Prompt Post: ROUND TWO
ROUND TWO IS CLOSED
<< ROUND ONE | ALL ROUNDS | ROUND THREE >>
Rules post.
Flat view.
ROUND TWO: Updates Post (WIPs only)
ROUND TWO: Fills Post (completed Fills only)
damalur's firstclasskink on Delicious.
Volunteers always welcome.
Please use the Discussion Post if you want to talk about community alterations or get my modly attention. Do not ( Read more... )
<< ROUND ONE | ALL ROUNDS | ROUND THREE >>
Rules post.
Flat view.
ROUND TWO: Updates Post (WIPs only)
ROUND TWO: Fills Post (completed Fills only)
damalur's firstclasskink on Delicious.
Volunteers always welcome.
Please use the Discussion Post if you want to talk about community alterations or get my modly attention. Do not ( Read more... )
I know what this means to you, but you’re going to die. The stranger implores, and Erik tries to get a good look at him, but his mind is being pulled in too many directions at once. He can’t let go, he can’t, he needs to-
Please, Eric, calm your mind. A new voice soothes. This one is feminine, warm, and regal. It rings with a weight the first didn’t possess. There’s something purely emotional about this voice, as if it’s speaking a language he instinctively knows. He realizes instantly that this must be the daemon. The arms wrapping tighter around his chest and the vague sense of surprise coming off their owner affirms his suspicions. Erik turns in the stranger’s grasp to look over at Anselm and the foreign daemon. The lioness lifts her head to meet his gaze with intelligent amber eyes, blinking calmly.
Erik breathes out and reluctantly releases the submarine, vaguely aware of Anselm do the same. He can feel twin sensations of happiness wash over him before the minds slowly recede, leaving a strange glow to his thoughts as they release him. He goes slack in the arms of the stranger, who quickly begins to drag him to the surface. He looks over at where Anselm is being pulled to the surface (his nape held gently between the teeth of the lioness like some cub) and sees his own shock reflected back at him.
Who are they? Anselm inquires, and Erik shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.
He doesn’t know, but he has every intention of finding out.
iii.
As soon as they reach the surface, Erik regains some control of himself and jerks against the arms surrounding him. “Get off me!” he growls as Anselm lets out and actual snarl, tossing his head irritably. The stranger lets go of him and the lioness eases off, both swimming a small distance away and treading water. Erik glares at them anyway, Anselm doggy-paddling to his side. These two make him feel uneasy, raw and exposed to the world.
“We’re here!” the stranger shouts out, and Erik blinks up to see the U.S. Coast Guard ship bobbing a few meters away. He returns his attention to his “rescuer.”
“Who are you?” The man smiles at him, his eyes startling blue as he regards Erik. He looks genuinely excited to meet him.
“My name is Charles Xavier,” he announces, before reaching out a hand to his daemon to smooth down some ruffled, wet fur on the bridge of her nose. “And this is Helena.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she says warmly to Anselm, who just inclines his head warily.
“You were in my head!” Erik sputters before he can stop himself, wincing at how shocked it comes off as. He tries again. “How’d you do that?” He still feels exposed and drained and still so angry-always angry, thrumming through his veins. Anselm is tense at his side, and-
“You have your tricks, I have mine,” Charles retorts, frowning. “Just calm your mind.”
Erik swallows and tries to calm down. He lashes out blindly in an attempt to grab onto Anselm, who swims forward a little until he can weave his fingers through the fur of his nape. He breathes out. “I thought I was alone,” he says, much more emotionally than he intended. He feels shame race through him at the admission.
But Charles just smiles again. “You’re not alone,” he replies, almost reverently, grinning ridiculously. Helena makes a chuffing sound that must be laughter, regarding them from bright eyes. “Erik, you’re not alone.”
He doesn’t know why that’s so reassuring, but he digs his fingers further into Anselm’s fur and relaxes.
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Can't wait for more!
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The first thing that greets them when they’re dragged on board the Coast Guard ship is a furious hissing.
Erik tenses, immediately expanding his senses to locate every piece of metal at his disposal (quite a lot, seeing as humans prefer steel for their ocean-faring vessels these days). He tugs lightly at the railing and hears its answering groan, flexes his fingers and feels the bolts holding the ship together release a shiver. Anselm has his head low to the ground, ears forward, lips drawn back in an uneasy snarl.
