ataraxionlogs | oo6. closedish.

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oo6. closedish.

CHARACTERS: Charles Xavier and Severus Snape; Remus Lupin; Emma Swan; Nuala; Rogue; Johanna Mason; Odessa Knutson; Erik Lehnsherr; Captain Hook (Killian Jones); Hank McCoy; Raven Darkholme; Cassandra Anderson, others as they happen.
LOCATION: Level fourteen, room one hundred; laundry facilities; bar on level fourteen; kitchen on level fourteen; the Gardens; media library; level twenty, room one-hundred and ninety two; others as they happen.
WARNINGS: TBA.
SUMMARY: Adjusting to being a different person is a struggle.
NOTES: This is only partially closed. I'm using this as a forum for people to poke him, as random run ins may happen as I tag out instead. Please let me know if you'd like to do anything, and I'll be happy to set up a thread (unless you're feel ambitious).

to ever spend my life sitting playing future games

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ You won’t find anything and Erik looks sideways at Charles while he continues to sack his wardrobe, eyes flat.

He closes the second drawer.

And then the third, after some rustling.

He’s halfway across the room for the opposite bureau when he stops. Even without telepathy, Charles can see the wheels turning, pulling him inexorably back around for that third drawer and the papers rumpled therein. ]

[ Flat look is met in kind, gaze dragging along with Erik as he moves. And stops. And turns.

That's enough. Charles launches forward, a hand out to catch the other man at the elbow in a rough grasp, fingers hard. ]

The decisions you made back there

[ he starts, voice thick with whatever quality can ignite into shouting and only just does not ]

and the decisions you will make might work out fine, here, in a vacuum. [ Fingers are claws, sinking into leather, white at the knuckles. ] It's a different thing altogether when I have to live with it. That's what happened to me.

Edited 2014-07-18 07:19 (UTC)

[ Erik’s arm jerks stiff against Charles’ grip, elbow angled up and out just short of taking a reflexive cut at the smaller man’s teeth.

As is they’re encased in beard, which Erik is forced to endure at uncomfortably close range. It bristles at him, gingery and homeless: begging for judgment that’s only too easy to lapse into in the absence of context. ]

Live with what, [ is distant, as challenges go. Not interested. His eyes are on Charles’ scruffy chin. ]

Edited 2014-07-18 07:41 (UTC)

[ Charles is almost braced for it, violent return, and doesn't trust its absence either. There's a twitch to the way he looks at Erik, from one eyeball to the other. ]

Is this the part where you pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about.

[ His hand loosens, fractionally, only because keeping that kind of grip gets uncomfortable after a while. ]

[ This has the desired effect, if the desired effect is to pull Erik’s eyeline up into polar alignment with Charles’. Muscle lays down lean against his jawline, cutting in hollow against the bone.

Now it’s a silent challenge, his elbow rigid in support of Charles’ shifting weight.

Finish the accusation. ]

Edited (im going to edit every tag) 2014-07-18 08:12 (UTC)

[ Apparently so. Charles' conviction proves brittle, showing cracks under pressure.

This whole room denotes a difference; Erik has been in his rooms prior to now enough. Familiarly cluttered, but in negligence rather than absent mindedness. There is the smell of smoke that ventilation hasn't removed entirely, which had only been a rare trace, once, and didn't involve a tea cup as an ashtray he's improvised with on his bed stand.

Probably, there are rooms that are more miserable than this one. And people seem to get angry at him in it a lot. ]

Ten years. [ A push comes with letting Erik's arm go, although it does more to lever himself away rather than shove the other man back. ] That's how long. You left me, and took her with you.

[ Ten years is a long time for zero contact.

Erik is unmoved.

There is nothing in his expression to denote skepticism, save perhaps the utter absence of guilt or apology. Charles pushes off of his arm and Erik watches him go, still about the eyes until he resolves to turn mechanically back for the third drawer. ]

So you gave up.

I didn’t ‘take’ anyone, [ he says, secure in his recollection of events that are still recent, for him. ] She chose to join me.

