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“Oh my God, guys!” The kitchen door banged against the wall as Sean came skidding into the room, freckles almost fading into the background of the violent flush on his face, and the conversation ground to a halt as everyone looked up at him. “You will not believe what I just saw!” He was panting as he dropped into a chair at the end of the scarred wooden table and Armando couldn’t tell if he looked more shocked or excited by whatever it was he had to say.
“So why don’t you just tell us what it was, then?” Raven asked, rolling her eyes and putting her sandwich down.
“Yeah,” Alex echoed impatiently, mouth still half full of his last bite, and Armando had to remind himself the kid was still fresh out of prison, and the good Lord only knew what before that. Table manners just needed to be added to the --long--list of things to gently encourage him to work on.
“Oh come on!” Sean’s voice, still breathless, broke into Armando’s thoughts, and he looked back at Sean, who’d reached for Alex’s bottle of coke and drained half of it before speaking again. Alex glared at him the entire time but still waited until Sean was finished drinking before snatching it back again. “Don’t you even want to try and guess?”
“If we’ll never manage to then why bother trying?” Alex asked. “I want to eat lunch, not play twenty questions.”
“Erik cuddling a kitten?” Armando asked, and was rewarded for the effort by a bright grin from Sean and snorts of laughter from the other three.
“That I’d pay money to see,” Alex said.
“That definitely wasn’t it!” Sean was breathing normally now, and his freckles had returned to their former prominence as the flush faded from his cheeks, but it was creeping up again.
“Come on, Sean, what was it?” Alex demanded, and from the way Sean jumped and squeaked Armando was pretty sure Alex had just kicked him under the table. Both boys were grinning, though, so it obviously hadn’t been meant, or taken, badly.
“Okay, fine.” Sean grinned as he sat back in his chair, but it looked a bit strained around the edges and he was definitely blushing even darker again. “So I was coming down the back hall, because I’d been out on the back lawn, practicing, right?”
He paused and everyone nodded with varying degrees of patience. Sean spent a lot of time out on the back lawn experimenting with his powers.
“And the door to the office or study or whatever Charles uses back there was, um, open just a bit, so I figured I’d stick my head in, you know? See if Charles was gonna come for lunch, or if he wanted one of us to bring him a sandwich or something, and-”
Sean stopped, and he honestly looked like he’d hit some sort of critical mass. Like if he flushed any deeper steam might pour out of his ears or the top of his head might blow off, and when Hank put a hand on his shoulder he actually jumped.
“What was it, Sean?” Hank asked kindly, before Raven or Alex could chime in with any more, and likely significantly less patient or polite, prodding.
“Charles was sitting in Erik’s lap and they were kissing!” he finally blurted out, all in one breath and almost all as one word, his eyes wide and his expression caught somewhere between shock and excitement.
“...oh,” Armando said, brows furrowed and voice quiet as he slotted the new information into his understanding of the other men and decided that it wasn’t as surprising as maybe it should have been.
“That?” He looked at Raven in time to see her shrug and go back to her sandwich with no sign of surprise and, in fact, a supreme lack of interest. “Yeah, they do that.”
Sean almost visibly deflated at her reaction. “They do?” he asked, sounding vaguely offended as he added, “You mean you knew and you didn’t tell us?”
“Well, it’s not really any of our business, is it?” Hank asked and, though he was blushing almost as violently as Sean, Armando was pretty sure he actually meant it and wasn’t simply jumping in to Raven’s defense. Not that he looked or sounded comfortable with the idea, mind, but...he was actually trying, and Armando had to give him credit for that.
“Well, no, I guess not,” Sean agreed, though it was slightly reluctant, and Armando could tell he was thinking his way through the situation. Trying to decide if it was their business or not and, more importantly, if it bothered him past the initial knee-jerk shock and reflexive disgust.
For himself, Armando slotted all the reactions away with a vague feeling of pleased surprise and gratification at...well, at how well everyone had taken the revelation. Which was, of course, when the clatter of a chair hitting the floor got his--and everyone else’s--attention and he turned, coming half out of his seat in reflex, to see Alex standing there, both hands slamming down on the table as he glared at them all, red-faced.