Charles flashes them a startled look, then lets out a laugh. “Calm yourself,” he chides. “It’s just-“
A blur of silver, the source of the hissing, steaks towards them from further down the deck. It weaves around the legs of startled sailors and their daemons before launching itself at Helena. The lioness releases a huff of air at the impact (one Charles echoes with an unusually loud exhale), letting the momentum roll her off her feet and onto her back. Anselm’s growl moves up a few octaves and he takes some stiff-legged steps towards Helena and her attacker while Erik curls his hands into fists, causing the bolts to shake more violently.
A hand settles on his shoulder, and a soothing voice runs through his head. There are no enemies here, Erik. Erik frowns, looking over at his new “friend.” Charles has wet, dark curls plastered to his forehead and a grin on his face, giving him the appearance of a schoolboy returning from a trip to the local pool. Look.
He follows Charles’ gaze to where Helena lays on her back on the hard metal (steel, his senses specify dimly) deck. The blur of silver has solidified into an Egyptian Mau daemon, which perches on the lioness’ ribcage, tail lashing. He hisses abuse when he’s not licking down the wet fur on Helena’s forehead, like a worried mother.
“-Stupid!” the daemon yowls, narrowing icy blue at the bigger cat. “You could’ve died, you know, the guard rails aren’t there just to look nice!”
Helena releases a petulant grumble, ducking her head to avoid another vicious swipe of the cat’s tongue (and earning a fierce glare for her troubles). “There was someone out there,” she protests weakly, her voice no longer possessing the awe-inspiring wisdom it did in the water. Here, on land, she sounds like a pouting child. “We couldn’t just leave them to drown-“
The Egyptian Mau spits in annoyance. “Oh, but it’s perfectly okay if you drown, is it?”
Helena squirms beneath the other daemon’s scrutiny but makes no move to dislodge her heckler. The image is rather absurd-an intimidating, regal lioness pinned down and harshly scolded by a cat maybe one-eighth her size. Despite the verbal abuse, however, the daemon is no threat. Erik allows the metal to slip away from his grasp and Anselm ceases his growling. However, he still seems anxious, dark tail twitching back and forth uneasily, hackles raised.
“What’s wrong?” he inquires at a whisper. Anselm tilts his head up to regard him out of unsettled yellow eyes before turning his gaze back on the Egyptian Mau.
“It’s-“ he begins, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of a blond woman, apparently a few steps behind her daemon, who throws herself into Charles’ arms.
“You complete and utter idiot!” she says, yanking herself out of the embrace to punch Charles on the shoulder. Any doubts Erik had about the cat daemon being hers are immediately silenced.
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“Don’t you ‘now, Raven’ me!” she snaps, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling. “You could’ve died--“
“Something Bran made abundantly clear, trust me,” Charles soothes, casting an amused glance down at the cat daemon, who simply rolls his eyes and refuses to meet the man’s gaze. Raven harrumphs, scowling at the ground before she finally notices Erik and Anselm from where they stand awkwardly a few feet away, dripping on the ship’s deck.
“Are these the two you were so desperate to save?” she asks, regarding them critically. Her daemon weaves between her legs and takes a few challenging steps forward to glare at Anselm. Anselm just stares back evenly, settling down on his haunches next to Erik. Charles and Helena hastily shoulder past their-friends? Lovers?-to put themselves in the middle.
“Yes, they are,” Charles answers, turning to grin at Erik. He does that a lot, the grinning. It’s mildly annoying. “This is Erik Lehnsherr-“
“And his daemon, Anselm,” Helena finishes with a warm nod in the wolf’s direction. It’s slightly unnerving that the two know their names without being formally given them, but Erik supposes the pair was rooting around in their heads. Names hardly seem like the worst thing they could’ve stumbled on.
“And this is my good friend, Raven,” Charles gestures to the blond, who nods curtly. “And Bran.” The Egyptian Mau mimics his human and inclines his head towards Anselm.
“Charmed,” Erik acknowledges dryly, and smirks when he sees Raven frown. Well, at least she caught onto the sarcasm. Perhaps she’s more intelligent than she lets on.
