Work Text:
Everyone knew it was coming, and probably sooner rather than later, especially after Sebastian Shaw’s death in that unexpected boating accident.
(“We may have been drinking,” Azazel confessed, casting a look towards the smoking wreck and half-ruined pier.
“We thought everything was fine,” Riptide said, “and then Emma broke out the shots.”
“What an unfortunate accident,” said Emma as she produced a nail file from her corset.)
Still, Hank was unprepared when, on a Wednesday morning, he wandered into a hallway and found the rest of the students gathered in a huddle around a window.
“What are you all looking at?”
“Hank! You’re going to make me miss it!” Raven accused. She broke away and grabbed him by the arm, reeling him in until he was crushed between her and Sean in front of the window. She pointed across the lawn and Hank narrowed his eyes until the small, faraway figures of the professor and Erik came into view. He reached up to adjust his glasses.
“Are they…?”
“That, or we’re all spying on the world’s most overblown stroll in the gardens,” Alex grumbled, tone at odds with the way he’d pressed his nose up against the windowpane.
“They’ve been out there for half an hour,” Armando informed Hank, and Angel shushed them, bouncing on her heels.
“Quiet!” she said, hands clutched under her chin. “I’m trying to lip read!”
Hank and Armando exchange a look over the top of her head; Armando shrugged.
“Guys! Guys, look!” Raven said, gasping and pointing. She and Angel grabbed each other and squeaked, rocking from side to side and almost knocking Sean out of the way. Hank leaned out of the way, and he and Armando ended up looking over Alex’s shoulders while Sean craned his neck and complained about how he couldn’t see.
“Wait,” Alex said, frowning. “Which one’s proposing?”
Hank tilted his head and squinted. “I think they both are,” he said.
“That’s pretty romantic,” Angel said with a sigh, linking her arm through Raven’s. They leaned their heads together, making soft, cooing noises as, on the lawn, Erik and Charles leaned towards each other, noses brushing. (Alex might’ve made a soft, cooing sort of noise, too, but Hank was sure that bringing it up would get him either punched in the jaw or blasted through a wall, and he’d prefer to avoid either of those outcomes.)
Sean finally shoved his way back to the front of the crowd just in time to see Erik and Charles kiss.
“Ugh,” he said, making a face. When Raven and Alex both smacked him upside the head, he said, “What? It’s like watching your parents makeout!”
--
“We’ll have to find a suitable time to tell the children, of course,” Charles was saying when Erik cleared his throat meaningfully. He pointed upwards, and Charles’ gaze followed until his eyes fell upon the window. Through the glass he could see Armando and Hank standing by while Alex and Angel attempted to smother Sean with the curtains.
Raven caught his eye. She gave him a bright grin and two thumbs up.
“Somehow, I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Erik said with a hint of wry amusement. Charles sighed and pressed a thumb to the bridge of his nose.
“Thank goodness for that,” he muttered.
--
“So you’re going to let me help, right?”
“Excuse me?” Charles said, standing in the kitchen doorway and blinking owlishly. Raven was sitting with her laptop open, surrounded by a literal avalanche of bridal magazines. Charles tried not to wonder about where they had all come from.
“Because I’ve always wanted to plan a wedding,” Raven said, and Charles supposed that was true, if by “always”, she meant, “since last week.” She was still talking, though, waving her hands in the air, and her enthusiasm filled the entire room. “And, I mean, I have all these ideas already and I don’t think Erik would mind and I –”
“Raven,” Charles said, holding a hand up. “Isn’t it a bit early to be this… awake?”
“Hank and I split a pot of coffee,” she told him, beaming.
“And I don’t suppose you left any for me,” he muttered, skulking towards the counter.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he murmured, starting a fresh pot.
“So can I?” she asked, and when Charles turned he found she had what Erik had once dubbed the Might I Have a Pony look.
“Can you what?” Charles asked.
“Can I plan your wedding?” Raven asked, eyes ridiculously bright.
“Oh,” Charles said, simply, taking a moment to assess the situation. He hadn’t really thought about the actual wedding yet, still too wrapped in up in the thrill of being engaged to Erik. It would need planning, he supposed, and it wasn’t like Charles had ever planned a wedding before – or been to very many, for the matter. Then again, neither had Raven.
Apparently, he’d been in contemplation for far too long, because Raven’s face had taken on a whole new level of pleading.
“Well, it’s just,” Charles said, waving a hand vaguely in the air. “You’ve never actually planned a wedding before.”
“I planned Hank’s birthday party,” Raven said. “That went pretty well.”
Charles made a faintly distressed noise.
“Considering the property damage,” he muttered under his breath.
