Prompt Post: ROUND FOUR
ROUND FOUR IS CLOSED
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Posting Guidelines.
Flat view.
Updates Post (WIPs only)
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<< ROUND THREE | ALL ROUNDS | ROUND FIVE >>
Rules post.
Posting Guidelines.
Flat view.
Updates Post (WIPs only)
Fills Post (completed Fills only)
damalur's firstclasskink on Delicious.
Volunteers always welcome.
There is a delay on comments appearing when there is a URL in the message body. This is due to an LJ anti-spam ( Read more... )
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It’s not all sunshine and roses.
1. Hunger
Alex’s legs feel like jello after his first day of training. It’s not something that he is entirely unfamiliar with, but it’s the first time he’s felt it since he left prison. By the time he has a shower and pulls on clean clothes, his stomach hurts and he knows he needs to eat soon.
He pads his way to the refectory and almost weeps with relief at the piles of food on the table - casserole, bread, salad. He grabs a seat next to Sean and loads a generous helping of all three onto his plate, letting the chatter of the others wash over him as he digs in, refilling his plate as needed. Charles and Erik man the table head and end and it feels like being bracketed by responsibility, by calmness.
He’s vaguely aware of the growing silence around him, but it’s less important than getting more food right now. The casserole might be good, but that matters less than the fact it’s food and it goes down quickly and easily. It feels like the food is hitting his stomach and just evaporating, rather than going toward filling him. He vaguely registers that the food has changed from casserole to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at some point, but the hunger persists, so he keeps shoveling.
Finally, after an age, he starts to feel like he’s getting somewhere and slows down.
He looks up to see three faces staring at him. Hank looks shocked, Raven curious and Sean - Sean looks slightly envious. He looks to the left, and sees Erik calmly pulling two more slices - the last two - of bread toward him, spreading peanut butter on them thickly before placing the sandwich on the plate before Alex, the plate that he only just now realizes was never empty, no matter how much he ate. The jelly jar at Erik’s right has only a few smears left inside. Charles bought it this morning.
“That should be enough, thanks,” he manages around the uncomfortable ache in chest. He still takes the last sandwich, feeling self-conscious as he bites into it. He can actually taste the food this time.
“Are you sure?” Erik asks levelly. “I can get more if you need it.” Charles is looking speculatively between Erik’s plate and Alex’s - both meticulously scraped clean - and the others are still staring at Alex in disbelief. He feels his face redden more as he mumbles, “I’m good.”
Charles claps his hands and they all startle. “I think we’re all done here.” Indeed, the table is nearly devoid of food now, and Alex wonders in embarrassment how much of it he ate. “I’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow.” Hank leaps to his feet and begins to assiduously clear away dishes, but Alex can see him sneaking disbelieving glances in his direction. Alex just sits there and wishes he could die of shame.
Sean’s huff of laughter gets his attention and he suddenly grins widely. “We have got to take you to a diner, man. I want to see how many burgers you can eat!”
Alex stares at him for a long moment. “Okay. But you’re paying.”
Raven laughs at that and the awkwardness is broken as they all move to clean up the kitchen together. Raven pretends nothing happened, Hank stops staring at him and Sean expresses his extreme envy that Alex can pack away so much food and ‘not lose his girlish figure’. The resulting scuffle breaks a couple of dishes, but Charles just waves it off.
Later, Charles will insist that he let Hank draw his blood, in hopes of understanding why exerting his power burns through him so much, even as he reassures him that providing enough food is not a problem. When the needle goes in, he looks away to see Erik watching him with a calm gaze and something akin to understanding.
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Looking forward to the rest!
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I plan to have this finished tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, anons.
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Blurred - Raven
Thank god for Charles’ money, thinks Moira. Otherwise I would probably have been eaten by now.
Lunch is on the table, plentiful and steaming, with Sean, Alex and Hank circling like hungry sharks and Charles not far behind. It’s been a busy morning of training - with Sean gleefully breaking glass under her watchful eye (it seems he still takes a child’s delight in destruction), Alex working on his control (in the form of hitting everything but his intended target) and Charles and Hank running laps of the grounds (or rather, Hank running laps of Charles as Charles runs laps of the grounds). Raven had been in the gym last she saw, and Erik - well, she doesn’t actually know what Erik has been doing all morning, but unlike the kids, she trusts him to have control over his abilities. Perhaps a little too much control, based on what she saw in Russia, but still.