Charles levels him an unpleased look as Raven narrows her eyes and inquires, “you risked your life for someone like him?”
The telepath sighs and casts them both a frustrated glance. “He’s like us, Raven,” he says quietly, and the belligerent expression leaves her features as she seems to look at him in a new light. Erik crosses his arms and tilts his chin up defiantly.
“I have a question,” Anselm says, speaking for the first time. He looks at the two other daemons warily. “Why are you on a Coast Guard ship?”
Helena smiles widely and Charles clasps his hands together as he says, “we have a proposition for you.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Their hotel room is outrageously humid that night.
Erik releases a long breath and turns over, kicking off the orange bedcovers in a useless attempt to escape the stifling Miami heat. He’s aware that he might be able to fix the jammed air conditioning system if he tried (the machine gives off an angry buzzing sensation, and he suspects it’s due to some former tenant shoving a paper clip in the gears), but he can’t be bothered. Plus, he’s reveling in the irony of the CIA being unable to furnish them with comfortable accommodations.
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They’re silent for a moment, and the heat isn’t what makes the moment suffocating. Erik can feel bitterness and anger rolling off of Anselm in waves as they both remember the camps. This isn’t their first experience being considered the “lesser man.”
And that’s what they are, in the eyes of the CIA, at least. Erik and Anselm aren’t blind. The two agents they met-the pretty, auburn-haired girl with her dormouse daemon and the rotund, spectacled man and his grinning pug-were welcoming enough. But the sailors who seemed in the know about their “conditions” were less accepting. Erik had to keep a firm grasp on the scruff of Anselm’s neck to keep him from snarling at the hostile daemons they encountered on their journey back to the mainland.
Erik reaches out and runs a hand over Anselm’s left ear. His fingertips skim the small, perfectly circular hole in the cartilage where the Nazis tagged him like a head of cattle. The tag is long gone, but, just like the tattoo on Erik’s arm, the hole is still there.
“We could leave,” Anselm suggests quietly. Erik snorts.
“The telepath would know what we were up to in an instant,” he replies bitterly.
“Charles.”
“What?” He blinks at Anselm, who slides his yellow eyes away uncomfortably.
“His name. Charles.” Erik hums distractedly and Anselm clears his throat, continuing on. “And I doubt he would try to stop us if we really wished to go.”
“He has a lion daemon,” Erik points out.
Anselm laughs. “A lion daemon that allows a cat to walk all over it,” he says. “They wouldn’t stop us.”
They lay there silently. Erik, more for something to do than anything else, uses his powers to lazily fish out the paperclip from the air conditioner. The machine stutters to life, blasting cool air into the muggy room.
“It’s our only lead on Shaw,” he tells Anselm. The daemon is quiet for a few seconds before he inclines his head.
“True,” he sighs. “I guess we stay.”
“For now,” Erik amends.
“For now,” Anselm agrees.
They lapse into silence. The only noise in the room is the humming of the repaired air conditioner. Neither one of them acknowledge that they’re partially staying because they’re too damn curious about the existence of other mutants to walk away so quickly.
“Even lone wolves long for a pack,” Erik mumbles teasingly at Anselm. He receives a harmless growl for his troubles.
It’s only as he’s falling asleep that he recalls the unease Anselm felt around Raven’s daemon, Bran, even after he’d been determined harmless.
“Anselm?” The daemon huffs.
“Hmm?”
“Why were you so unnerved by Bran?” Anselm opens one eye to look at Erik.
“The Egyptian Mau…” he trails off for a few seconds. “It isn’t his true form.”
Erik blinks. “A shapeshifter?” Raven’s ability hadn’t been explained before they’d been bustled off to this hotel and told they’d fly out to a CIA facility in the morning.
“Seems like it.”
The world is just full of surprises, he thinks sarcastically as he finally succumbs to sleep.
He’s not sure whether he imagines it, but he thinks he hears a warm voice respond, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, my friend.
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Man, as much as I disliked the Dark Materials series, I love love love daemon!AUs, and this one just about takes the cake.
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anyway, looking forward to more of this :)
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I imagine that Raven's Bran (baha. ha. Raisin Bran) actually looks like the hellhounds from Chronicles of Riddick!
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