“Also, can I be your Maid of Honor?” Raven blurted. Charles felt the sudden need to add something quite a bit stronger to his coffee.
“Raven, I,” he said, broke off, took a moment to collect his thoughts, and continued, “You know I’m not a bride, right?”
“I can be your Best Man,” she offered instantly. Brightly, she added, “I can literally be your Best Man!”
“Oh, please no,” Charles said, rubbing at his forehead. When he looked up, Raven looked crestfallen.
“I just thought,” she said, staring at her hands, “you know, since you’re my family, I could…”
Charles exhaled softly, and took her hands in his own.
“It’s not like that at all,” he said, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m just being slow. It’s all very new, you know. The – wedding.”
“The wedding,” Raven repeated, a grin edging its way onto her face. “Your wedding.”
“Which you, of course, will be involved in,” Charles told her, mirroring her expression. “Because you are my sister, and it’s my wedding, and you can – you can be my Best Lady. How about that?”
“I’m a lady now?” Raven asked, tilting her head. Charles yanked lightly at the same lock of hair.
“You’re always a lady,” he said. “And of course you can help plan the wedding.”
Raven’s face lit up, and Charles took the opportunity to cast a disparaging eye towards the bridal magazines.
“But I don’t think we’ll be needing all of those,” he said. “It’s going to be a small affair. Intimate. Just us – maybe Moira, if she’ll come.”
“Small,” Raven said, nodding. “Intimate. I can do that. No problem.”
Which was why Charles was surprised, to say the least, when two weeks later there were two dozen doves in his living room.
--
“Charles,” Erik said, poised in the doorway. His voice had that calm, threatening tone he got when he was about to launch a small scale invasion, or toss one of the children off something tall again. “You’d better come downstairs.”
Charles glanced up, alarmed. On instinct he did a brief telepathic sweep of the house, just to make sure there were no pressing fires or injuries. There was no pain, he was relieved to find, just this vague tinge of hysteria, peppered with thoughts of – feathers?
He glanced up at Erik. “What’s going on?”
Erik shook his head, lips quirked to the side.
“I think you’d better see this one for yourself,” he said.
--
Raven was waiting by the foot of the stairs, wearing her biggest I Am Your Only Sister and You Love Me, Even If I Did Something Terrible smile and twisting her fingers together. She was several inches taller than normal, Charles noted, an old nervous tic.
“Before you say anything,” she said. “I may -- may -- have gotten just a little bit carried away.”
“Just a little,” Charles repeated.
“Tiny bit,” Raven said, separating her thumb and forefinger by half an inch.
“Well,” Charles said, steeling himself. “Let’s see it, then.”
In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have been so shocked when he walked into the living room and there were birds. Birds in cages, granted, but still. Live, feathered, softly cooing doves. Many of them. In his living room. Hank, Angel and Sean were standing by the cage, while Alex shuffled nervously back and forth. Darwin stood in the opposite doorway, projecting an innocence that probably wasn’t entirely honest.
Charles turned to Raven.
“Just a little bit,” he said dryly. She cringed.
“I know it looks bad,” she hedged, and then pointed at Sean. “He told me to do it!”
“Hey!” Sean said, turning away from where he’d been sticking his fingers in the bird cage. When Charles leveled him a look, he turned pink and said, “I just. You know. At my cousin’s wedding, they released this whole flock of birds right when the bride and groom kissed and I was telling Raven about how I thought it was cool. But she’s still the one that ordered them! And Hank wants to use them as test subjects!”
Hank froze, looking guilty, by the cage. Charles opened his mouth, trying in vain to stop the blame game before it could truly get rolling, but Hank was faster.
“Well, thanks to Alex’s great idea, it’s not like we can return them,” he said.
“Oh, like it’s the first time anybody’s ever impersonated the chief of staff at a bird sanctuary,” Alex said, and Charles decided that he didn’t want to hear anymore.
“So we can’t return the birds,” he surmised. He counted them up quickly. “We have two dozen doves. For good.”
Alex, Hank and Raven all exchanged a look.
“Why would you want to return them? They’re awesome,” Sean said, and he was just asking to be pecked, what with the way he kept putting his face up close to the cage like that. Charles covered his eyes with a hand and tried not to take note of the way amusement practically radiated off of Erik.
“I don’t suppose you have any tips on what to do with two dozen birds,” Charles said to him.
“Not exactly my specialty, Charles,” Erik replied. “I thought I’d let you handle this one.”
“Right,” Charles said. He clapped his hands together. “I am going to go back upstairs now, and by the time I get back downstairs, something will be done with these birds, or there will be extra training from now until the wedding – which, I will note, does not have a date yet. Erik and I could very well have one of those ten year engagements.”
Charles took some small amount of satisfaction in the way the children all blanched simultaneously at that.
