prompt post: round six
ROUND SIX IS CLOSED
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<< ROUND
FIVE | ALL
ROUNDS | ROUND SEVEN>>
RULES POST
POSTING GUIDELINES
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 feature that can't ( Read more... )
The first and most important rule of working at Sea World is to respect the animals at all times, but looking back on the past thirty minutes, Charles hypothesized that “protect the animals from the visitors” might be somewhat more vital in practice. Thanks to one scantily clad blonde patron who was apparently something more than human, he was sitting in the Employee’s Only room of the Sea World Aquarium Complex in San Diego, trying to keep a level head as he attempted communication with a damp and extremely pissed off man who had, until very recently, been a shark.
‘He’s grumpy now as he ever was,’ Charles mused as he observed the man-shark pulling roughly at his fingers and toes, exploring his new (and strikingly naked) mammalian body. ‘Just getting a feel for things, I suppose.’ Throughout his time at Sea World, Charles had always been in charge of the “Shark Encounter”, a 280,000 gallon tunnel-tank through which visitors could stroll at their leisure or, if they wanted the full experience, follow Charles as he gave what he felt to be a truly riveting lesson in ichthyology. The man before him was, or rather, had been, a vital part of this “Encounter”.
“This one here’s a Great White,” he would say. “His name is Erik! Hello, Erik!” A jaunty wave, to keep the kids engaged. “He’s a cranky fellow, you know, and that actually makes him very good at finding food for himself. Now, Erik here consumes a diet primarily composed of…”
The job had given him some time to get to know Erik-the-shark, and he found that Erik-the-man was not much different. The two incarnations were similarly temperamental and somewhat intimidating.
‘Alas,’ he reflected, ‘I sense that my duties concerning Erik are about to get much more complicated than they have been in the past.’ Erik paused in his spirited attack on his knee and looked at Charles. He scowled, baring a bizarrely full set of teeth. Charles met his gaze squarely and kindly.
“Hello, Erik,” he said, attempting to strike a chord of familiarity. The scowl on Erik’s face, improbably, widened. The human mouth was not generally capable of an expression so overwhelmingly, well, shark-like. He was opening and closing his mouth, knocking his teeth together, and something about his stance suggested hunger to Charles. He slowly rose from his seat, and, maintaining eye contact, moved to the cooler against the wall. Opening it, he withdrew the bucket of mackerel from which he normally fed the sharks.
“Do you speak English?” he paused, feeling a little silly as he waited for a response from what was, effectively, a fish. “…Español?” He tossed a fish in Erik’s direction, flinching as he caught it with his teeth. To see a shark do it was a wonder, a testament to the strength of nature and the Selachimorphic jaw, but when the jaw belonged to a man… it was a little gross. It was very gross. Erik apparently thought so, too, as he began to cough out the raw, bony fish as soon as it touched his tongue. His taste buds had become human, too. Charles remembered the carton of goldfish crackers in the cupboard, and promptly retrieved them. He threw a small handful in Erik’s direction, being careful not to hit him.
“Parlez vous Française? Deutsch?” Nothing. He tossed another couple crackers. His attempt at bribing Erik into exhibiting linguistic skills having proved fruitless, Charles leaned against the wall and began trying to think of a way to even begin sorting out the mess that the blonde woman had gotten them into. Watching placidly as Erik stuffed his cheeks with crackers in a manner more befitting a squirrel than a shark, Charles let himself slip into a waking trance, calming his mind so as to create a blank slate from which he could begin to rationalize the insane series of events that was his life at that moment.
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He wasn’t sure what he thought had happened when he began to run around the bend. A rupture in the tank? Gunfire? He was even less sure when he arrived at the scene to find the retreating backs of the strange guests and a very much naked, and very much drowning, man thrashing around behind the glass of the tank.
Abandoning reason and running on sheer adrenaline, Charles had sprinted to the feeding deck atop the tanks and dove in, clothes and all. He swam as fast as he could to the man and hooked his arms around his shoulders, pulling him up to the surface. He dragged the naked man out of the water and, pinning his struggling form to the feeding platform by his shoulders, begged him to be still.
“Calm yourself, friend! What’s happened?” he gasped, pushing his sodden hair from his face. His vision cleared of hair, Charles’ gaze snapped immediately to a piece of red plastic on the other man’s shoulder. It was a tag. A shark tag.