The boys are edging closer and closer to the food and though Alex may get a special pass, she doubts Charles will be as understanding if Sean or Hank dives in before the others arrive. Who knew he would be such a stickler for communal eating? Erik and Raven have yet to come down and Moira volunteers to go get them if only to avoid listening to the scolding she can see forming on the tip of Charles’ tongue.
She encounters Erik on the stairs, freshly washed, and they exchange nods of mutual respect, even if it is tempered by the reality that Erik is largely cooperating with the CIA to further his own ends. She likes to think that he respects her for her acceptance of mutants, but that seems arrogant, presumptuous. More likely he respects her simply because Charles does and he gives weight to Charles’ opinions. This realization doesn’t stop her appreciating the rear view as he heads past her down the stairs. It’s a damn fine view, after all.
There’s no answer to her knock on Raven’s door and she exercises feminine privilege and peeks inside. Raven isn’t there. Clothes are scattered around the room, including gym clothes and a pile of vinyl records sits on the windowsill. Moira is vividly reminded of her college days.
She can hear the thrum of the shower running in the en suite - ah, the homes of the idle rich - and she applies two knuckles to the door.
“Raven, lunch is ready.”
There is no answer, not directly, but she an odd little cough, like a hitch in speech, and it takes her a moment to place it as a choked moan. Her fingers are on the handle instantly and she pushes the door open cautiously. “Raven?”
The surge of warm moist air that greets her intrusion has her blinking - and she hopes the humidity won’t ruin her hair - but another choked moan sound has her determinedly walking in. It takes her a moment to see in the eddying steam, but when she does, her hand flies to her mouth.
Raven is curled in the bathtub, the shower still running merrily. Her skin appears to be rippling. It roils and heaves, looking like the waxy overspill of a fat candle, flickering here pink, there, blue, and then a dusky brown, an unhealthy yellow, pink, brownbluepinkgreyblack and Moira has to tear her eyes away because it’s making her nauseous.
It’s not just the color. The flesh is shifting, running without settling on one design. Raven’s torso jerks as it lengthens, then shortens, undecided on its form, all four limbs a different size; her arms are uneven, her right leg thick and chunky like a footballer’s, her left leg delicate and gracile like a dancer’s.
Her attention snaps back, and Moira lunges for the faucet, heedless of the hot spray drenching her as she shuts it off. Jesus, how long has she been under here?
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Moira snatches the white bathrobe hanging next to the towel rack, and flings it over Raven, then hesitates, unsure about touching. She reaches for a shoulder and it feels like putty, her fingers sinking in, and where she touches, the skin flickers and takes on the pink hue of her hand. She feels vomit welling up in her throat, crawling from her stomach to her mouth. She doesn’t know what to do.
And then Charles is there, shouldering her aside, reaching out without hesitation to pull his sister into his arms, lifting her up and out of the tub. He slips a little on the wet floor and skids, ending up in a heap on the floor, arms still grasping Raven close.
“Who am I,” Raven sobs into his chest, grasping at his shirt with fingers that stretch, flex and then shrink, over and over. “Tell me who I am.”
One arm wraps around her, the other hand coming up to cradle her face, and Charles rests his forehead against hers. After a moment, her skin begins to lighten and smooth, regaining the shape and color that Moira is used to, skin tone retracting back through the spectrum up to pink, her body’s shimmering dying down and her flesh settling in the familiar form.
Moira
She meets Charles’ eyes and is jerked to action again, flushing, suddenly hyper-aware that she is now intruding. She backs up until she hits the wall, uncomfortably damp against her shirt, before she slips out the bathroom door, through Raven’s room and out into the corridor.
Later, Raven is all smiles, blonde hair trailing down her back, blue dress and low-slung belt accentuating her fine figure. There’s no sign of the crying girl of earlier, but Moira looks at Charles’ lined face and thinks of flickering hands (Who am I) and her stomach roils again.
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Apologies if this came through twice - my internet crapped out mid post.
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The first thing he does when the shoes come off is flex his feet. There is always a flare of pain when he first stretches, and then it dies down to a dull ache that he has grown used to because he’s lived with it for most of his life. Larger-sized shoes limit the pain somewhat, but really, no matter what size shoes he wears, they aren’t designed for amounts to an opposable thumb on each foot.