Later, in bed with Erik, he said, “Two dozen birds.”
“I hate to say this, Charles, but this is hardly the weirdest thing they’ve gotten off the internet,” Erik replied.
“Weren’t the children supposed to come after the marriage?” Charles wondered out loud, staring at the ceiling. He sighed. “We should think of a date, before they come up with anymore surprises.”
Erik glanced at him, clearly amused.
“Yes, let’s pick a date purely based on the meddling of a bunch of adolescents,” he said, and Charles rolled his eyes, sitting up. He took Erik’s face between his hands and kissed him soundly.
“I promise you,” he said against Erik’s lips. “First thing after the honeymoon, they’re all off to boarding school.”
“You realize that’s where they are now,” Erik replied, clearly having no sense of romance. Charles sighed, falling back against the pillows.
“A different boarding school,” he said, raising one hand magnanimously. “In Sweden.”
Erik hummed his approval and rolled over onto him.
--
Raven cornered him after breakfast the next day.
“Okay, I know I messed up,” she said.
“There are birds in our house,” Charles told her.
“Not that many,” she said, and he fixed her with a look.
“I would call twenty four a lot,” he said, adding, “Sean’s named them all. Where do you even find two dozen mail order doves?”
“You’d be surprised,” Raven said. “Look, just give me a chance to make this up to you.”
“Do I have a choice?” Charles asked.
“Nope,” Raven beamed, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “You won’t regret it, I promise!”
“I think it’s a little late for that,” Charles said, but he smiled right back anyway. After all, he had birds in his house. How could it possibly get worse.
“Oh Charles,” Erik said to him later, when he voiced that thought in private, shaking his head like Charles was something particularly sad and sheltered. “Never question worse.”
--
Charles had never quite realized how much planning went into a wedding – clothes and vows and where to get a minister, and perhaps it’s best if Hank gets one of those online certificates quickly followed by you want me to do what?!, and Raven’s colorcoded seating charts, which Charles thought was a bit much, considering they didn’t even have a dozen seats.
The students weren’t much better, brimming with frightening enthusiasm and lurking around every corner. Angel cornered him in the library with a folder full of magazine clippings of high fashion tuxes and floral arrangements. Alex and Sean crept up on him with questions about the cake, of all things. Darwin kept offering him advice gleaned from the marriages of a seemingly endless supply of cousins. Hank had all but disappeared into his lab after the “online minister certification” incident, and Charles was all but ready to declare him his favorite until he found the carefully organized notes on his desk, lining up the likelihood of divorce based on your wedding date.
That was all bearable until the afternoon Erik leaned over Raven’s clipboard, let out a derisive snort and said, “Not with that colorscheme.”
He loved his sister, and his students, and Erik (he loved Erik so much it frightened him sometimes, the way his breath still caught when Erik smiled at him), but they were all clearly insane. He needed one afternoon of sweet, blissful non-wedding talk.
“You know,” Moira said from behind her menu, “I planned a wedding once.”
Charles resisted the urge to bang his head against the table.
“How did it go?” he asked instead.
“Psychotically,” Moira returned. “I drugged a woman I barely knew and there were swans everywhere.”
Charles stared at her.
“So what you’re trying to say,” he said, “is that there’s no such thing as a normal, calm planning process.”
“No,” Moira said, lowering her menu enough to give him a flat look. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re lucky you only ended up with doves.”
“Oh,” Charles said, feeling very blank. Moira reached over and covered his hand with her own.
“Don’t worry,” she said kindly. “There’s still time for someone to end up on the no flight list.”
--
“How do you feel about eloping?” he asked Erik, twisting to try and get a good look at him. The tub in the master bathroom was the biggest in the house, but even it wasn’t made for two fully grown men. Charles still felt a little awkward about using it – it had been his mother and step-father’s, and he couldn’t help but picture them every time he stepped into the room. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he wanted to think about when he was naked in the tub with his equally naked fiancé.
Erik raised an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side.
“I’m fairly sure it’s too late for that,” he said. “Your sister would kill us before we could leg it out the window.”
Charles twisted around, looped his arms around Erik’s neck and pressed their noses together.
“I can make us invisible,” he breathed, “more or less.”
Erik growled. He gripped Charles by the back of the neck and kissed him soundly, all tongue and teeth at his bottom lip, his free hand sliding under the water, clearly going in the direction it seemed all their shared baths went.
Which, of course, was when Raven banged on the door.
“We can all hear the splashing!” she yelled. “Save it for the honeymoon! We need to talk about the menu!”
Erik groaned and let go of Charles, arms flopping over the edge of the tub. Charles sighed, tipping his head back.
“Scratch the elopement,” he said. “Erik, be a dear and drown me, please.”
