Title: Gene Pair (2019)
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Rating: G
Length: ~440 words
Content notes: for the "double" challenge. Set in my HIMYM AU. And with this I have finally earned my name tag, WOO!
Badge notes: Counts toward the early bird badge (misc) and the crossover badge (skills training)
Summary: Charles gets his dog, uses Erik's own logic against him, and bores baby Lorna to death.


Charles walks in the door and is immediately greeted by Lorna's delighted cry of, "Puppies!"

He has her sit on the floor, then places them both in her lap, saying, "Be gentle."

When he straightens back up, he sees Erik standing in the doorway from the bedroom, giving him a flat look.

"You said a puppy," Erik says. "You didn't say anything about two of them."

Charles considers ushering Erik back into the bedroom for a hushed argument about it; but considering that eight-week-old puppies pee like a lot, he decides it would be better to keep an eye on them, so switches to telepathy instead. They'll keep each other company, he says. Two is pretty much the same thing as one, and anyway, we have to keep them both now. At any rate, I'm not going to be the one to break Lorna's heart by telling her she has to choose one.

Erik glances down at Lorna, who is currently receiving puppy kisses from Puppy A while being gnawed on by Puppy B, and sighs.

*

"I'm going to call the brown one Bear," Lorna announces somewhat later, with both puppies asleep in her lap.

"Actually," Charles says, sensing that this may be the best chance he'll ever have to get Lorna interesting in genetics, "that color is called chocolate-and-tan. You see the lighter color of brown on his face, legs and chest? Those are called tan points, like you get with bigger dogs like rottweilers. The reason Bear is chocolate-and-tan instead of black-and-tan is that he has two copies of the recessive brown gene, which causes all the black fur on his body to be brown instead. He even has a brown nose instead of a black one, see? And it's all because of that one gene pair."

"That's really interesting, Charles," Lorna says dutifully.

Charles deflates, just slightly; Erik snorts.

"I don't know why you have to be that way, Erik," Charles says, having tossed the entire explanation of why the other puppy is red with no tan points, and how it is that the puppies can look so different while still being from the same litter. "Dachshunds are awesome. They're as close as you're going to get to a ferret, while still being a dog." He gently lifts the little red girl off Lorna's lap, and hands her over to Erik.

Erik continues to look dubious, but two days later Charles discovers him reclining on the couch watching tv while he levitates a tug toy with pennies melted onto one end around the living room for Bear and Ferret to chase.