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A week after what their group of children—they can't possibly be called adults, not when Sean still doesn't know how to cook rice—insists on calling "the Beach Divorce", Erik walks into his room in the mansion and finds a golden plaque hanging over his bed.
It's engraved with the words Torture and Murder Are Not Solutions To Life's Problems.
Erik suspects it's some kind of subtle insinuation. He probes at it with his powers, rips it off the wall, and deposits it on Charles' kitchen table while he stares at the man dead in the eye, in a way that has made more than one person cry—the exact number, not that Erik is keeping count, is twelve—.
Charles only beams at him.
"Charles," Erik says.
"I was merely trying to help you set a good example, my friend," Charles replies, blinking with excessive innocence. Beside him, Raven rolls her eyes and pretends to gag. "We have newcomers, after all."
"You keep saying that in plural like two of them aren't cats," Raven says.
Erik follows her gaze to under the kitchen table. There are, indeed, two cats—one black and one brown—curled together and licking each other's faces. Very enthusiastically. Erik has the horrifying sensation of being intruding, somehow.
"Those are Alastair and Lewis," is all Charles offers as explanation. "Elanor estimates they have been together for about five years."
"Together as a couple, he means," Raven adds. She stares at Erik like she knows exactly what kind of reaction he's going to have and she's been waiting for it all day. "Charles adopted a gay cat couple."
"They're Elanor's cats," Charles huffs in reply, not denying that he'd very much like to do what Raven is accusing him of, were it possible.
"You said a school, Charles," Erik reminds him exasperatedly, despite knowing the futility of it. "We're a school. And you agreed schools don't have animals."
"I believe my exact words were 'No, Erik, students aren't animals'-"
Erik waves the argument away with a hand. However, he knows which battles he can win and which he most definitely can't, so he kneels on the kitchen floor and floats Charles' passive-aggressive life lesson in a plaque in front of the cats. Students. He doesn't even want to think about it.
"This," he tells the cats, pointing at the plaque, "is a lie."
Sadly, the cats don't pay him the slightlest amount of attention. Erik grudgingly resigns himself to save for another occasion his many, many real-life examples of scenarios in which torture and murder were, in fact, perfectly good solutions to life's problems.
He floats the plaque back to the table and walks out, into the gardens, for some training—
—and immediately stops in his tracks, because there is a goose on the front door.
A goose.
Erik eyes the goose and the goose eyes him back, with nearly the same intensity of distrust.
"Oh dear," a voice says. It sounds vaguely feminine, but Erik doesn't dare look for the person attached to it, not until the goose looks away first. "You found the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement."
It's odd enough that Erik blinks, startled.
"The-"
"It's a mouthful, I know," a short, young girl replies, almost coyly. "I usually call him Sogen for short. I'm Elanor, by the way. Professor Charles said tha-"
Erik has been distracted for too long. The goose makes a sound that should not come from any living creature—unless said creature is in fact a vessel for a demon—and throws itself at Erik, beak-first.
It's a violent, bloody battle, and it's drawn out unnecessarily because Erik refuses to use his powers against a goose, evil or otherwise, where there is even the smallest of possibilities of one of the children seeing it and never letting him live it down. Even if the goose is a worthy adversary. Even if the goose might, might be winning.
"Follow him!" Elanor yells, over the goose's war cries. "Follow Sogen! It's the only way-"
Erik, however, doesn't get the opportunity to follow the goose anywhere, because the demon-possessed creature starts chasing him into the mansion.
If anyone ever asks, Erik will say that he was merely leading the goose to someplace more adequate for a battle to death. And of course he was running, it is always exciting to face an enemy of equal strength to himself.
What actually happens is that Erik nearly has three fingers bitten off, loses a significant amount of blood—leaving a trail on the floor that will make Hank very concerned—, and is chased back into the kitchen. Where Raven and Charles are still sitting, talking. Or were talking.
Now they are in complete silence, staring at him—and at the tattered remains of his shirt, Erik suspects—.
The goose immediately takes advantage of his moment of weakness to bite his ankle.
Erik swears, loses his balance, desperately scrambles for purchase—while swearing some more—, and ends up holding onto Charles' arm, right leg slipping between Charles', ankle bleeding all over Charles' marble floor.
"Aww, congratulations!" Elanor coos from Erik's back—sounding more than slightly winded, because not everyone can be in top physical form like Erik—. "That was fast! I was half-expecting you to have to cross the country running. It's been known to happen, a couple of times."
Charles' smile is a mere few inches from Erik's face, and it is definitely too bright.
"Oh my god-" Raven starts, and immediately chokes on her own laughter.
It turns out- Elanor is a mutant. Which means that Erik can't kick her and her evil goose out. Even though her mutation consists entirely on altering living creatures to be sensitive to soulmate frequencies, and to date, she's only been able to use it on a sad, single goose, commonly known as the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement—Evil Goose for short—.
Evil Goose's single life mission is to force soulmate encounters. And it has decided that Charles is Erik's soulmate. Which means that Erik is Charles'. Which means-
"He was the one who helped Lewis and Alastair meet, too," Elanor adds happily.
"You should go get the first aid kit before you bleed out," Raven says.
Erik silently distangles his arm from Charles' and begins making himself some coffee, while making a mental note to test Charles' hypothesis once more—Evil Goose is still staring at him, challenging him—. Torture and murder are good solutions for at least one problem, surely-