--
“Why can’t we just buy a cake?” Erik asked.
“Because this is the right way to do it,” Raven told him, narrowing her eyes. “And because I had to shapeshift into the editor of Contemporary Bride to get you into this place on such short notice.”
“I don’t understand how two weeks is short notice,” Erik grumbled. Raven elbowed him in the side. “And I don’t understand why Charles isn’t here.”
“You know why,” Raven told him, rolling her eyes. “He and Angel had to go look at the flowers.”
“This is ridiculous,” Erik said.
The doorbell rang. Raven scurried to go answer it.
“Is that the baker?” Alex asked, leaning into the room. Erik glowered at him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, with just the slightest undercurrent of and why aren’t you helping me escape. Alex shrugged.
“The professor said I could stand in for him,” he said.
“That’s what she’s here for,” Erik said, jerking a thumb in the direction Raven had gone. Alex only shrugged again, sticking his hands in his pockets. His eyes had that shadowed, hopeful sort of look that always made Erik want to groan or punch a wall or give in and get them all ponies. “Fine. You can stay.”
Alex grinned.
Somehow Erik ended up trapped between Alex and Raven on the couch. The baker sat across from them, looking mildly confused.
“So… you two are getting married, then?” she said, gesturing between Erik and Raven. She smiled a nervous smile.
Raven snorted.
“He’s marrying my brother,” she explained. The baker’s eyes slid to Alex, who promptly shuffled away from Erik, his eyes gone very wide.
“Uh, no,” he said. “No. I’m just here as a taste tester.”
“So… nobody here is marrying each other,” she said, looking between the three of them.
“Who knows,” Erik said, and, because he was feeling a bit vengeful, looped his arms around Raven and Alex’s shoulders, pulling them in close. “Maybe someday Charles and I will be lucky enough to see these two walk down the aisle.”
Raven and Alex shot each other horrified looks.
After that it was all tiny cake slices on tiny plates with tiny forks and stony silence. Erik took some amount of smug satisfaction in the way Raven and Alex kept shooting each other nasty looks.
“So what do we think?” the baker asked at last, her hands clasped together. “The buttercream?”
Erik honestly could not remember which one that was. Raven and Alex both mumbled their agreements and, order placed, the baker left. As soon as the door shut behind her, Raven rounded on Alex.
“So marrying me would be that horrible?” she said, and he made a face, hunching his shoulders.
“I didn’t say that – I didn’t – what did I do?” he exclaimed. Raven jabbed one finger at him.
“Don’t try to deny it!” she said. “I saw that look in there!”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you look thrilled either!” he countered, and Raven clenched her teeth to muffle a scream, throwing her hands up. They both turned on their heels and stalked off in opposite directions.
Erik took a minute to stand there and enjoy his victory. After a moment, Raven poked her head back into the room.
“I hope you’re happy,” she hissed venomously. “I have to redo the entire seating chart now.”
“The horror,” Erik said, raising both his eyebrows meaningfully. Raven grumbled something dark and disappeared back down the hall.
--
“I don’t understand,” Charles said after dinner. “I leave you alone for an afternoon and you ruin two of the children.”
“It’s a gift,” Erik told him.
--
The rings were tricky. Erik spent a lot of time with them, constantly bending and rebending the metal, twisting it a little this way and that. He tried different kinds – gold, silver, platinum, even stainless steel, though he thought it was too cold a metal for Charles, that it would look too harsh on his finger.
Nothing seemed right for Charles.
Erik had been staring at his latest attempt for a good twenty minutes, his fingers folded together and his elbows resting on the tabletop. Finally, he sighed. He flicked his hand and the rings tore themselves apart, warping into a small sphere. He played with it for a moment, making different shapes, but they all seemed clumsy and inelegant – creating, it seemed, did not come to him as easily as destroying.
A flash of movement from the window caught his eye. When he looked up it was gone, so he pulled himself into the shadows and waited and watched and soon enough it happened again – red hair and a curious face peaking into the room.
Erik lifted a hand and jerked the window up by its metal lock. There was a shriek, some cursing, and a crash.
When he looked out window, he found Sean and Darwin sprawled in a heap on the ground. Angel stood over them with her hands pressed to her mouth.
Erik braced himself against the ledge and leaned out.
“So,” he said, casually. “Is there a particular reason you were all spying on me?”
“He’s going to kill us,” Sean groaned, covering his eyes with a hand.
“I told you this would happen,” Armando said.
“We just wanted to see what you were doing!” Angel called up to him, which didn’t entirely explain why they thought it would be a good idea to have Sean get up on Armando’s shoulders and scrabble at the window, but then Erik had long since given up on understanding the lot of them.