Charles’ first assumption would have been that this man had killed Erik, the only tagged shark in the tank, had it not been for the fact that the tag was most definitely embedded into the skin of his shoulder. He was completely baffled, unable to even begin to process what was happening, until he remembered something he had heard on the news last week about a gang of super-humans called ‘The Hellfire Club’.
Supposedly, this club was the first foray into the public eye of a group of mutants who had for so long managed to keep their powers secret. The reporter said that these mutants could be capable of any number of almost supernatural abilities: summoning, flight, alchemy, transfiguration.
And, Charles figured, why the hell not? Although it made next to no sense, it worked more than any other theory. The man’s scars matched up with the ones Erik had gotten before being caught and placed in captivity. He placed a hand on the head of the man (shark?) beneath him and tried to focus all of his energies on calming him down. He had always had a knack for soothing the agitated.
Erik (or the man who was most likely Erik) calmed almost immediately, and Charles pulled him to his feet and led him to the back room where he wouldn’t be seen.
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“Charles, I-It’s Moira-she’s, um…!” he gestured wildly at Erik, who was bristling from the shock of Hank’s sudden appearance. “This fish!” He thrust the bucket towards Charles.
Charles pushed himself off the wall, casting a curious gaze on Hank. “What seems to be the problem, my friend? Where’s Moira?”
“This fish! This fish is Moira! I mean, I, I don’t-ah…” Hank passed the bucket to Charles, resigned to the fact that he was unable to communicate through his panic.
‘Oh,’ Charles thought. ‘Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.’ Moira McTaggart, security guard and, more importantly, Charles’ girlfriend, was swimming in a bucket. Because she was a fish. Because of the same two who had transformed Erik, no doubt. He looked down into the bucket at his beloved-turned-beta-fish. ‘Shitshitshitshitshit.’
“Moira was patrolling the Shark Encounter. She must have gotten hit with a rebound when that…” Hank gestured to Erik, who was attempting to stand by pulling himself up against a table. “That happened. Everybody’s heard. And it must have had the opposite effect on her.” He looked desperately at Charles. “I’ve been looking for you since it happened.”
Charles was still staring into the bucket. His body wasn’t keeping up with the frantic pace of his mind, and he found himself unable to move. He realized with a jolt that he must have completely overlooked fish-Moira flopping wildly on the floor as he focused on saving Erik. He tried to project his guilt towards Moira’s small, fishy prison of a body. His thoughts were a chorus of expletives and the desire for this to be some failed joke of Hank’s (Hank was not very funny but often made awkward attempts at humor, so it was a semi-probably theory).
Moira looked about as distressed as a beta fish could. Charles dipped a finger into the water in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion in spite of his own horror and watched as she circled it and butted it with her head.
“Moira…? Can you understand me, darling?” he ventured, swishing his finger beneath the surface. Moira flicked him with her tailfin three times in what he took to be an affirmative response.
“I think she can still understand language. That’s… promising.” Hank met the older scientist’s gaze. Charles nodded earnestly, looking a little faint.
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Hank gave Charles a few minutes of silence to collect himself before attempting to make some progress.“Why is this even happening?”
“I don’t know, Hank. But perhaps ‘why’ is not as important as ‘how’.” Charles took a deep breath, finalizing his attempt at level-headedness. “If we know how this happened, we might be able to reverse it.” Charles looked back down at Moira and placed his finger back in the water. “Okay, Moira, let’s do it this way: hit my finger with your head when you mean to say yes, and your tail when you mean no. I need to be able to ask you some questions.” She responded with a gentle tap of her head.
“Ask her if-”
“GAH.”
Charles whipped his head around and looked at Erik, leaned against a table with his mouth open.
“GAH,” he yelled again, apparently having found his voice. “AGH, ACK, GRAH, BUH, BUH, BUH.”
“…Erik?” Charles ventured, unsure of how to proceed. “Is everything oka-”
“NGH! GRAH, TCH TCH TCH!” He sounded like a cat choking on a hairball.
“Ssh, my friend, it’s alright,” Charles cooed, unsure of what else to do. “Use your inside voice. Quiet. Quiet like this.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We talk like this, Erik. Quiet, quiet.”
“Kuh,” Erik breathed. “Kuh kuh kuh kuh buh buh buh buh.”
“Mm.” Confident that Erik would behave until he could tackle the somewhat more important problem concerning his ectothermic girlfriend. Charles turned back to Moira.
“Ask her if the people who did this said anything,” Hank offered from the door.
“Ip ip ip,” Erik whispered.