Edited 2014-07-18 08:39 (UTC)

[ Charles fails to deny it. He also fails to throw ashtray-tea-cup at Erik's skull when he turns away, so it's not as though the absence of denial proves the will and want isn't there.

He watches the other man's turned back, flinty anger mute and vaguely helpless to find a good enough avenue of release. ]

Yeah, for the whole year you spent together, before you got caught.

[ --is a little abruptly meaner, bitterness curdled in his tone, unhappy that Erik was caught, unhappy with what Erik did to get caught, unhappy with the whole sorry mess. His gaze lists to the drawer being opened. ]

The serum's a treatment for my spine.

Edited 2014-07-18 09:03 (UTC)

[ With the offending drawer already open at his hip, Erik pauses at the word caught. A turn of his ear registers as temptation, which is in turn recognized and processed as distraction.

It doesn’t matter.

He collects the papers one at a time, knuckles hard and grip unforgiving. There’s quite a bit of rustling. ]

Then you no longer have need of it.

You have no idea what I need.

[ This isn't particularly cutting, designed to distract. Flatly delivered as fact. There's been a slight head tip along with wondering if Erik was going to ask something

and then he doesn't, and Charles stays rooted to the spot. Watching a point between the other man's shoulders. ]

I have a few ideas about what you need, [ Erik is only too swift to correct, aloof in his direct address of Charles’ notes.

His spine is straight, posture casually sharp as Charles remembers. There’s poise in the broad set of his shoulders and the point of one shoe. Even the lines in his back are handsome. ]

What I need--

[ Is to fight about it, probably. But anger at its best gives energy. Anger at its worst carves out the kind of hollowness that seems to have dried out Charles' tone in smoke and disuse. ]

Is for you to leave.

[ The last paper is extracted and smoothed flat to be added to the bottom of the stack. It isn’t difficult for him to work through exactly what he’s looking at, when he rifles through the complete set. Less difficult than one might expect, for a shark. ]

What sort of treatment.

[ If he intended to leave he would have knocked. ]

You want the Cliffs notes as well my paperwork, do you.

[ --comes with a sort of disbelieving, breathy laugh that doesn't do much to take away from his mood. Which is a lot of things.

Uncharacteristically distrustful. Paranoid, defensive. ]

What're you asking, Erik.

[ Erik turns, incredulous, at first, that he’s being asked for clarification regarding his request for clarification. Displeasure shows cruel behind his eyes, clear and flat as fresh cut glass.

He doesn’t answer immediately.

A pair of slow steps bring him closer, first. ]

I’m asking what was worth the loss of everything you are.

[ The papers are still in his right hand, variously creased and crimped by rough handling. Near enough for Charles to make out his own scrawl. ]

Edited 2014-07-21 04:54 (UTC)

[ There's no step to meet him halfway, nor ceding territory; dullness in response to sharp. Charles allows his attention to list down to crumpled pages, and by the time he looks back up, there's fresh anger there.

Even if the corner of his mouth hooks up wry. ]

If you had've seen me--

[ He stops that train of thought. Better to answer the question, even if it's a shitty one, than risk his composure. ]

Mobility. Painlessness. The ability to think properly, to sleep properly, to function. Control. I already lost everything I was, Erik. So I took something back.

[ With the way he’s looking, Erik is likely to pull the iron out of Charles’ brain before he takes away any answers he can be sure of. His eyes are pale as cuttlefish, prying with beak and suckers into the wrinkles around Charles’ face and coming away with nothing more telling or specific than anger.

Anger at him. Resentment. Blame.

After a hard moment spent engaged in a staring contest at close range, Erik breaks off first. He turns to go, papers and all, stride long and speed clipped. ]

[ Charles is left standing as Erik turns away. He doesn't do very well with violence, as a general rule, being not the most physical of men, but there is a tense moment where he thinks he might just launch himself at Erik's turned back and demand a response

any response

better than that. A breath in seems to catch against his set teeth, held high in his chest. Comes out, then, as a harsh sounding laugh. The nerve!!