Charles must have been rubbing off on him, because the longer he stared at their faces the more he felt like a knot in his chest was loosening, and the next thing he knew he found himself waving them up.
“Very graceful,” he commented, watching with his arms folded as they all tried to scramble in through the window. Sean beamed at him, then abruptly lost his balance and tumbled over the ledge and onto the floor. Erik pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You’ve been locked up in this room all week,” Angel said, her wings folding themselves neatly along her skin as she swung one leg over the windowsill. Armando offered her a gentlemanly hand.
“We were curious,” he admitted, locking eyes with Erik.
The students, Erik thought, should not be allowed so much free time.
“Hank spends all day in his lab and no one ever feels the need to spy on him,” he said, mostly to the world at large.
“We spy on Hank all the time,” Angel said, flapping a hand. “But Hank’s not getting married next week.”
“And Raven and Alex never let me be the top of the human pyramid,” Sean complained from the floor. Erik reached down, grabbed him by the back of his shirt and set him on his feet.
“Are those rings?” Angel asked, and when Erik looked back up he found she had crossed the room and was leaning over the sketches on his work table, pretty face stuck in a frown. “For the wedding, right?”
Armando and Sean both turned their eyes on him, and Erik shifted, unsure what to say.
“That’s cool,” Armando said after a beat, a slow smile spreading over his face. “That you can make them yourself. I think he’s really going to like that.”
“I,” Erik said, clearing his throat. He found it had gone dry. “Yes. Thank you.”
Reflexively he pulled the metal into his hand, and within the closed confines of his fist he began to shape it again.
--
“I was thinking I might wear my father’s suit,” Charles said, trailing his fingers up Erik’s arm.
“But?” Erik prompted. His eyes searched Charles’ face, deep and searching, like he was trying to map him out. It made Charles shudder.
“But,” he said, a little laugh hiding underneath his voice, “then I started thinking, it’ll never fit in the shoulders, and he was such a tall man, and it’s been so long, what if it’s not even in the wardrobe anymore…”
“And?” Erik asked, dark eyes flickering.
“And then I found it in the attic, eaten up by moths,” Charles finished. Erik said nothing for a long moment, and then his lips twitched, and he twisted away and onto his back, shaking with laughter.
Charles sat up.
“It’s not funny,” he protested, and Erik waved a hand at him, still laughing. “Seriously! Out of everything – out of everything, it’s my father’s moth ridden suit that sends you into hysterics?”
“It’s just – your face,” Erik said, reaching for Charles. Charles huffed, but let Erik catch him by the arms, drawing him close. “You were so serious, Charles, I thought – ” he broke off into another fit of laughter, his chest shaking beneath Charles, and Charles propped himself up on his elbows, staring down at Erik.
“Fine, be that way,” he declared. “I’ll have to wear a potato sack to the wedding, and you’ll leave me at the altar.”
“Yes,” Erik agreed, nodding and smiling so wide that Charles’ breath caught and he almost, almost didn’t hit Erik with the nearest pillow.
--
The day before the wedding Erik woke up alone in bed, which wasn’t rare, exactly, but it wasn’t common either. Charles wasn’t in the room, or the adjoining bathroom, so Erik dressed quickly and made his way down to the kitchen. When it too was abandoned, he started towards Raven’s room. He was promptly accosted in the hall.
Erik wasn’t entirely sure which of them grabbed him first, but the next thing he knew Angel had him by one arm, Alex by the other, and he was dangling Sean in midair upside down by his belt buckle.
“Why is it always me?” Sean asked. Erik took a sharp breath in through his nose and set Sean back on his feet.
“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even. Attempts to shake off the students only made them cling harder.
“You can’t go in there,” Angel told him. Alex nodded, his face grave.
Panic sparked in Erik’s stomach.
“Why not?” he demanded. “What’s happened?”
It was Sean who produced the note from his pocket. Alex loosened his grip just enough for Erik to grab it.
Dear One Day Away Brother-in-Law, the note started in Raven’s loopy scrawl. You’re not allowed to see Charles for the next twenty-four hours. It’s bad luck. I’ll be with Charles all day, so don’t even try to break this rule, because I will come after you.
That last part was underlined several times. He flipped the note over.
Dear Erik, this side said, in Charles’ handwriting this time. I was kidnapped out of my bed this morning by Raven, and am being held hostage. She promises to release me tomorrow. It’s a silly tradition, but it means a lot to her and, well, all silly traditions must have started with some small truth. Do try not to break any of the children.
“That’s just unnecessary,” Erik said, tucking the note into his pocket. He cast a look around. “And you’re all this dedicated to keeping me away from Charles in the name of superstition?”
“It’s just,” Alex began.