“You heard him, darling. Did she say anything at all?” Moira flicked her tail against his finger. “No,” he supplied to Hank.
“Just as well, I guess. She wouldn’t be able to tell us what she said anyway.” Hank sighed. “This is ridiculous.”
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Erik, still leaning against the table, was slowly annunciating vowels. “Aay, ee, eye, oh, yoo… aay, ee, eye, oh, yoo…”
“Language,” Charles breathed, incredulous. “Hank, this is speech! This is letters in alphabetical order! Keep going, Erik!” Moira swished angrily in her bucket, unused to being ignored. Charles didn’t notice.
“Aay, ee, eye, oh, yoo, if, a- and, and, and, me, me.” He looked at Charles, confusion coloring his expression. “Me, if, and. Why, why, can.” He continued to look at the other men expectantly, but both scientists had been rendered speechless. The shark spoke English. The shark was speaking English. Sort of.
“Why me can, if gah ngh. Why if, what?”
“Erik, do you understand English?” Charles spoke slowly, maintaining eye contact.
“Aay, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, gee…” It was like watching evolution on fast forward. As confused, scared, and overwhelmed as he was, the scientist in Charles couldn’t help but marvel at the growth.
“Aitch, eye, jay, kay, Emma Emma,” Erik uttered. “Chaw?”
“Well, he’s definitely trying to say something,” Hank shrugged, watching Erik curiously. “I have a hypothesis, if you’re interested.”
“Do tell,” Charles said somewhat more breathlessly than he intended. This was all a little much.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of The Hellfire Club by now?”
“I believe we’re thinking the exact same thing, my friend.”
“And as for the… linguistic developments: based on what I’ve heard about the, er… mutants’ ability to transform life,” he paused considering his words. “Their memories and knowledge may have integrated with Erik’s own when the blast hit him. Maybe.” He sighed. “It’s all still rather unbelievable.”
“Chaw. Tch… tch… Shh. Shh.” Erik paused, concentrating. “Shh… aw.”
That's all for tonight, folks. I've got a lot more planned for this, so stay tuned.
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I HAD MANY A GOOD LAUGH WITH THIS. I am liking it.
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Erik’s speech had come along rather nicely by the time Charles got them all back to his flat. He had moved Moira to a smaller, plastic fish tank that he had purchased at the Sea World gift shop, and Erik was in a spare janitor’s jumpsuit. They didn’t look very much put-together as they made their way through the parking lot, Erik trying to break away from the group and return to his tank as Hank attempted to restrain him, but they made it home.
“Erik, do you know what happened to you?” Charles asked, still speaking rather slowly.
“Change,” Erik answered. “And dry.”
“Yes. You were changed into a human. We don’t live in the water.” He smiled at the other man. “My name is Charles Xavier.”
“Erik.”
“I know. Do you recognize me?” Charles tried to emulate the face he made when he was giving tours: focused, and a bit too perky.
“Food?” Erik smiled, his grin still disconcertingly sharkish.
“Yes! I fed you every day!” Charles beamed in Hank’s direction. “This is marvelous, isn’t it, Hank?” The younger man shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“Yes, but… I hate to detract from this for you, but we do have a problem on our hands.” He gestured at Moira’s tank, which sat on the coffee table. “And I think Moira’s unhappy.” Moira slammed her head into the tank’s walls as a means of affirmation.
“You’re right, Hank.” He placed a hand on the side of Moira’s bowl. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Now let’s get a plan of action going.”
“The first thing we shouldn’t do is let Erik out into the universe just yet. I think he needs to stay here,” Hank said, looking warily at the shark man.
“What?” Erik glared at Hank. “I don’t want.”
“I’m sorry Erik, but he’s right. We need to let you get used to being a human before we let you interact with other people. I can’t even begin to imagine how disastrous it would be were someone else to meet-”
“Charles! I brought pizza!” Charles paled. With everything else that had happened that day, he had completely forgot that he had invited his sister Raven over for dinner.
“…you,” he finished. Raven bounded into the room.
“ I hope you like pepperoni, because I- oh, hi, Hank. Who’s this?” she gestured to Erik. Hank opened his mouth to speak, face slightly pink. Erik beat him to the punch.
“Erik,” he stated firmly. “Me.” He pressed his hand to his chest.
“Charles,” Raven chided, “did you bring a date to dinner?” She smiled broadly at him.
“What? No, Erik’s just-”
“Date,” Erik aped, carefully pronouncing the new vocabulary.
