Chapter Text
Angel was the first to leave. Two or three weeks after Cuba, she cornered Erik in the kitchen, where he sat with his second cup of coffee of the morning.
“I’m leaving,” she said, pouring herself a cup. “I’ll tell the professor later today.”
“Okay.” Erik wasn’t sure why she was telling him. The kids tended to get along best with each other, and Charles was the one in charge - it was his house.
“Why are we still here?” Her wings were still folded onto her back, but as she jumped up to sit on the counter, she seemed to float. “Shaw’s dead. The CIA doesn’t remember us. What are we doing?”
Erik thought for a bit about that. He’d wondered about it himself, and in these early days after Cuba, he found himself thinking about it more and more. There had always been a goal to his life, a steady task of hunting down Shaw and his associates, the path of revenge taking him across the world and never leaving any time for… whatever this was. Playing chess with Charles and trying to learn to cook nice things just because they were nice, going to the movie theater with Raven and Alex and Angel and Sean not just to protect them but to actually enjoy a film. Waking up next to Charles in the morning rested and content.
“We’re living, I think.”
Angel looked unconvinced. “Well, I wanna live out there. It’s nice here and all, but it’s too nice, you know?”
Erik nodded. “It doesn’t quite feel like real life.”
“‘Cause it’s not. Living up here in this castle and shit. That’s why I’m going back to LA.”
“LA is far away.”
“LA is where I live.” Angel’s gaze was pointed, a dare for Erik to disagree. “Janos is coming with me.”
Janos, one of Shaw’s crew, had defected to their side in the middle of their fight on the beach. He didn’t speak much, and nobody knew much of anything about him, but he seemed to have been terrified of Shaw and looking for a way out. Erik could understand that.
“With you?” Erik echoed curiously.
Angel hunched her shoulders a little and screwed up her face. “Yes.”
Erik raised his eyebrows and made a hmmm noise. “Okay.” Janos hadn’t gotten along well with most of the kids due to his having helped Shaw try to kill them, but he spent a lot of time with Angel. As far as Erik could tell, Janos still barely spoke when he was with her, but at least he looked calmer. “Stay safe,” he said.
“I can take care of myself,” Angel said, clicking her tongue. “I’ve got pretty good aim now.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Erik said with a chuckle. The last time he had seen Angel practicing, she’d nearly hit him. It was only Charles’s swift assistance with the garden hose that kept Erik’s shoes from catching fire.
“Shut up.”
“What do we do now?” Erik asked Charles that night over their game of chess. Angel had left that afternoon, after Charles extracted a promise that she would visit them, or maybe just make a phone call every now and then.
“What do you mean?”
Erik thought for a moment. The fire crackled peacefully in the fireplace behind them, and rain hit the windows. “How long does everyone stay here? What do we do with our lives?”
Charles leaned forward in his chair to move his chess piece. His mind was, as always, entwined with Erik’s, and right now Erik could feel the gentle hum of Charles’s concern. “Do you want them to leave?”
“No.” He never wanted to leave this moment.
“Then they don’t have to.”
“You brought us together for a reason,” Erik said. He isn’t really suspicious of Charles, but there’s never been a time in his life where he could have something as nice as this and not have it taken away. “That reason is gone. Is there something you still want from them?” From us?
“Of course not,” Charles said, looking repulsed at the thought. “But I won’t kick them out. Where would they go?”
“Tell them that.” Erik looked at Charles. The chessboard in front of him, the firelight illuminating his face and his ornate chair. Everything about Charles looked like money, and Erik was so glad that, of all the things Charles could do with his wealth, he had decided to help those kids. To help him. “They’re worried.” I was worried. “We broke Alex out of prison, Charles. Make sure he knows he never has to go back.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even think about that.”
“I know.”
“I’ll speak to them in the morning,” Charles decided. “You know that applies to you as well. You are welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
“Yes, because I thought you might kick me out,” Erik said dryly, projecting various memories of him and Charles kissing.
Charles flushed. “I mean it. Even if you were to decide you didn’t want to continue our relationship, you would always be welcome here.”
Erik thought the house was big enough that, if that happened, they could both comfortably live there without seeing each other for years. But he still felt so much for Charles, he couldn’t imagine purposely leaving him. “Lucky for you, I’m enjoying our relationship,” Erik said with a small smile. He moved his knight. “Check.”
“Damn,” Charles said, surveying the board. “You distracted me!” He moved a bishop to take Erik’s knight.