“We started thinking,” Angel continued.
“What if it’s true?” Sean said. “What if it’s bad luck and you and the professor see each other and the wedding is a disaster and everything goes wrong and you start to hate each other and the next we know, you’re getting a divorce?”
“And if you get a divorce, we’ll all get split up,” Alex added. “Half of us will go with you and half of us will stay with the professor and somebody will get the dog and we’ll only see each other at holidays.”
“And you’ll be fighting all the time,” Angel said, casting him such a sad look that he almost forgot how ludicrous they all were.
“We don’t even have a dog,” he said, shoulders slumping as he accepted the reality of the next twenty-four hours, bleak and Charles-less and filled with melodramatics.
“Please, please don’t get divorced,” Sean said, with his hands actually clasped together.
Erik sighed.
--
“Alright, come on,” Raven said, clapping her hands. “Let’s move, move, move!”
Hank glowered at her, but then the armoire slipped and Armando grunted. He hastily readjusted his grip and together they set it down in front of the door.
“Is this really necessary?” Charles asked.
“Absolutely,” Raven said, hands at her hips. “I don’t trust him.”
“It just seems drastic,” Charles said. “And I liked that where it was.”
“Think of it this way,” Raven said. “It’s your last day as a free man. Who better to spend it with than your favorite sister?”
“My only sister,” Charles corrected, and cast another look towards the door. “And I’m not sure I would count this as being a free man, exactly.”
“We were going to throw you both a bachelor party, but all our ideas pretty much ended in things being wrecked,” Armando admitted.
“I brought cards?” Hank offered.
“See? Cards!” Raven exclaimed, hopping onto the arm of his chair. She looped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed, pressing her cheek against his hair. “That’s almost as good as kegstands and a stripper in a cake.”
Charles shot her a look.
“If I find out Erik had a real bachelor party while I was here playing cards,” he said, “the consequences, I assure you, will be dire.”
--
“Somehow, when you said bachelor party, I didn’t envision this,” Erik said, gesturing around the living room with his free hand. He was alone on the couch, with Angel, Alex and Sean all clustered on the floor, a giant bowl of popcorn and several beers between them.
“It’s thematic,” Alex said, shrugging. Angel made shushing noises as Say Yes to the Dress came back on.
“I love this show,” she said, stealing the popcorn back from Sean.
Erik gave Alex a withering look. Alex looked slightly apologetic, but made no move to change the channel, or even to pass Erik a beer. His cellphone went off (and Erik remembered that disastrous week Raven had taken it upon herself to convince Charles to get her a cell, by loudly thinking everything she would’ve texted the others in his direction, until Charles had grabbed Erik by the front of his shirt and pulled him in close and shouted about how much he did not care what had just happened on Glee, and they were getting the children phones immediately) and he dug it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he said to Erik, “Armando says they’re playing bridge upstairs.”
A choked noise from Sean interrupted any reply from Erik.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sniffling into the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes were fixed on the screen. “She just looks so beautiful.”
“And you’re cut off,” Erik said, snagging the bottle from Sean’s hand.
--
Erik drifted into wakefulness at about two in the morning to Charles’ voice in his ear. Wait, no. Not his ear. His mind.
Erik. I know you’re not asleep.
Erik sat up, wondering when exactly he had fallen asleep on the couch, and what he was going to do about the students snoring on the floor, and how long the network marathoned this drivel for, anyway. He cast a meaningful look at the ceiling.
I was, he thought back. Until you happened, anyway.
Oh, I can’t help it, you know that, Charles’ replied, telepathic voice filled with a sigh. A pause, and then, Did they really make you watch Say Yes to the Dress?
Erik groaned, massaging his temples.
Go to sleep, Charles.
Oh, and Bridezillas and Four Weddings. My poor Erik.
The laughing tone in Charles’ mental voice was definitely unappreciated. Go to sleep, Charles.
Another little mental chuckle, and a phantom whisper in his head that sounded something like good night.
Erik sighed and flipped over onto his side. On the muted television screen, one of the bridezillas threw a stiletto heel at her fiancé. Erik completely understood.
--
The first thing Charles realized when he woke up was that it was his wedding day.
The second was that it was raining. His heart sank. They’d planned to be married on the grounds, but it sounded torrential out there. He lay in bed for a few long moments, sulking and wondering why his mutant power had to be telepathy and not something useful, like weather manipulation. Eventually he forced himself up and wandered to the window; maybe it sounded worse than it was.
It wasn’t. He was about to turn back when something caught his eye.
It was Erik, out in the middle of the storm, building something with metal poles. A tent, Charles realized, catching sight of Alex, holding a tarp and looking not unlike a wet cat. Armando and Hank held the extra poles and tarps, and Sean – well, Sean was either trying to rescue the chairs, or they were going to be very damp by the time the ceremony rolled around. Either way, Charles couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
Smiling, he brought two fingers to his temple.
