors specifically used on hair?" Charles asked, doubtfully.
"Yes," Raven replied, shoving her brother away from her. "Quit moping; it makes your chin wrinkle up funny."
Charles immediately assumed a more dignified expression. "I would of course appreciate it if you would ask," he conceded.
Only a tiny grain of smugness made it into Raven's smile. "That a—hold on, is that Magneto's cape?"
Grimacing, Charles didn't need to look up in order to answer, but he glanced regardless to where the cape hung from the lowest rung of the coat rack. When Erik had left the previous night, he'd left Charles wrapped in the garment with the promise that he would come back for it that morning. He had yet to arrive.
"Yes," Charles responded, sincerely hoping he wasn't blushing. "He must have forgotten it."
Raven raised her eyebrows. "Magneto forgot something? That's new."
"Mm, quite," Charles mused. "Say, I've been meaning to ask, but you and Beast, you never got… Together, did you?"
Raven laughed. "What gave it away?" she teased.
"Well, it's just that you were so interested in each other back at the mansion—my mansion. I thought maybe since you were both here and seem to enjoy each other's company…" Charles trailed off, fishing for an explanation and distraction.
"Oh, you mean, why aren't we going at it like bunnies now?" Charles cringed and Raven snorted in a very unladylike manner. "You really are turning into an old coot, you know that? The last time Beast and I batted eyelashes at each other was five years ago, if you recall."
"I also seem to remember that you were very delicate with each other on the, well, during our altercations," Charles countered with a stiffness that was definitely not coot-like at all.
"Battlefield romances never work out," his adopted sister pointed out pragmatically.
"I was also going to mention that while you might not be batting your eyelashes…" Charles began suggestively.
Raven finished his sentence for him: "…Beast is. Yes, I've noticed, poor guy. Not that I don't appreciate it, just, well, you can't expect that an attractive young woman like me has remained single all these years, can you?"
"Oh," Charles remarked, blinking. "Congratulations, then, to the lucky man."
Perhaps he was still unused to filtering thoughts after being deprived for so long, or perhaps Charles' senses were still touching on Raven's mind after his previous activities there, but either way he was caught off guard by the rush of wrongdenialno that flashed through Raven's head. While her expression didn't change, Charles felt himself blush as he glanced away and he knew that he'd revealed himself.
"Sorry," Charles muttered, "I didn't know."
Raven's lips were in a smile, but her eyes were wide with worry. "What have I told you about looking in my head?"
"I'm still a little rusty," Charles protested. "I don't, it doesn't bother me, you know. Who you date. I'm not that old-fashioned."
"I don't think you can call it an old-fashioned frame of mind just yet," Raven told him, but she had relaxed, just a little bit, readjusting her hands on Charles' arm as if not quite so prepared to flee.
"Maybe not," Charles agreed, "but you could have told me. I'm your brother, remember, and a telepath—if anyone would understand it'd be me."
"You never said anything about it either way," Raven objected. "Being a telepath doesn't necessarily make someone understanding. It just… Wasn't important, at the time."
"I would have understood," Charles insisted quietly. It was true that he'd never really voiced a position on sexuality, other than his vigorous pursuit of coeds; his mutation allowed him enough information on human sexual proclivities to make Kinsey furious with envy, but it had seemed a solved mystery to the telepath. Sure, he'd wondered why men and women could be attracted to members of the same sex in light of evolution, but he'd never doubted that their feelings were genuine, and Charles didn't believe in the cosmically objective morality other people used to justify their discrimination.
Charles had never felt the need to involve himself in that particular injustice—beyond his usual attempts to treat everyone nicely—but now he rather wished he had. "How is public perception now?" he asked, trying not to seem too stiflingly sympathetic.
"Oh, well, you know, these days people mostly just hate immigrants, but it's getting better. Magneto's really pushed the idea of men and women being equal, which helps, and there was that thing with the Spanish minister, but you know how people are—when things get rough, they turn to God, and these days God can be pretty unforgiving," Raven explained. "I just have to be careful who I tell."
"I see," Charles commented. He knew about the reactionary conservatives, of course: those people who wanted to be mutant and proud, but didn't want any part of racial or gender equality. Many of them had taken that to an extreme, insisting that their mutations were proof that evolution had meant them to be superior to their black neighbor, or to their wife. The idea of evolution having any purpose—much less one so specific—bemused Charles to no end, and he could only imagine how those views would themselves mutate once the lack of science education in the world at large made itself felt.
