Prompt Post: ROUND ONE

[oakenshields13]

ROUND ONE
IS CLOSED

| ALL ROUNDS | ROUND TWO >>

OVERFLOW AND UNFILLED PROMPTS POST

Rules post.

Flat view.

Round One: Fills Post (completed Fills only)

Round One: Updates Post (WIPs only)

damalur's firstclasskink on Delicious.
Volunteers always welcome.

Note: Please use the Discussion Post if you want to talk about community alterations or get

Comments

Response (3/5)

[bagheera_san]

He was calmer in the morning, rested and rational again. By the time he had his coffee, he was thinking in clear facts again.

Fact: he would kill Shaw and if it took the rest of his natural life. And if it killed him.

Fact: there were thousands, maybe millions of people like him out there. People that were about to be delivered into the hands of governments, humans, men with orders, people like Charles Xavier, who trusted when they shouldn’t trust. He couldn’t walk away from these people. He had the power to protect them, this time.

And he would, even if it killed him.

It felt... not as if he was part of something larger, but as if he himself had grown into something infinitely larger than he had been the night before. The crushing weight on his shoulders had doubled, but now it was the future as well as the past, and it was so much lighter to bear.

He walked into the office where Xavier was negotiating the future of their kind as a man with a plan. Xavier was clearly delighted to see him still there, his whole face brightening in an instant, his smile as good as an embrace.

Erik gave him a long look, then said, “If a new species is being discovered, then it should be its own kind. Charles and I find the mutants, no suits.” He said it very deliberately - Charles and I. The first time he had used Xavier’s first name, the first time he had spoken of them as a unit, a species, brothers, a pair. If Charles could tempt him with something larger than one, then so could he.

And it worked. It worked beautifully. Charles, who had probably never had a distrustful thought in his life, agreed with his plan, simply because of those three words: Charles and I.

It was a ruthless thing to do, a promise that maybe he’d have to follow up on, but to Erik, the end had always justified the means.

*

“How would you like a job where you get to keep your clothes on?” Charles asked the girl with the wings, and she dropped to the floor, folded her wings back and said, “I’ll go get my stuff, I’ll be back in half an hour! Don’t leave.”

“Well, that was easy,” Erik commented when she’d left.

“Was it?” Charles asked, giving him a meaningful look. “There’s nothing more powerful than finding out you aren’t alone.”

They were still stretched out on the bed, and it seemed so much closer now that they were alone in the room and Charles was looking at him like that, clearly with no intention of getting up.

Erik thought about kissing him. He wouldn’t mind, not at the moment. He’d drunk enough to give him a warm, buzzing feeling, and he’d been watching scantily clad dancers all night. It would bind Charles further to him, make sure they’d never betray each other. Without looking away from him, Erik made the red velvet curtains slide shut.

Charles looked down, his lashes dipping as he smiled crookedly. “Erik,” he said, “I’m well aware what you’re thinking. I have been for quite a while.”