It’s hot showers for you all, as soon as you come back inside, he broadcasted, and everyone but Erik turned their faces up to the window. He was too far away to tell, but he thought Erik’s lips might have quirked upwards. I won’t have anyone catching pneumonia on my wedding day.
“What are you doing?”
Charles turned away from the window. Raven was standing in the doorway, a breakfast tray balanced on one hand.
“Did you know there are lunatics building a tent on our yard?” he asked mildly. Raven snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to get married outside,” she said, setting the tray down on the bed. She sat down and patted the spot next to her. “Come on, I made breakfast.”
“Breakfast in bed,” Charles observed, sliding into bed besides her. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Because it’s your wedding day,” Raven said, resting her head on his shoulder. She was pouting. “You’re going to be married.”
“This isn’t exactly news,” Charles huffed, smiling a little. Raven whined, pulling her hair in front of her face. “Come on, what’s this about?”
“It’s just,” she said, sitting up abruptly. “Married. You’re going to go away and it’ll be no more Charles and Raven, breakfast in bed and stupid movies and laughing whenever we see Julia Roberts because of that one time you threw up during Pretty Woman, because you’re going to be married.”
“It’s not like anything will change,” Charles said, reaching out to touch a hand to Raven’s cheek. “I’ll still be here, and we can still do all of those things, even though I really wish you’d let the Pretty Woman thing go.”
“But it won’t be the same because you’ll be married,” Raven said, flopping backward. She placed a pillow over her face. Charles snatched it away.
“Being married doesn’t mean that Erik gets to monopolize all my time, forever,” he said. She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Does he know that?” she asked. Charles decided not to answer that. After a moment, Raven huffed and said, “I just… woke up this morning and realized that now everything is going to be different.”
“It won’t,” Charles promised, stroking Raven’s hair. “We’ll still be Charles and Raven. Though you might want to be a little more careful bursting into my room at all hours. Erik’s not always fond of pants.”
Raven grabbed the pillow from him and whapped him across the head.
Laughing, Charles fended her off, catching her by the wrist and pulling her into a sitting position.
“Now, it’s my wedding day,” he told her, pasting a serious expression on. “And I fully expect my Best Lady to help me eat all this…” he glanced down at the plate “… toast.”
“Alex was hogging the stove again,” Raven said, snatching a piece up and savagely biting a corner off. “And it would be my pleasure.”
--
Erik had never put too much thought into his wedding – or, to be precise, he had never put any thought at all into it, but if he had, he was fairly sure he never would’ve imagined this: standing in a damp tent surrounded by students tugging at his lapels and making sure his tie was straight, asking him if he’d remembered the rings and his vows and they’d gotten a glass from the kitchen, that was okay, wasn’t it, so could they just put it anywhere?
He had certainly never pictured himself marrying a telepathic professor.
And above and beyond that all, he had definitely never thought that one of the students would be in the back whispering to a cage full of doves, asking them if they remembered their cues. (“Sean, leave the birds alone. Ms. MacTaggert’s staring.”)
He was surprised to find how natural it all felt, to be in the midst of the insanity, the pit of nervous energy in his stomach. He practically hummed with it, and he could feel all the metal in the tent like a buzz against his skin, belt buckles and Moira’s earrings and the rings in his pocket.
“He’s coming!” Angel announced from the tent flap, and Sean yelped, springing off the birdcage and scampering into position, elbowing Alex for his spot.
Suddenly, Erik felt like he was being stifled – like he should run. Everything was pressing down on him, all the students and Moira MacTaggert, the rings that were so heavy in his pocket and the damn birds – and Charles was coming. Charles was coming, and they were going to be married, and this was all insane. For a brief moment, Erik thought he really might run.
Then Charles and Raven stepped into the tent, their arms linked, and Erik couldn’t have run if he wanted. It no longer mattered, any of it – the rain lashing against the tent and the metal groaning in his mind, the ruffled doves and scurrying students and the rings singing in his pocket, because Charles was smiling at him.
Charles turned to Raven.
“Who is that?” he said, gesturing towards Erik. “Is that Erik?”
She elbowed him.
“Really?” she said. “You’re really going to do this at your wedding?”
“It’s just, you know, it’s been so long,” he told Raven sincerely, looking up at Erik from beneath his lashes.
“Too long,” Erik seconded, unable to help a smirk. “You look old, Charles.”
“Well, that’s not very romantic,” Charles said, arching an eyebrow. Erik gestured towards his temple.
“Is that grey hair I see?” he teased. Raven rolled her eyes dramatically.
