Prompt Post: ROUND ONE
ROUND ONE
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OVERFLOW AND UNFILLED PROMPTS POST
Rules post.
Flat view.
Round One: Fills Post (completed Fills only)
Round One: Updates Post (WIPs only)
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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 ( Read more... )
But thirty seconds later Charles' smile vanishes and he screams, hands clenching around the rails so hard Erik is half expecting his knuckles to shatter. Erik flings Cerebro across the room and away from Charles, catching the other man as he sags, stumbles, and then falls, his eyes closing. In the space of less than a minute he's gone from a healthy, joking young man to white and unconscious, fine lines of pain crisscrossing his face. There's blood on his lips from where he bit them.
"Help me!" Erik is yelling, he realizes, and Hank is shutting down Cerebro even though it's not touching Charles anymore and Raven is beside them, her hand on Charles' hair, smoothing it as she checks his pulse.
"It's going too fast," she says. "Hank, we need you." He scrambles down and checks Charles' pulse too.
"Is that all you two know how to do?" Erik snaps, because Charles feels light and fragile in his arms, like he'll break any moment, and he doesn't know how to say that and he's angry so angry their fault their fault.
"My guess is that his powers ... overloaded, for lack of a better word," Hank says. "Maybe he opened his mind too much, maybe the settings were wrong."
"And?" Raven prompts.
"Well, I don't know," Hank says, helplessly. "I mean, his brain's involved. There could be damage to it. Or he could have hit sensory overload and collapsed in time to save himself. I don't know! I'm just speculating, nobody's ever done anything like this before, or worked with anyone like him!"
"Brain damage?" Erik says, looking down at Charles' face. The idea is ludicrous. Charles is his brain, all wit and idealism and intelligence. Please please please I just found him.
"It's just a possibility," Hank says. "We - we should get him to his bed. For now that's all I can do. I'll take a blood sample, see if there's anything I can figure out from that."
"Think of something better," Erik says, and stands up. Charles stirs for a moment in his arms, his body shuddering, and then he goes utterly still again.
"To his room," Hank says.
"I'll go tell the others," Raven says, and runs out the door. Erik thinks he hears her choke back a sob on the way out, but he's too busy concentrating on his feet and not dropping Charles.
Wake up, he thinks as loudly as he can. Charles' face remains empty and blank of anything but pain.
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So he sits by Charles’ bed and watches the minutes tick by agonizingly slowly. The room is so still. No, that’s the wrong word. It’s so empty. Charles may generally ask for permission before he reads minds, but even after only a few days Erik has learned to recognize the other man’s arrival in a room merely by the sudden feeling of warmth and good humor that Charles projects without even meaning to. He can’t feel that now, and it’s more off putting than he would like to admit.
Fifteen minutes, and Raven comes to see Charles. She lingers for a little while, sitting beside Charles and holding his hand, her thumb rubbing circles on his palm, and then leaves again with no words to Erik but that Hank reports no progress. He deserves it. He wasn’t fast enough, didn’t protest hard enough. He could have stopped this. He knew what happened to lab rats, and he let Charles do this anyway. Stupid stupid stupid Erik you uncaring arrogant bastard.
Another five minutes pass. Charles spasms slightly, and then again and Erik is getting up to go to his side when the wave of concentrated pain hits him. He staggers, out of breath with the sheer volume of it, and forces his way through it to Charles’ side.
“Charles,” he says, and the pain stops and Charles is still again, pliant as Erik turns his head back and forth. He’s still breathing, which is something, Erik supposes. Charles breathes in deeply once, twice, and then his eyes snap open, blown with panic and pain, and he struggles against Erik, somehow silent despite the look in his eyes. “Calm yourself, Charles,” Erik says. “Charles, be calm. Be still.”
Charles sags back then, breath coming quick and fast, his eyes closing again. Erik almost panics for a moment before Charles
“What happened?” Erik demands, and Charles pushes himself up with his hands, looks around him.
“How long?” he asks.
“About twenty minutes. You’re avoiding the question.”
“Sensory overload, I guess,” Charles says, too lightly, but he’s got one hand over his eyes like the sunlight through the window hurts him and he staggers as he gets up. Erik steadies him with a hand on his arm and Charles nods at him in silent thanks.
“You’re lying to me,” Erik says, and feels a brief moment of surprise at how much that pains him. Everyone lies. He knows that.
