Little Things
XMFC. Cherik. PG13. 1600+ words (for this chapter). AU. Shark!Erik & Lab rat!Charles (with their powers eventually). Crack/humor. Angst. Non graphic experiments. Possible violence and gore.

-o-

III: Humans

Humans were many things, Charles thought.

They were arrogant.

An image of a blond teenage youth crossed his mind then. The blond had considered himself tough because he'd lived such a large part of his life alone, locked in juvenile detention. They'd given him Charles, thinking that somehow taking care of a pet would rehabilitate him, but in the end the boy hadn't taken care of him at all, didn't read the instructions, couldn't even deliver Charles' food even though it'd been handed to him, just because the boy had thought that they were just mocking him, sending him a pet— seriously, what the fuck, the blond would say.

They were stupid.

Another boy, a redhead, reckless or careless—honestly, Charles had been nervous about that one. He'd leave Charles in his room all the time and barely played with him and would hang out with his friends and when he'd come back, he'd listen to all these rock songs, screaming his lungs out and good god, did he have such a voice. Any louder and the boy would probably break the windows.

They were ignorant.

A girl this time, blonde and delicate. She had taken care of him well actually, fed him right at least, but then she was quite peculiar herself, had an obsession with diamonds and she'd decorate his cage with said diamonds. Sometimes, she'd even bring these cute little dresses, fit just for his size and don it all on him and why oh why had she thought that was a good idea?

Yes, they were all these things, Charles thought, as he settled down, curling around himself and getting ready to rest and perhaps sleep, his tail looping around his body as though to protect himself. But, Charles knew, while the humans were all these things, they were not— at least, not intentionally — evil, maliciously evil.

When he'd told the shark about the people taking good care of him, those three in particular were the exceptions to the rule.

And yet, there was Sebastian Shaw.

Oh, Charles had no idea what to think about Shaw. His last owner, who went by the name of Hank McCoy, had been forced to give him to Shaw due to some meddling in his line of work. But Charles—he was a very old rat, who'd already seen too much and perhaps he thought himself a bit arrogant too, assuming that in the end, it would all blow over soon and he could go back to moving from one home to the next, outliving each of his owners.

Personally, he had no idea why he lived so long. That shark was right. He should have been dead by now, but if there was anything to be learned from life, it was that nature was a very interesting, strange creature herself, providing him with a way to survive. But then, that was why the scientists had gotten hold of him in the first place, trying to discover something in his blood.

A means to live longer.

Immortality.

So no, Shaw wasn't the first one to jab things at him, to run tests, to take a sample of his blood, but he was the most persistent and excruciatingly painful about it. Charles could get used to the pain. It was easy to numb himself. But it was never easy trying to cope with the side effects. Apparently, he could read minds now. So, he supposed, judging from what he'd seen on the TV shows, on the cartoons that some of his previous owners had watched, he was, well, technically a telepathic lab rat.

Which was quite a useful thing.

If he had to be honest with himself, he'd already known about this, just hints of it subconsciously, having a six sense of self-awareness, but he'd been keeping his thoughts to himself for a while, trying to calm down. Before, in the beginning of everything, from the first moment he'd been born, all he cared about was surviving and food and if he had a mate at the time, making baby rats.

But now, he was stuck in this new rat cage, with a shark lurking beneath the floors and though the shark —really, he should just call him Erik —seemed to know his duties, guarding Shaw's mansion by feeding on its many, many intruders, he doubted that Erik was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. The creature was a shark, born and bred to be a predator; his instinct was to kill.

(Erik had yet to kill Shaw, however. It was something that Charles was grateful about.)

It didn't seem to stop Charles from reaching out to him though, at least accidentally. He'd been testing himself, just thinking, trying to imagine the mind like the mazes he'd scurried in and out of and was pleasantly surprised, but also confused that it had actually worked.