“What the fuck do you mean it’s none of our God-damned business?” he demanded, already deep voice dropping even lower and going rough and gravelly. “They’re...they’re faggots!” He spat out the word like it tasted bad, and Armando frowned, confused, as he stood the rest of the way and reached for Alex’s shoulder. All things considered, he was pretty much the last person Armando would have expected to react badly.
“Hey man, it’s all cool,” he tried to soothe him, though he let his hand drop when Alex shrugged it angrily off and took a step back, almost tripping on his overturned chair.
“No!” Alex snapped. “It’s not!” Armando could see Hank almost cringing in the face of Alex’s tirade from the corner of his eye, and Raven was giving Alex a withering glare from across the table.
“Dude.” Sean had stood up as well, and Armando spared him a surprised glance. “Why do you even care? It’s not like...whatever they do-” And Armando would have bet money Sean was trying very hard just then not to think about what that ‘whatever’ might entail. “It’s not like it has anything to do with you, right? It’s private and...it’s no big deal.”
“Like hell it’s not!” Alex shot back, glaring. “They’re fairies! It’s...it’s fucking sick and...and perverse! Oh, and how about illegal,” he added. “Because it’s sick and perverted!”
“You know, I’d kind of figured you were an asshole,” Raven finally said, looking up at Alex from the seat she’d never vacated, and if looks could kill- Well, Armando was pretty grateful not to be on the receiving end of that glare, even with his mutation. “But I didn’t think you were an ingrate and a bigot too. If you’ve got a problem with Charles, the man who got your sorry ass out of prison, and is feeding and housing you? Then maybe you should just leave.”
“Hey now, let’s not do anything crazy, here,” Armando said, trying hard to sound soothing, or placating, or something. Something that would hopefully not end with a fist fight or the room on fire. Or, hell, people on fire, because Alex was just standing there glaring at them all, jaw clenched tight and so red in the face that Armando was almost worried he was going to cut loose with a plasma blast. “Just...take a deep breath and-”
“Fine!” Alex snapped, cutting him off. “You want me to leave? Maybe I fucking should!” And before Armando could say anything else or reach to try and restrain him Alex was gone, the door slamming loudly behind him.
“Well...that could have gone better?” Hank offered uncertainly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“He’s a self-absorbed, short-tempered, bigoted jerk,” Raven answered. “And if that’s how he feels about Charles then we’re better off without him.”
Sean sighed, looking even paler than usual and faintly miserable, and Armando reached over to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder. The hand Alex had shrugged off so angrily.
“I don’t get it, man,” Sean murmured, looking sidelong at him. “Why’s he so angry? I mean...I guess it’s kind of gross, and it’s not like I want to think about...you know-” He looked a little queasy and waved a hand vaguely, and Armando suppressed a sigh. It wasn’t exactly a rousing endorsement, no, but it was a start. And better than most people would do. Better than he honestly would have expected. “But they found us, and they’re helping us, and, well, it’s not like we aren’t all freaks anyway, so why does he care so much about them being...that kind of freak?”
“I dunno,” Armando answered, though he wasn’t quite being honest. “But...I don’t think he means it. Not really.” He squeezed Sean’s shoulder gently and dropped his hand.
“He sure sounded like he meant it to me,” Raven answered, tone clipped and angry still. “And it’s not like he has any moral high ground, he had to have been in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison for a reason. Unlike him, Charles has never hurt anyone in his life.” She turned her glare on Sean and he visibly recoiled from it. “And he’s not a freak.”
“No,” Armando agreed quietly. “He’s not. None of us are.” It was his turn to sigh, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing his mutation thought a tension headache was enough of a threat to rate taking care of. “Look, I can’t tell you why, but...just let me talk to him, okay? I really don’t think he meant it.” He didn’t wait for an answer, he doubted he’d like any answer Raven gave him anyway, just turned and left the kitchen.
*********************
Normally he’d have wanted to let Alex cool down a bit before trying to talk to him about what was obviously a very sensitive subject, but with his threat to leave the mansion hanging there Armando didn’t think waiting was worth the risk. Fortunately Alex wasn’t hard to find--Armando had learned early on that Alex was rarely hard to find when he was wound up. When he reached the hall outside the bunker Armando took up a position against the wall across from the door, watching the light strobe red as he listened to the muffled blasts from the other side and felt the faint tremble of the impacts vibrating through the thick concrete.