“A-ha!” She pointed an accusing finger at Charles, positively beaming. “So, how long have you two been an item?”
“We are not an item, Raven. Erik is just… English is not his native tongue and he is learning new words. He doesn’t even know what you said.” He gave a disapproving hrmph and pressed himself farther into the cushions of the couch.
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“Germany.” It was the first country that came to Charles’ mind. “Erik here is from… Dusseldorf… and he’s here for a… work exchange program. At Sea World.”
“I didn’t know they had a Sea World in Germany,” Raven remarked blithely as she settled in next to her brother and set the pizzas on the coffee table. “Cute fish, by the way.”
“I like fish,” Erik stated. Raven smiled kindly at him before turning her face to Charles’ and whispering,
“A little dim, isn’t he?”
“Foreign, love, he’s foreign. I’m sure he’s got lots of complex thoughts rattling around up there. He just needs to work on vocalizing them in English.” Hank coughed, reclaiming the attentions of everyone in the room.
“If nobody minds, I was going to start eating?” he suggested meekly, flipping open the box. Erik’s eyes locked on to the pizza with hunger-fueled magnetism.
“I want that,” he proclaimed. He looked at Charles expectantly.
“Have at it, then,” his keeper replied, taking a slice for himself. Erik did not move, eyes still locked on Charles.
‘He wants me to feed him,’ Charles realized, taking in the eager gaze of the other man. Recalling the feeling of tossing a bucket of fish into a ravenous swarm of sharks, he handed over his slice. Erik looked at the food in his hand for a moment, sizing it up, before stuffing it whole into his mouth. The others in the room sat in stunned silence for a moment as he held it there, cheeks bulging. And then he began to scream.
“ARGH!” He spat the piping hot pizza from his mouth with great force, his tongue no doubt completely scalded. He sputtered random noises of pain as he brushed vigorously at his tongue, eyes watering and face red. Hank was already in the kitchen getting him a glass of water, heart beating wildly from the shock of his sudden expostulations.
“That’s not foreign, Charles,” Raven drawled. “That’s called being dim.” Charles drew a carefully measured breath, evaluating his options. There were not many ways to convince his sister that Erik’s decidedly sub-human tendencies were the result of foreign custom and not magical transfiguration.
“I have perhaps not been completely honest with you.”
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“These are clothes. You have to wear clothes every day,” she said, tugging at the fabric of her shirt.
“Why?” Erik asked, looking down at the bright orange cotton of his janitorial jumpsuit. Raven paused to consider this.
“You know, I really don’t know. Now that I think about it it’s all sort of-”
“We wear clothing to protect ourselves from the elements, Erik!” Charles interjected, not wanting to give the other man any ideas about the necessity of clothing. “And for decency!”
“I’m the life coach here, Charles,” Raven reproved, crossing her arms. “But he’s right. It’s really more for the sake of decency than anything else.”
“Decency is...?” Erik cocked his head to the side, the picture of innocent curiosity.
“Decency is, well…” Charles looked to Hank for assistance. Raven groaned, anticipating Hank’s needlessly complicated response.
“Decency is an abstract societal concept of what is and isn’t permissible in the context of day to day life," he started. "For instance, if one were to attempt to practice exhibitionism in this culture, they would find themselves to be considered indecent for showing off their naked bodies. In some other cultures, usually hotter regions, nudity is considered perfectly acceptable. Consider the tribes of Africa! They often go completely naked, although really if you factor in certain areas of the middle east and the presence of the burqa we see that clothing can in fact be a socio-religious… you’re not getting any of this, are you?”
“What?” Erik replied, turning his gaze from the light switch and back to Hank.
“It’s nothing, really. I was just saying that you have to wear clothes to protect yourself from the cold.” He sighed heavily, bemoaning his ever-present need to dumb down explanations.
“You’re such a dork, Hank,” Raven sighed, sending a bemused smile his way. He responded in turn with a deep blush, averting his gaze and laughing awkwardly. “Do you get clothes now, honey?” she asked Erik.
“No.”
Charles caught her eye, exasperated. ‘He’s impossible,’ he mouthed at her, casting a sidelong glance at Erik.
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“Oh… Hank. That’s very creative.” He paused, considering the image on screen. “I suppose it’s worth a try.” He took the phone from Hank’s hands and moved next to Erik. “We’re going to read a book, Erik. It’s called You Can’t Go to School Naked.”
Raven stifled a snort of laughter. “Oh my God. Do it.” Charles cleared his throat as Erik leaned in to look at the pictures of the e-book.