“I should’ve just let you elope to some crappy chapel with an Elvis impersonator,” she told them. “That would’ve shown you.”
Erik and Charles exchanged another glance, and Erik had been nervous before it was nothing compared to now. He felt, a little hysterically, like laughing.
“Cold feet?” Charles asked, taking his place across from him. He held his hands out and Erik took them; Charles’ thumbs brushed over the back of his knuckles.
“In about two minutes, I’m going to bring the tent down and disappear in the ensuing chaos,” Erik said, and it was unfair how Charles could beam at him like that.
“I’ll be sure to act very shocked,” Charles said.
Everyone was in a flurry around them, taking their places, but Erik felt stuck to the spot, unable to tear his eyes away from Charles’ face. His feet were rooted the ground, his arms an anchor, his hands in Charles’ a lock.
Then Hank stepped up and the ceremony began.
--
The funny thing was, if someone had asked Erik later what had actually been said at the ceremony, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them. All he remembered, aside from Hank’s stuttering (“So this is my first time doing an, um, a wedding, but you knew that – actually weddings kind of remind me of this one joke. So these two physicists walk into a bar and –” “Hank.” “Right, um.”) was the rush of blood in his ears when he stumbled over his vows and the look in Charles’ eyes when he saw the rings.
“I do,” Charles said, breathlessly, laughing as Erik slipped the ring on his finger. “I mean, obviously, obviously I do.”
It was the look and the tone of voice that made Erik miss Charles’ vows, too, though he couldn’t imagine the words were very important – Charles had already gotten him running a school of all things, and using his powers to fix up the kitchen sink, and last weekend he had conned him into helping fix up his grandmother’s ruined old chest of drawers in the attic, both of them hard at it until, covered in dust and sweat, they’d collapsed on the floor. (“It’s very inconvenient of your powers,” Charles had told him, back against what had formerly been the top drawer, “not to extend to wood.”
And then they had both been shirtless, which led to both being pantsless, which had of course led to sex in the attic.)
“I do,” Erik said, cutting Charles off at the very end of his vows.
“Alright,” Hank said, grinning shyly. “I think this is the part where you kiss.”
That was a blur, too, the kiss; but at least this, Erik thought, was familiar territory, Charles’ lips on his own. It was a brief kiss, chaste and sweet, but Charles still managed to lace promises for the honeymoon into it.
It was the clapping that broke them apart. Raven had the biggest grin on her face, and Alex was wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Moira handed him a tissue.
From there on there was the glass – (“How come you get to step on it?”
“I am the groom.”
“So am I, in case you haven’t noticed. And if you haven’t, this marriage is in for a very interesting start, Erik.”
“Together, then?”)
-- and the birds (“Release them outside the tent, Sean. Outside.”).
“Can I just say, I’m very glad to have those things out of my house?” Charles whispered to Erik, watching as the doves flew off towards the trees.
“It could’ve been worse,” Erik whispered back, squeezing Charles’ hip. “Moira was telling me a very interesting story about Paris and labrador retrievers.”
From there on came the reception – it was still drizzling, so they all moved inside, moving the furniture around until Raven decided there was enough space to dance. The cake was almost good enough to warrant the afternoon Erik had spent choosing it; he came to this conclusion when Charles picked up the first piece and shoved it in his face.
“Tradition, Erik!” Charles laughed, shrinking back as Erik advanced, growling. “Tradition!”
Tradition didn’t stop Charles from getting cake in his hair.
--
“All in all, I want to say,” Charles began, fingers brushing the inside of Erik’s elbow, “not a terrible wedding.”
“Makes up for the bachelor parties,” Erik agreed, and Charles snorted. He inclined his head towards the dance floor, and Erik followed his gaze. It was late, and Moira had begged off an hour or so before, saying she had to be up for early for work. Raven was trying to drag Hank off the sidelines and onto the dance floor, where Angel was giggling as Sean dipped her. Armando and Alex swayed together far too slowly for the song that was playing.
“They’re sweet, all of them,” Charles said, smiling softly. Erik gave him a look.
“We are not planning any more weddings,” he said. “Stop that.”
“You,” Charles said, poking Erik in the side, “have no sense of romance.”
“Now that’s just not true,” Erik told him, leaning in close enough that his nose brushed Charles’ temple. “I could definitely have a sense of romance. A very good one, in fact.”
“And if I asked you to prove that to me?” Charles murmured. Erik glanced out at the dancing students.
“Think we can get out of here without them noticing?” he asked. Charles smirked at him.
“I can positively assure it,” he said, tightening his grip on Erik’s arm.
Erik grabbed a bottle of champagne on their way out. After all, it was a night for celebration.