Prompt Post: ROUND FOUR
ROUND FOUR IS CLOSED
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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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Panic is not the greatest feeling to wake up to.
What sounded like a thud of more than sonic proportion wakes him up from what used to be his dreamless sleep, his eyes darting open as the sound rings in his ears. He nearly yelps and tries to cover his ears with his palms, but the ringing continues, making him press his hands more firmly to his head to little avail. Keeping his hands over his ears, he rolls himself out of bed and drops his hands to his sides as he dashes out of his room and down the hall. The ringing is slowly dying out of his ears, allowing his mind to move more freely, the fog of telepathy slowly dying out into a clear view of the mansion. The fog isn't entirely lifted, though, so all he can see are the hazy shapes of the minds of the mutants that live with him, and he can't help the flair of panic for their safety, as he can't be quite sure of it.
The nearest room to his own is Erik's, but when he bursts in and stops just inside the
doorway, Erik's bed seems as haphazardly drawn-up as he left his, a complete state of disarray in the panic of being woken up from what sounded like some kind of flash grenade. Charles quickly whips himself around and out the door to move further down the hall to the next room he knows available - Raven's.
He nearly slips on the edge of his night pants as he skids to a stop by her door, only to hear a soft cooing coming from inside, the door half-open. He walks slowly to the door, cautious, although he feels a wave of calm practically flowing out the doorway. He pushes the half-open door and peers in, hand on the knob just in case Raven is still asleep. He doesn't know what exactly happened, but he can't see why she would still be asleep after a noise like--
-- that?
Raven's bed is in the same state as his and Erik's, but, to his surprise, Erik is standing at the edge of her bed. Panic begins to fold over him at the sight of closed eyes on a blue face resting on the edge of Erik’s shoulder, but then calms itself when the eyes open, revealing a striking yellow. The yellow eyes only open half-way, as if tired, and a smile forms on the blue lips. Charles is just star-struck.
At the same instant the eyes close, Erik turns sidelong to him, looking him over a moment with a sort of curious expression. Charles just gapes at him. Not only is he carrying a significantly smaller form of Raven, Erik himself seems so much… younger. His jawbone is still sharp, eyes still emanating a silence (as well as a confusion now), but his cheekbones seem, if anything, slightly higher, as well as thinner. His face is smooth, almost completely devoid of any kind of worry line. He seems He writes it off as just how the light strikes him, but when Erik turns completely towards him with a too-small Raven in a too-large robe, he can’t help but feel a flicker of panic with an almost overwhelming confusion. He’s sure he’s still gaping at him.
“You’re younger too,” Erik says, quietly, as if reading his mind, saying in almost a whisper as he starts walking towards him. Erik looks him up and down a moment when he’s standing just before him, then he nods his head upwards just slightly. “And shorter.”
Charles is about to raise protest, but there’s a large crash down the hall that drags his and Erik’s attention away from his comeback. Raven doesn’t appear to notice, just curl more into Erik’s shoulder and hug him more around his neck with her little arms. Charles bounds backwards out of the doorway, giving them a soft, “I’ll be back.”
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He takes the risk anyway, edging closer to the boy; “Hank?”
Immediately, the boy whips around and his eyes find his figure, but he’s sure he’s only a blur instead of a shape, and the boy whispers, “Dad?”
A pang of something hits Charles square in his heart and he squats down to the boy - Hank - to push the glasses on over his ears to settle on his nose. Hank blinks as they appear, and Charles’ is sure that he’s gone from a blur of white and slightly tanned skin to a clear image, but the way Hank then looks at him makes his heart lurch. It quickly clears from Hank’s expression though, as if he had a sudden realization. He grins widely and laughs, looking down shyly as he takes off his glasses and rubs the frames with fingers pinched inside his shirt.
“Sorry, dad, did I wake you up?” He asks as he wipes his glasses, his eyes on his hands rather than Charles, settling himself down on the floor. Charles is just all about gaping this morning.
He tries to compose himself, shaking his head slightly as he begins; “Hank, I’m not your-”
There’s a loud noise down the hall.
He just can’t get any rest, can he? Charles grunts slightly as he pushes himself up in a rush, and he knows Hank is looking at his quickly retreating form because he can hear the soft mumble of “dad, where are you going?” and the footsteps of someone so lightweight. He isn’t going to ask why Hank was calling him dad, or the question of why he and Raven are children, let alone two different ages completely. Raven must have only been six or so, while Hank was a young, fruitful teenager. But he didn’t have time to stop, and he could only brace himself for the worst of what was coming.
He whipped himself around the corner to Alex’s bedroom, only to be blown backwards from the doorway as a ring of fire that comes bursting through the door, leaving heavy scorch marks on the doors. Charles falls to his back with a grunt and feels a wave of heat wash over him, and suddenly the world is all too hot and too bright.
Before he can even begin to push himself off the floor, another blast echoes through the doorway and over his head. He tips his head back to see the vase that was once a decoration on a pedestal for the hall completely obliterated, and when it was once a royal ornate mixture of blue and white, it’s now mostly black and ashen. He finally manages to push himself off the floor, and there’s a frightened blond teenager inside the room, hands clutching at his hair in panic, streams of curses flowing from his mouth. The room is a hot mess of fire and ash drifting down from the probably burning ceiling; the entire room is bright orange and reds, the ceiling starting to cloud with smoke, the curtains are blowing in the breeze drifting in from the window, but they’re only half of what they used to be, because they’re on fire from the ends up. The oaken dresser that was once resting peacefully in the corner is now cleanly sliced in half, and he can’t see Alex’s bed, but he’s sure there’s hardly anything left of it.
The boy sitting in the door way turns around suddenly and relief seems to wash over his panic-stricken face. He stumbles out of the room and nearly falls to his face, a wave of panic rushing out of him and into Charles, the only sounds that hit his ears being the crackle of dying fire and “oh God, dad, oh God," barely audible.
His eyes watch the last of one curtain fall to the floor, the flame slowly dying out, and all he knows is that it’s going be one hell of a night.
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