“I win fair and square,” Erik said, moving his queen. “Checkmate.”
To say Alex was happy when he heard the news would be an understatement. He thanked Charles three times, each time looking awed. Erik could relate. That Charles would take a kid he didn’t know out of jail, feed and house him, and expect nothing was shocking. That he would take in more than one was unbelievable.
And yet the house remained almost as full as it had been before Cuba. The only vacancy was Angel, and she had phoned from LA as soon as she and Janos arrived. She couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving, she told Charles, but she promised to be back for Christmas.
Alex used the phone to call his parents that afternoon. They weren’t on the best of terms, but from what the others could gather, they seemed relieved that Alex was no longer in prison. After he hung up, Alex retreated to the bunker and blew up several piles of junk.
“It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow,” Alex observed the next day. Everyone clustered around the TV, piled on the couches or, in Sean’s case, lying sprawled out on the floor. The weather was on, and a little turkey animation floated above the next day’s high temperature. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“What should Thanksgiving feel like?” Raven asked with mild interest. She lay upside down on an armchair, head hanging off the seat and legs kicked over the back.
“I dunno. Busy. Usually my grandparents would come over and the kitchen would be full all week.”
“We could fly you home, if you want,” Charles offered.
Alex seemed to draw into himself. “I… don’t think that would be the best idea. Thanks, though.”
“I’d completely forgotten about the holiday,” Charles said. “Does anyone else want to spend the time with their families?”
A pause.
“I always spent Thanksgiving with my mother,” Armando said. “She passed in March. Nobody else to go back to.”
“Pretty sure the foster home has reported me missing,” Sean said. “They probably wouldn’t be too thrilled if I showed up.”
The only sound for a minute was the news anchor, currently discussing the following day’s football matchups.
“We could do Thanksgiving here,” Charles said. “If people wanted to.”
Hank nodded.
“Yeah,” Alex said.
“Don’t let Charles in the kitchen,” Raven said. “He can burn water.”
“I know how to make a thing or two,” Armando offered, “but Erik is easily the best cook.”
Erik, who had never thought of cooking more than what he needed to survive before moving into the mansion, and who had certainly never cooked a huge, culturally important meal for anyone before, said “I’ve never done Thanksgiving.”
Raven sat up. “Never done it like never cooked for it or like never celebrated?”
“Celebrated.” Raven’s mouth dropped open in shock, so Erik said somewhat defensively, “I’m German. It’s an American holiday.”
“I’m honored you’re spending your first Thanksgiving with us,” Charles said.
Erik rolled his eyes on instinct, though he was genuinely touched. “Aren’t you English? Why do you do Thanksgiving?”
“I grew up here,” Charles said at the same time as Raven added “But I’m not.”
“He keeps the accent just to be posh,” Raven fake-whispered.
Erik laughed, and Armando said “I think there was a turkey recipe in one of those cookbooks,” and Erik thought that, aside from his long-dead family, there was no one he would rather be spending this ridiculous holiday with.
He slightly revised that opinion the following day, when he found out that, aside from Armando, everyone else was truly hopeless in the kitchen. For all she had mocked Charles, Erik quickly figured out that allowing Raven around a stove was not any safer of an option. Sean genuinely tried to help, but while chopping bread into cubes for the stuffing, he accidentally sliced off the tip of his pointer finger, which left him with a thick bandage and a large amount of unusable bread cubes.
Armando was in charge of the kitchen, calmly preparing the turkey and directing Alex on what vegetables to chop and Erik on what recipes to follow. Hank poked his head into the kitchen once before excusing himself on account of his blue fur shedding. He returned an hour later with two pies from the grocery store.
By the end of the day, the table was piled high with food and the heat from the kitchen was nearly unbearable.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Armando said, wiping his forehead with the neck of his T-shirt.
Erik raised an eyebrow and wondered why Americans celebrated a holiday that seemed to be so much work. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“We used to go around the table and say something we’re thankful for,” Sean said when everyone had gathered for dinner. His face was red and, though Erik wasn’t the telepath present, he could tell Sean was embarrassed.
“That sounds like a great idea,” Charles said. “Who wants to start?”
There was a moment of silence as everyone tried to think either of something they were thankful for or a way out of saying anything at all. Erik had no idea what he would say. This whole event, sitting around the table with a group of mutants like they were family, was something he’d never had. Shaw was dead and he was still alive, and he had no idea how to say he was thankful for that.
