Come Home (Cherik fanfiction)

Chapter Fourteen (Slightly Mature)

Charles

He didn't mean to; he honestly didn't.

They had continued talking, just like the day before, until it got dark. And, just like the day before, they didn't argue. Not meaningfully, anyways. They didn't talk about politics or foreign policy or civil rights or wars or anything. True, they didn't have the immpending doom that was Sabastian Shaw hanging above their heads, so the conversations were bound not to hold as much weight.

But Erik was the only one who allowed him to feel fire.

Hank was a good person to hold intelligent conversations with. Ones of logic and science and health. He made sure all of his words had reason, but they held the same sterile, eucalyptus cynicism of his mind.

Alex spoke with raw emotions; in reds and fire. Charles had only had a handful of deep conversations with him since they had been living together and he knew Alex had a pretty rough shell, but it only hid some of the most beautiful things inside. There was no denying. But in the same way was Alex faulted: his emotions came out whenever he spoke. There wasn't much room for taking new views or ideals in.

He wasn't one for big discussions.

And Sean was too shy to get much out of. He was in his head a lot and didn't like to be disturbed and Charles repsected that so he left him alone.

Admirable self-restraint, that's what he told Raven. He had held himself back this whole time, dodging question after personal, probing question about his life and Raven and the mansion and his family.

It started with the whole Maus comment, and the only way Charles could defend himself was to say that he had always been short and to say that his father had always been short.

And Erik would have probably let it alone at that.

So would have Charles.

But then Erik had broken out the scotch and, over the brim of his glass, he added, "Well, at least what I remember of him." Which led Erik to ask, obviously surprised yet hesitant and careful, what had happened to his parents.

And Charles, the stoic bastard that he was, let out a brooding sigh and said, "Didn't really have any to begin with."

And immediately, he wanted to cut his tongue out.

Erik crinkled his eyebrows with obvious confusion behind them. "You didn't tell me you were adopted."

And as he downed the rest of his glass with a slow, stalling sip, his paranoid: "Oh my god why is this happening?" turned into a careless, "What the hell? How could this get any worse?"

He was always an easy drunk.

"I wasn't." he said, pouring himself another glass from the bottle on the tray. "It may have felt like it time to time but I wasn't."

Erik took his own pull. "But Raven was?" he asked, putitng his feet back up on the edge of the bed.

Charles's vision was starting to get fuzzy around the edges as the rest of the second glass drained into his throat. "Well that's a completely different story. Not mine to tell."

And it just went on like that until he couldn't remember anything.

At some point in the night, a little clarity but even smaller control slammed its way into Charles's mind.

"I can undress people with my mind. Did you know that?" Charles slurred out at some point in the night.

The logical side of him had been drowned out by around his third glass and now he was finishing his fifth, which wasn't beginning to taste the same as the others.