It didn’t take long before the sound of destruction on the other side of the wall faded into silence, though the light continued to flash. Armando waited another two or three minutes, just to make sure the violence was over--another thing he knew from experience was that Alex would freak the fuck out if he got anywhere near him while he was actually using his powers--then grabbed one of the fire extinguishers lined up outside the door and pushed it open.
The heat hit him immediately, tendrils of flame licking along the walls and engulfing an entire fleet of mannequins at the far end of the room, but it was Alex who caught his attention, even as he started spraying the flames nearest him. Alex had dropped to the floor opposite the door, back to the wall and knees pulled up to his chest, and he didn’t actually look up until the sound of the fire extinguisher caught his attention.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Alex demanded, barely lifting his head enough to glower at Armando. And if there was still tell-tale dampness on his cheeks and at the corners of his eyes despite the way he’d scrubbed his face against his knees first Armando sure wasn’t going to say anything about it.
Armando didn’t answer until he’d sprayed out the worst of the flames at the near end of the bunker, then he lowered the fire extinguisher to the floor with a clang and crossed to sit next to Alex, not quite shoulder to shoulder.
“Thought maybe we could talk, man,” he said, watching Alex intently out of the corner of his eye, ignoring the feel of his skin thickening and toughening in response to the still scorching heat radiating from the wall at his back.
“What’s there to talk about?”
“How about you gettin’ so bent out of shape over something that doesn’t affect anyone but Erik and the Prof, and doesn’t hurt anyone at all?” he asked. And he was pretty damn proud of how calm and matter of fact he sounded, even though he was prepared for the possibility of an explosion.
“Why shouldn’t I get bent out of shape? It’s fuckin’ perverted!” Alex answered, voice as tight as the line of his shoulders as he glared at Armando. Armando turned his head enough to stare silently back, noting that anger looked an awful lot like fear in Alex’s eyes. “How can the rest of you just...just be okay with it? With them doing that kind of sick shit? Isn’t it bad enough we’re all this kind of freak already, without them choosing to be fucking faggots into the bargain?”
“Hey.” Armando pressed two fingers gently to the back of Alex’s wrist, a barely there pressure on almost painfully hot skin, and looked him steadily in the eyes. “You’re not any kind of freak, man. None of us are. We’re all exactly what what we’re meant to be. We’re all amazing.” He let his voice go a little quieter and more intimate as he increased the pressure of his fingers, shifted until he was almost laying his hand over Alex’s wrist. “And who says it’s a choice, anyway? Who says you get to pick and choose who you love, and how?”
Alex shook his head vehemently then dropped his forehead back to his knees, but he didn’t pull his arm away. Armando recognized the victory for what it was.
“No way, man.” His voice was hoarse and muffled, and maybe slightly damp sounding. “This shit’s bad enough, I can’t do anything about it.” He waved his other hand towards the far end of the bunker, where flames still licked up the walls, though Armando had no idea what the hell they could possibly be using for fuel. “But that...wanting other guys? Doing shit with them? That’s-” He shook his head again. “That ain’t fucking okay, ‘Mando..”
Alex stopped abruptly and Armando could feel the tension under his hand as Alex sucked in a sharp breath.
“Not that I do!” Alex looked up at him, and fear had shifted to full on terror as he gave Armando a pleading look. “Because that’d be sick. I meant them. Erik and Charles. Doing...that. ‘Cause I don’t...I don’t want...I don’t-”
“I know what you meant, Alex,” Armando assured him quietly. And he really did. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what Alex meant. What weeks’ worth of not so casual touches, private smiles and lingering looks meant. Or the almost frantic expression on Alex’s face when he’d first seen Armando after he’d managed to laboriously piece himself back together from dust and ash, not to mention the way Alex had crushed him in a hug that had lasted a whole lot longer than any amount of relief could account for. “And there’s nothing sick about it.”
Armando let his thumb brush gently over the back of Alex’s wrist, ignoring the tension there, the way Alex had squeezed his eyes shut and just about vibrated under his touch. Armando was prepared for Alex to snap and bolt at any moment, but when he didn’t he leaned a little closer, until their foreheads almost touched. “No one here thinks it’s perverted, Alex. No one here cares, and who cares about anyone else?”