Raven regarded Charles apprehensively before inquiring, "Forgive me if I'm off the mark, here, but I thought… Are you and Magneto involved with each other?"
If Charles hadn't been blushing before, he certainly was now; he stammered, a little, because Raven always seemed to know when he was lying, and instead chose to obfuscate a little with, "It's not like that."
"Oh," Raven remarked, although it was less the sort of "oh" someone said when they were wrong and more the kind they would use when they were sorry to hear the wrong answer. "It's just, the way you talk about each other sometimes…"
Charles wondered what Erik had to say about him. "Well, we're still… Friends, but we have our differences and it can be exasperating. Say, can I meet your—girlfriend? Partner? Can I meet your partner sometime?"
"Oh." This was yet another version of the sound, Charles observed, as Raven continued, "She's Brotherhood, actually; that's mostly why Beast disapproves, by the way, not because he's all that hung up on the woman thing. Also everything she says is potentially classified? That is, I don't think you can, anytime soon. I'm sure you'll be able to eventually though!"
"Well," Charles began, taken aback slightly. "Can I know her name at least? How long have you been together?"
"Her name's Destiny," Raven told him, her eyes strangely human as they wrinkled with soft affection. "I met her—oh, almost back at the beginning, I think. It wasn't long after that when we—"
There was a knock at the door, interrupting her, and before Charles could call out it swung open. Erik had half a grin on his face before he noticed Raven and froze; likewise, she stopped mid-sentence and tensed in the way Charles knew meant she was considering shifting her shape.
"Magneto," Raven greeted, cautiously. "I didn't know you were coming over."
"Yes," Erik agreed, keeping his wariness mostly contained. "I visit sometimes."
"Charles told me you forgot your cape," Raven said, smiling with an almost aggressive friendliness.
Erik glanced over at the coat rack, gestured, and the clasp of the cape found its way into his hand. "That I did," he acknowledged. "You look human. Did Charles put you up to this?" He trained his gaze on the telepath, scrutinizing him. Charles hadn't even done anything and he already felt guilty; more urgently, however, his heart seemed to have sped up when Erik looked at him and watching the other man spin his cape up over his broad shoulders was far more interesting than it ought to have been. There was a certain deliberateness there, an economy of motion that appealed to Charles.
Meanwhile, Raven turned a gentle shade of pink. "No, it's a—an experiment, I guess, of Beast's. About how mutants treat people with more and less obvious mutations."
Frowning a little, Erik ceased glaring at Charles and nodded thoughtfully. "And what have you found, so far?"
Clearly her throat delicately, Raven replied, "Not much, yet, but I just started this morning."
"You'll have to tell me the results once you're out of that inferior skin," Erik stated. His eyes met Charles', just as intense as before, and the telepath wondered whether Erik could be any more obvious in front of Raven. "The meeting got pushed back to later in afternoon. We won't be able to play chess tonight, I'm afraid."
"All right," Charles acquiesced. "I'll see you then?"
He was essentially dismissing Erik from his quarters with that, which was a bit risky, but the other man nodded. "Mystique," he said, acknowledging Raven. "Charles."
Then he left, leaving the two siblings to stare at each other awkwardly.
Exasperated and wistful, Raven asked, "Are you sure you're not involved?"
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Charles stared sullenly out from his window and reassessed his earlier prediction.
He was probably going to end up having sex with Erik. Charles had reconciled this with himself, had prepared himself for that eventuality and had even volunteered. Everything was going to plan, so far, except that where Charles had envisioned himself giving in with stoic silence and calm surrender, he was instead rather more… Involved.
It was becoming increasingly clear that he could not do this and remain aloof. Charles couldn't very well back out, as he still had an agenda to pursue, but he desperately needed to come up with a plan in case he climbed into bed with Erik and enjoyed it.
Maybe it's not a bad thing to mix pleasure and work, some part of Charles' mind whispered, and he crushed it furiously because that was a very bad idea. For all of Charles' past hedonism; for all that he knew that most men who loitered outside the park washrooms weren't actually attracted to other men; and for all that Charles wasn't in this situation by choice…
Charles could not share something like that with someone without becoming attached, and there was a possibility that he would have to be very unattached indeed to do what needed to be done.
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