“I’ll go,” Hank said. He was finally getting used to being blue, but he’d been ashamed of his mutation for so long, Erik couldn’t imagine him being thankful for it becoming more obviously visible. “I’m thankful we stopped a nuclear war.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds like we saved the world or something,” Alex said. “I’m thankful I’m not in prison.”
“We kind of did, didn’t we?” Raven pointed out.
“We totally did. CIA’s superhero division, right here!” Sean waved a hand to encompass the group at the table. “I’m thankful… to be a part of something.”
“Me too,” Armando said.
“Me three,” Raven agreed.
“I’m thankful we are all here,” Charles said. “That we were able to come together and harness our mutations.” He sounded so much like the professor everyone accused him of being in that moment that it was almost cheesy, but the emotion behind his words was painfully genuine.
“I’ll drink to that,” Ssean joked, taking a long drink from his apple juice. Charles had absolutely refused to even have wine at the meal on the grounds that some of them were underage, though who exactly that was was up for debate. Sean and Alex certainly, but none of them knew how old Hank was, and though technically Raven was twenty-three, her mutation slowed her ageing, so her body was only twenty.
“Should we start eating then?” Armando asked.
“Erik hasn’t gone yet,” Raven pointed out. “What are you thankful for?”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Charles hurriedly pointed out after Erik didn’t immediately begin speaking.
“No, it’s all right,” Erik said. “I’m thankful for… being here, I suppose. Surviving.”
A hush fell over the table as the fact that they could have died sunk in. For some of the younger mutants, it was the first time this possibility had crossed their minds.
Sean broke the silence by beginning to pile sweet potato casserole on his plate.
“Hey! Don’t take all of that!” Alex said, reaching to take the serving spoon out of Sean’s hand.
“What even is that?” Raven asked, looking at the marshmallow topping curiously. She reached across the table and swiped a finger through Sean’s helping, eyebrows shooting up when she tasted it. “Give me some of that!”
Charles looked pointedly at Sean and Alex, then at the green beans he was scooping onto his plate. “Don’t just eat dessert,” he said, sounding incredibly parental.
“How was your first Thanksgiving?” Charles asked. They were back in their room, having cleaned up after dinner and barely managed to stuff all the leftovers (that, despite Alex, Hank, and Sean eating a seemingly impossible amount, they still had) into the fridge.
Erik sat on the bed, legs folded under him. The dinner had been strangely normal, which unnerved him. He was getting used to this, eating dinner every night with their group of mutants, and he liked it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he worried that this would be taken away, just as every other nice thing had been, but that was an issue for another time.
“It was nice,” he said.
Charles could definitely tell that wasn’t all Erik was thinking, but one of the nice things about Charles, especially compared to other telepaths he had met, was that he wouldn’t pry. Even knowing Erik’s mind was troubled, he would never enter it without Erik’s permission, and even then he preferred to hear Erik say things aloud.
“I’m glad,” he said. “I really am thankful we are all here. That you are here.”
“I’m glad I’m here too,” Erik said quietly, “but sometimes I don’t know why I am.”
“What do you mean?” Charles moved to sit next to Erik, on what had become over the last couple of months Erik’s side of the bed.
“Charles, what you have here feels like a family. I didn’t think that was something I could ever have.” He looked Charles in the eyes and said calmly “I always assumed killing Shaw would kill me.”
After a moment, Charles asked, softly and unsure of himself, “Did you want it to?”
“I think so.”
“Do you wish it had?”
Erik reached out and grabbed Charles’s hand, tangling their fingers together. “No,” he said slowly, “but I miss the certainty of it. Knowing that my life was working towards something, that every action had a purpose, and that there would be nothing afterward.”
“I’ve always thought,” Charles said, letting go of Erik’s hand in favor of placing that arm around his back and pulling him closer, Erik leaning against Charles’s side, Charles leaning on the bed’s headboard, “that part of the joy of living is being able to experience the moments that don’t have purpose. Like sitting around the dinner table tonight.”
“Before I met you, life hadn’t been joyful for a long time.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the sappy one in this relationship,” Charles joked.
“You are.”
“Wherever you go from here, it’s your choice,” Charles said. “Shaw is gone. The rest of your life is only up to you.”
And the government , Erik thought, mind running through the hatred for nearly everything he was. The fear they felt for what they didn’t understand, whether that was his religion, his mutation, or his relationship.
“You’re right,” he said, feeling that familiar anger and purpose start to resurface under his ribcage.