Alex was silent for so long that Armando had almost stopped hoping for an answer when he sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes snapped open, gaze boring into Armando’s from barely an inch away.
“We’re a handful of freaks, ‘Mando, of course it matters what the hell they think out there. You think the Feds’ll let it slide if they find out? You think Moira’ll just shrug and ignore it? Do you know what the fuck they do to us-” He stopped, and Armando watched his eyes dilate until there was nothing but a barely there ring of bright blue around the darkness of his pupils.
“Them,” he corrected himself, voice thick as he stumbled over his words. “What they do to them in prison? Or, hell, just out there?” He flung an arm out, apparently meant to indicate the outside world in some way. And Armando did. He’d heard about the shock treatments and the lobotomies and the castrations. He knew exactly why Alex was so damn scared.
“Alex.” Armando kept his gaze locked with Alex’s as he curled his fingers around his wrist. He could feel his pulse hammering through the thin, fever-hot skin under his fingers, and he pitched his voice low and soothing. “Listen to me, Alex. We’re not out there anymore, man. We’re not. And we don’t ever have to be again. We don’t have to hide here. Not what we are, not what we can do. Not anything.”
Alex shook his head, expression hunted, but before he could say anything Armando reached his free hand up to curl around the nape of his neck and pull him closer. Alex froze as Armando pressed their foreheads together and then, after a barely perceptible pause, their lips, because he realized now that he could wait until hell froze over and Alex would never take this risk. He kept it light but not tentative and readied himself for almost any response, though he was sure he hadn’t been misinterpreting things the last few weeks. Armando was still surprised when Alex pressed into the contact with a quiet whimper, both hands coming up to fist tight in the front of his shirt. It only lasted a second, though, and then the more expected reaction followed, as Alex shoved him away hard and scrabbled farther down the wall, pushing to his feet once he’d put a little distance between them.
“Don’t fuck with me, ‘Mando!” He was shaking, and Armando was slightly alarmed to see a red glow bleeding into the whites of his eyes.
“Alex. Man. I’m not. I swear to God I’m not fucking with you.” Armando held out both hands, palm out, and met Alex’s eyes as he took a step closer. “I never have and I never will. No one here will,” he assured him, stepping closer again. Even at a distance he could feel the heat coming off Alex now, and he wondered if the skin under his dark t-shirt was glowing as the power built. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t just that he knew Alex couldn’t hurt him, he knew he wouldn’t, and he took one step closer then pressed his palm to the center of Alex’s chest, not reacting at all to the heat.
“This, what we feel-” He emphasized the plural as he curled his fingers into the fabric of Alex’s shirt. “It’s no more wrong than anything else about us, Alex. How can something that doesn’t hurt anyone else be wrong?”
He stepped closer, until they were just barely touching from chests to knees, and let his forehead rest against Alex’s again. “How can something you didn’t choose, and can’t change, be wrong?” he almost whispered, breath ghosting over Alex’s lips. “How can something that feels this right be wrong?”
He stayed there, quiet and still, waiting for Alex’s response, whatever it might be, listening to the not quite silence of labored breathing as scorching heat continued to roll off of Alex’s body in waves and red flickered at the corners of his eyes. This close Armando could feel the tremor in his muscles, tension and fear locking them tight, and after long seconds of what didn’t really feel like a stalemate he slid his hand up to the nape of Alex’s neck and curled his fingers there with gentle pressure.
“It’s all right to want this, Alex,” he whispered. “It’s all right to let yourself have it.”
When Alex’s response finally came it wasn’t any of the options Armando had been preparing for, and he staggered slightly under Alex’s full weight as he slumped against him with a quiet, strangled noise. After a moment Alex dropped his head to Armando’s shoulder and slipped his arms loosely around his waist.
“I don’t want to be like this.” The words were muted and almost choked, and Armando could feel the moist heat of Alex’s breath against his neck. “I’ve tried so fucking hard not to be.”
“I know, Alex,” Armando murmured back, one hand smoothing down Alex’s back while the other stayed just where it had been; curled firmly at the nape of Alex’s neck, holding him steady. “I know you don’t, man, but it’s all right. I’ve got you, and it’s gonna be all right.”