“’If you went to school naked when the sun’s overhead, you would get a sunburn, and turn very red,’” Charles read in his best schoolteacher voice. “’You might be confused with a big red’…I can’t do this.” He slumped his shoulders and moved to return Hank’s phone. Raven caught his arm.
“Oh no, no, no, Charles. You must. Erik seems so engaged! Just look at him. Look at that face. That’s the face of learning, brother dearest.” Erik did indeed look rather interested, although if it was because of the phone or the book Charles couldn’t say. He returned his eyes to the screen and, heaving a sigh, continued reading.
“’…with a big red tomato, stewed in a pot with a russet potato.”
“The last two lines overdid the rhyme scheme, I think,” Hank remarked, earning himself a withering look from Raven. Charles ignored him and turned the page, where the illustration showed a young naked boy at a bus stop, covering his groin with a snowball as two snowmen watched in disgust.
“’Without your clothes in the winter you’d freeze. Your skin would turn blue. There’d be frost to your knees.” Erik looked with concern at his knees and ran a hand over the traffic-cone-orange fabric of his jumpsuit.
“Frost?” he repeated. “I hate Frost.” He scowled. “And I don’t want her on my knees.”
“Frost is an ‘it’, Erik, not a ‘her’,” Charles corrected gently, turning a page. “’If you went to school naked, could you play ball? Steal second base? No, not at all.’”
“I would think it might be a bit easier to get to second base if you’re already naked,” Raven remarked, giggling wickedly. Charles looked at her, aghast.
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“Red,” he pointed out.
“You’re boring,” Raven chided. “How are you liking the story, Erik?”
“I’m not at school. I’m not having clothes now.” Erik announced. It was not the response Raven had been expecting. He began tugging at the zipper that ran down the front of his jumpsuit.
“No, Erik! No!” Charles lunged out of his chair, phone abandoned, arms waving wildly in a gesture he hoped communicated the inappropriateness of Erik’s actions. “You must always keep your clothes on! Think of the book!” Erik looked at him blankly before shaking his head and removing his hand from the zipper.
“I don’t know why.” He met Charles’ eyes with a deeply probing look. “But you said to, so I will for now.” Charles let out an audible sigh.
“There’s a good man,” he said, relaxing back into his seat. Erik smiled at him, all his teeth glinting in the light.
“Good,” he repeated.
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Or, it did, until he was vigorously shaken awake at an hour that can only be described as “obscenely early”. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and, blinking groggily, found that Erik was leaning over his bed, obviously distressed.
“What’s the matter, now?” he asked, voice thick with exhaustion as he pushed himself upright against the headboard. Erik’s face betrayed a mixture of fear and anger.
“You were dead,” he asserted, putting a slightly-too-forceful hand on Charles’ face. “But then… you’re not dead.” A perplexed look was etched on his face. “I saved you?”
“I was fine, really,” Charles mumbled sleepily. He smiled as he gently removed the hand on his face. “Why did you think I was dead?” He was surprised at his own patience. Something about the earnest concern in Erik’s face mollified his usual bleary aggression at being woken.
Erik frowned at Charles, eyes narrowing. “Why did you do that?”
“Why did I… sleep?” Charles paused. He recalled teaching the youth groups that sharks would die if they fell asleep, and that they merely entered states of prolonged meditation periodically throughout the day. “Oh. Yes. Sleep.” He cleared his throat. “We humans need to shut our eyes and stop moving for a while every night in order to stay healthy. You’re probably very tired right now, Erik, aren’t you?” The shark man glanced down at himself, appearing to take inventory.
“No. I don’t need to sleep.” His wobbling posture and drooping eyelids suggested otherwise.
“Really now.” Charles raised an eyebrow. “Well, I wasn’t dead. I was just recharging, so no need to worry, although I do appreciate the concern. If you do at any point feel the urge to surrender to the void, as it were, that’s what your bedroom is for.” He waited for Erik to back off and resume pacing, to do anything that would allow Charles to get back to sleep. Erik didn’t move. “Your bedroom,” Charles insisted, looking at the open door. “Out there.” If he hadn’t known any better Charles would have thought Erik looked dejected as he left the room.
The next morning when he went to the kitchen to make tea and found Erik asleep on the sofa, Charles gently laid a blanket over him, smiling when he stirred at the warmth.
That's all for tonight. I leave you with the tiny glimpse of romantic goo above. Blankets! Honestly, it's like a rom-com.
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