“I - could feel them all,” Charles says, turning away from Erik. “I opened myself too wide and I could feel them all.” His fist is clenching and unclenching unconsciously.
“I don’t understand,” Erik says.
“Every broken bone, every cut, every loss. I thought - I thought I was in control and I pushed too far.” There’s something ragged and very raw in Charles’ voice, something far too familiar from Erik’s non childhood.
“We’ll figure out some other way to find mutants,” Erik says, very quickly, and Charles turns to face him, looking almost back to normal.
“I just need a short rest,” he says. “Next time will be different. I’ll keep myself in check. I know what to do now.” He’s smiling, cheerful and amused. “Thank you for the concern, Erik.” His hand goes towards his temple and then he hesitates. “I’ll go let Hank and Raven know I’m quite all right. In the lab, I assume, busily working away? Yes? All right.” He heads through the door, and Erik finds himself once more caught up in the wake of one of the most single-minded men he’s ever met.
But there’s more to this than what Charles is letting on to. And Erik isn’t going to let it rest. Charles can fool the others, most likely. But Erik saw it, and felt it, and heard it, and Charles is not getting back into that damned machine until Erik is absolutely positive no harm wil come to him from it.
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part 3
To Erik’s surprise, Charles doesn’t advocate trying it again immediately. Specifically, he says:
“I would love to get right back to it, but I’m afraid I’ve still got a headache.” Which is somewhat better than doing it right now, but indicates that he still has every intention of just plunging back into working with Cerebro at full strength.
“Thank you for showing some common sense, Charles,” Erik says, unable to stop the sharpness in his voice, and Charles just smiles at him, looking a little bit lost. He’s acquired an unusual pallor and deep circles under his eyes, and he’s as rumpled as Erik has ever seen him.
“I really think we should run a few trial tests down to minimum power first,” Hank says, more cautious now. Should have tried that earlier, Erik thinks, glaring, and Charles winces and looks at him disapprovingly, but there's no reprimanding voice in his head like he'd more than half-expected.
“Hank’s right. That’s the very least we can do.” Erik’s aware of Raven watching them both, considering, and he looks at her in silent appeal. She gives one short nod but remains silent. Hopefully that means she’ll go to work on Charles later, convince him to take even the most basic of precautions for himself.
“There’s no time,” Charles says. “I know it must have been startling, but it’s all up here.” He taps his head, gently, and winces even so. “It wasn’t Cerebro, it was my own powers. I went about it all wrong. Next time will be different.”
“So we start on low power and go from there,” Erik says.
“Erik, I’m not that fragile,” Charles says. “Please believe me when I say that I understand my powers and know what I did wrong.” Erik stares at him through narrowed eyes.
“We’ll talk about this in the morning,” he says.
“All right,” Charles says, in a voice that clearly indicates he expects to be in Cerebro tomorrow morning, first thing.
“Charles, you should rest,” Raven says. “Take a nap before dinner.”
“I’ve got some work to do,” he begins, and then hastily backtracks at Raven’s expression into, “That obviously I can do once I’ve taken a nap.”
“Excellent,” Raven says. “I’ll walk with you.” She walks out with Charles, one arm looped around his, talking quietly and evenly.
When she comes back Erik is leaning against the door leading into Hank’s lab.
“He’s not listening,” he says.
“No,” Raven says. “He’s always this stubborn.”
“Is there a way to make him listen?” Erik asks, and Raven looks at him curiously.
“Why are you so concerned?” she says, and Erik blanks on the answer because he doesn’t know, he really doesn’t. He fumbles for some acceptable answer and finally comes up with,
“Because he’s too valuable to just throw himself away like that.” Valuable. It’s a good word. Raven, he thinks, takes it to mean important to the work they’re doing, which is a perfectly valid interpretation. As is the one that means because somehow he’s important to me and I don’t really know why. She sighs.
“He doesn’t like being pushed around. He’s a very independent person.”
“He’s not saying everything about what happened,” Erik insists.
“No kidding, Einstein,” Raven says. “He’s my brother, I know when he’s lying. We’ve got tonight and tomorrow morning to figure out what’s going on and keep him out of that machine.”
“We have as long as we need,” Erik says. “Cerebro is mostly metal.”
