Prompt Post: ROUND TWO
ROUND TWO IS CLOSED
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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... )
Moira hesitates, but her pale skin touches red-as-blood, and the world changes around them. It is violent, but the landing is soft, and the sharp clean scent of disinfectant fills the air.
Charles lets himself relax, lets go of his forceful hold on consciousness. Lets the pain wash him away, into dark sleep. He is so very tired.
----
You will not walk again. He had already suspected, probably already known deep down that this was the truth, but it hurts no less when the doctors tell him. It’s a weight on his heart that could sink him if he let it. He has time to think on it, to turn the knowledge over in his mind like broken glass, as if hoping to wear jagged edges down smooth. The absence below his waist is a constant reminder of what he has lost. He will get through this; he makes it a promise to himself, ignoring how many of his promises he has already broken. Not this one. He will adapt and survive.
Two weeks they keep him, letting the wound heal, letting him settle in to his new reality. Perhaps he is bitter, he realises as the long, dull days drift on, wondering what Erik is doing out there. Perhaps he is angry, if he would let himself feel it. He has never before imagined how hard this could be, to be so helpless, to be crippled. A word poisonous in its truth. A name, an identity, that will be the first thing others see of him. The only thing they see of him, in some cases. He tries to avoid the minds of the doctors and the nurses as they come and go, so heavy with pity that he cannot endure it.
Finally they decide he is ready to leave his bed. They prescribe him physical therapy, someone to come and teach him how to manoeuvre himself in and out of the wheelchair, in and out of bed, to do tasks so basic he has never given them a moment’s thought before. Moira is there to help him, but she is trying to avoid the eye of the CIA, those men who ordered her death along with theirs, so she cannot stay for long. Hank and Sean and Alex are back at the mansion. Waiting. He focuses on them as a goal. He tells himself if he can just get back to them, things will return to the way they were. He knows this is a lie, but it is all he has.
He is less than he once was. Both physically, and because of the empty space by his side, in his mind. The man missing. The man who, he thinks, broke the bargain - now proven so fragile - they had with one another. Or perhaps it was Charles himself who broke it. He had thought they both wanted what was best for mutant-kind, but now he wonders if he ever really knew Erik at all. If all he wanted was for humans to die. For their extinction, laying the path clear. He hopes he is wrong. He hopes this is just his loss talking.
He does not want to fight his friend. He fears one day he may have to.
----
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*does a happy dance*
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