Fuckn-- ]

I'm not the only future disappointment.

[ --he tells turned back. And means it, lashing disdain that he doesn't mind gets on him just as much. ]

What did you expect, [ comes terse, delivered with a cut of his teeth over his shoulder.

He’s rooted to the floor just before the panel to open the door, tension stiff in his shoulders and carved hollow into his jaw. He hasn’t lifted a hand to it yet, knuckles dried all to tendon and bone around battered notes.

Violence is his specialty. ]

I never lied to you.

Edited (clarity) 2014-07-25 05:32 (UTC)

[ Derision is in Charles' own turn away. Bed frame creaks as he finds a place to sit with his back against the wall, a slow and labourious shift of limbs and weight with the kind of settling ease of a prisoner in his cell. Arm rests on bent knee. ]

I expected we'd change the world.

[ Leather rustles as he settles, skull resting back against wall, metal that isn't metal. The silence of an absence of minds is something he is still conscious of, in a way. ]

For the good. But you like it too much.

[ The tilting glance back scopes Erik up and down. ]

Killing.

[ The bridge of Erik’s nose hardens as if he’s been struck, brow hooded and ears laid flat.

He stands like that a moment,

poised,

and clarifies: ] Killing humans.

[ An easy fan of his unclenched hand sheds papers onto the floor in a flush as he turns back.

Magnetism takes hold of the bed, coursing low through the frame on its way out into shoe shanks, zipper, and iron fillings.

The light in his eyes has switched to off. ]

Edited 2014-07-26 04:58 (UTC)

[ It's subtle, but Charles can feel it, has felt it too many times before to miss easily. Lazy recline stiffens up muscles along his spine, and his hand clenches bedsheets in uneasy compulsion around when papers slide to settle still on the floor.

The look back over to Erik is sharper than before, cutting through the former, blurrier haze of indistinct anger.

And nothing. No commands in Erik's head, no vanishing trickery, no prying into skulls to read intentions. Charles doesn't know. He only ever thought he did, clearly. ]

Don't, [ is coarse through his teeth, more heat than tremor. ]

[ Zipper teeth cinch tight at Charles’ lapels, twisted by an invisible hand in the instant before they drag him face down off the side of the bed and flat onto the floor.

Erik has only just now started for him, but the room is small: three strides and he’s there to haul the smaller man upright. Two more see his back nailed to the wall; Erik catches his free hand up under wiry neckbeard, around the throat. His fingers bind hard into tender skin there, crushing muscle and pipe together, further stemming oxygen to the brain where his thumb hooks to dig deep into the carotid's flow. ]

You’re one of them.

[ Defiance, if any, is met with a helpful bite of bony fingertips to bring eye contact around to bear by force.

There’s nothing else left that Charles needs to see. ]

[ Charles hits the floor like he didn't expect to, despite everything; there's an instinctively flung out hand to brace for impact, but breath leaves him sudden and sharp and inarticulate. Pale eyes flash panicky through dishevelled, lank hair at a glance over towards steps on fast approach.

Struggle is indistinct but immediate, shoes scuffling against the ground as he's dragged up from it with a hiss of vocalised, vicious protest, but still sees back to wall, and hand at throat.

A fist thumps Erik's shoulder, but that's all; hands grasp and claw at arm, grip.

There's nothing else left to say, either, save for sick sounding choking gasps. His eyes are bright, saline-blurred, focused on Erik's face even as vision starts to get dark at the edges. The start of a nn-- is cut off with tighter fingers, while his own loosen fractionally. ]

[ The meat of Erik’s shoulder is set iron stiff against Charles’ fist, muscle sleek and lean and hard under leather’s softer give. He doesn’t blink -- doesn’t seem to notice. ]

Powerless, [ he says, quiet and close.

Anger quivers into a show of his teeth -- frustration rough on his breath. ]

I never wanted to hurt you.

oo6. closedish.

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