“Charles would be furious,” Raven says. “It’s a very delicately constructed machine. Typically, he’s already worrying that you may have injured the helmet getting it off him.”
“What, I was supposed to be delicate when it was hurting him?” Erik says.
“That’s Charles for you.” Raven’s resigned but not pleased about the whole situation. “Go take a walk, Erik. I’ll talk with Hank about setting it up as low as he can.”
“Right,” Erik says, and stands aside. A walk. That’s a good idea. Maybe he’ll take a run, get some exercise and clear his head. Figure out an argument that will actually persuade Charles he’s being a bloody fool about this.
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Can. Not. Wait.
(captcha says "cannot ganyme". close enough.)
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Part Four
Dinner is ordered in for them. The CIA hasn’t really decided specifically what to do with them yet, and so the three mutants have essentially been shoved into quarantine, two bedrooms and a tiny living space with a kitchenette and table and chairs shoved into it. Charles shows up approximately thirty seconds before Erik decides to go get him, looking half asleep.
“Don’t think so loud,” he mutters to Raven, sitting down and letting his head fall to the small kitchen table. “I’m trying to maintain my morals, and it’s difficult with your thoughts just … bleeding out.” Raven frowns and stands up to go behind him, her fingers prodding into the base of his neck. Charles makes a noise of deep satisfaction.
“Better?” Raven says, and he hums his agreement.
“Much,” he says.
“Still have a headache?” Erik asks.
“You know what it feels like when you wake up after having drunk an entire thing of vodka?” Charles says, and Raven goes back to her seat, wetting down a wash cloth to toss to him on her way. He catches it and leans back in his chair as he puts it on his forehead.
“More or less,” Erik says.
“Like that,” Charles says, and lifts his fingers to his temple. “I know you’re eager to get home to your wife but do you have to think about it so loudly?”
“Charles?” Erik says, and Charles blinks.
“Ah. Wrong place,” he says. “Thought in the wrong place.” He pauses again, thinking what he’d just said over. “Said things in the wrong place,” he corrects himself, looking frustrated.
“That’s it,” Erik says. “You think I don’t know there’s something about this you’re not telling me? Why are you still being affected by it?”
“Erik,” Raven says quietly. “You’re thinking too loudly.” Charles closes his eyes for a long moment.
“I’m maintaining my blocks,” he says quietly. “That’s all. Things are a little bit full up here right now. It’s requiring more concentration than usual.”
“Bullshit,” Erik says. “Stop lying.”
“You’re a very hard man to convince, Erik,” Charles says, smiling faintly.
“And you’re a terrible liar,” Erik says brusquely.
“Can we please just eat?” Charles asks, and Raven starts putting food on her plate, her glare at Erik serving to stop the conversation in its tracks. Charles makes a face at the food. He serves himself little and eats even less, and Erik barely holds back the comment he wants to make about wasting food because it’s clear that Charles probably wouldn’t be able to hold it down.
“I hope you don’t mind, Erik, but I’m going to go ahead and go to sleep,” Charles says. “If you could not turn on the light when you come in - “
“Not a problem,” Erik says, and watches him leave.
“Don’t say it,” Raven orders, dumping her things in the trash.
“He’s not okay,” Erik says.
“As his sister, allow me to tell you that this is none of your business.” She’s sharp and angry. “Don’t push it. What he needs most right now is space and quiet and nobody thinking near him.”
“But - “
“No,” she says firmly, and leaves.
Erik waits to go back to the room he’s been shoved into with Charles, so that Charles will have already fallen asleep, occupying his time first with cleaning the kitchenette and then with bending a paper clip into fantastical shapes.
When he opens the door to their room Charles is sound asleep on his bed. He hadn’t even bothered to change, and Erik eases the door shut as quietly as he can and feels his way to his own bed. He could turn the lamp on and change, but it would probably wake Charles and he’d asked Erik not to.
“Sleep well,” he says quietly, lying back against his pillows, and Charles mutters something and turns in his sleep to face Erik, like a compass facing north, his hand outstretched to the edge of his bed. Erik swallows past the sudden painful clench of his heart and closes his eyes. “Sleep well,” he says again, because it is all he can think to say.
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I love the way you are building the characters together Raven's wish to protect her brother and not really trusting Erik not to hurt him.
I hope you get to continue this soon I would love to see how it finishes.
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