It’s worse in winter, when the cold makes his contorted bones throb with a deep hurt all day long. Or maybe it’s worse in summer, when the heat makes his feet swell a little, makes the shoes all the more constricting, and sometimes he wants nothing more than to run around in bare feet, to feel the cool tiles beneath him and to flex as much as he wants.
Instead, he wears his shoes, and pretends that he doesn’t feel like a Chinese maiden, with feet bound and twisted and painful. Hiding his feet is a habit, one hard to break even amongst those who know and accept them (and as always, he feels a little flare of resentment toward Alex, whose acceptance seems somehow conditional). They’re all in hiding now, and Moira is boss, technically, but it they all take their cues from the professor.
It’s like a rollercoaster some days. After each session with the professor, he feels delight, excitement at what he can do. He feels that it’s okay to be different. That’s his difference isn’t weird, it’s good, valuable, special. And then at the end of each session, he flexes his feet and then crams them back into his constricting shoes. The feeling of empowerment ebbs away, and he thinks about his serum. Perhaps it’s some kind of metaphor, but he really doesn’t know what for.
This afternoon’s entertainment is Sean’s ongoing efforts to fly. Hank frankly finds it hurtful that Sean is willing to believe the science from Xavier’s mouth and not Hank’s own, when Hank was the one who explained it to the professor in the first place and the one who made his suit. Still, he comforts himself with the knowledge that the apparatus is sound and will prove so if Sean can ever get himself off the ground. While he and the professor make the final checks (Hank) and dispense sage advice (the professor), the others crowd at an adjacent window, ostensibly there for support, but really because they’re nosy.
Sean squawks on his way down. It’s amusing, but won’t really give him the lift he needs.
Hank watches Sean head back to the window for the third time, determined despite the scratches of numerous falls and the hooting laughter of his fellow mutants, and ponders the point of the mutations.
Why so much variance? It’s like the human body has decided to evolve in a million directions all at once, trying out all options to see what serves it best. Perhaps in another thousand or million years, they’ll be homogenous once more. But homogenous how? Will they all have mind powers? Blue skin like Raven? A combination? The professor and Erik brought reports of a woman in Russia who could both read minds and turn her skin to diamond, and Hank supposes his own intelligence might count as a multiple mutation as well. Would multiple abilities become the norm? Would they all be like Angel and Darwin?
After another unsuccessful attempt, Sean is given amnesty for the day. They all drift off towards their own spaces. Hank knows that the professor and Erik will be playing chess, while Alex, Raven and Sean will most likely make a beeline for the television.
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Raven is amazing, inside and out, on the cellular and superficial level. Her mutation is marvelous, so adaptable and amazing and it holds the key to helping them both. Her smile is something else. His face burns at the memory of their almost-kiss. Other parts burn when he remembers how casually she sat in his lap. He wants to help her stay a beautiful creature. They deserve it, surely.
Two days later, Hank climbs the stairwell from the bunker - and stairs are always harder on his feet; the ladder up the satellite was hell - with the scent of burned mannequin lingering on his clothes. Alex has finally started to master his ability, and his praise, though somewhat grudging, warms Hank.
It feels like something grand is coming together. Alex is gaining control, Sean has mastered flying, though he may never forgive Erik for his ‘aid,’ and Hank finally has his serum ready.
It’s nothing like Jekyll and Hyde, for all of the professor’s ideas (let the beast free), there’s no good and evil, just formed and malformed. It’s like any other medical condition, one that can be controlled through scientific advancement, just like Alex’s chest plate controls his deadly beams. Hank would happily trade his speed and his inability to slip in the bath for normal feet, even if it meant losing his powers. But it won’t, because he’s done it now, he’s worked it out. He and Raven can stop feeling so different. He can’t wait to show it to her, to see her brilliant smile again.
Later, he returns to his lab, hurt and confused by Raven’s sudden turnaround. The anguish on her face was like a slap to his, and he’s sorry, he truly is, but he spoke the truth. They will never be considered beautiful, and they have the chance to do something about that. They have a chance to slough off the labels, to lose the ‘freak’ forever, to be like Sean and Alex and Erik and Charles, to look normal but still be special. He’ll go first and show her.
He flexes his feet, slips the needle into his flesh, and depresses the plunger.
--
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Poor Hank! ;___; His mutation is probably the worst, because he cannot interact with any other people outside the Mansion...
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