Thinking out loud. Those words described what he'd done the best and he was all the more horrified at the thought of Shaw might knowing about this, hence the words he'd spoken with the residential shark. He'd meant it all, kept his mind as clear as an untouched pond to keep his thoughts out of everybody's heads because he didn't know just how much control he had over it. It wasn't something he could risk.

But what was his plan now—did he even have a plan in the first place? If anything, that shark didn't seem too keen to be in the mansion. Obviously, the shark, being born in the ocean, in the wild had a different perspective on the humans. If they were to escape Shaw, how would they go about it?

So far, he could only read minds and talk to Erik with it. He could probably talk to the humans as well, but Shaw was the only person to ever visit them. If Erik were to stop mauling at those so-called intruders, then he could probably test himself again and see whether he could do anything else with this new ability of his.

He liked the sound of that. With that thought, he closed his eyes and finally went to sleep—well, he tried to sleep, with a shiver.

It was going to be a long, long night.

-o-

'You look like you didn't get any sleep at all,' Erik said with a snort. 'Did you even eat?'

Charles was leaning on the little white bars of his cage, gripping the bars with his paws. He shook his head at the shark staring up at him. Truly, Erik was such a scary, scary thing. Big body. Large mouth. Big sharp pointy teeth. He remembered what he'd thought about yesterday. Those teeth could shred him to pieces. But Charles wasn't afraid. It might have something to do with his eyes. Those strange eyes. They weren't black.

They were as green as the sea.

'It was cold,' Charles said with an irritated sniff. 'And I wasn't that hungry.'

The shark stared at him again, not at all amused. That was another thing. He didn't know creatures like Erik could be so… concerned, but Charles was flattered just the same. He decided to change the subject and focused on Erik instead. 'So how did it go with stalking Shaw?'

The shark looked disgruntled. 'It was stupid. He was looking over things like the usual.' There was a moment of silence. Erik narrowed those green eyes at him. 'But have you decided whether or not you're going to let him kill you?'

Charles made an annoyed chattering noise at him. Erik looked like he would have laughed. Hmm. He hadn't been thinking about that. He'd been thinking about many things, about the humans, about the side effects of Shaw's experiments on him, but he supposed that in a way, he had made a decision.

'I am not going to let him kill me,' Charles said stubbornly, releasing his grip on the bars and standing on his hind legs. 'But I don't know if escaping is that simple.'

'Well, you're the lab rat,' Erik said, his mental voice dripping with sarcasm. 'You'll figure something out.'

'What do you think?' Charles asked.

'I have my limitations,' Erik said. 'The entire underground floors of this mansion are the only places I can swim in. I doubt they lead to the ocean. I don't even know how far we are from the ocean.'

'We're quite far, I think,' Charles said with a sigh. He held onto the bars again, a little more tightly than he should this time, feeling a strange sense of loss. Erik was right. He didn't know what it was like to live in the wild. It sounded dangerous, but alluring all the same. He'd been too used to people handling him. What would it be like to live freely?

'So now what?' Erik asked again. There was a sudden movement below and Charles had caught a glimpse of his long tail whipping in impatience.

'Try to let the intruders in for a change,' Charles said with mirth.

'But that's my dinner,' Erik said as though that explained everything.

'I think you know as well as I do that there are reasons that Shaw has intruders.'

'Of course,' Erik said and for a moment, the shark turned to the side as though to check for something before looking up at Charles again. 'Whatever he's doing in this place, it's not right.'

'So let them in,' Charles said, trying to reassure him. 'And we'll see what I can do.'

'Fine,' Erik said. 'If it backfires, it will be on you.'

'Must you always be so— you are one pessimistic shark,' Charles said, mildly amused now, wrinkling his whiskers.

Erik snapped his jaws at him in reply, but Charles could see the same emotion he felt in those eyes, gleaming lightly.

To be continued?

-o-

A/n: Lots of things happening next chapter, lots and lots of things. It'll be longer, hopefully.

Yes, the cameos - Alex, Sean and Emma.

I was curious so I did some more research on pet rats. Apparently, they don't have to be nocturnal since they're domesticated rats.