ROUND ONE: Unfilled and Overflow
ROUND ONE
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OVERFLOW AND UNFILLED PROMPTS POST
DO NOT post prompts here. This is NOT an active Round.
DO NOT post Fills or Updates here if they AREN'T for Round One prompts.
If you want to CONTINUE UPDATING a WIP:1) Make a new comment, copy the original prompt's Subject Line (add any pairings, kinks and warnings that may be missing) followed by ( Read more... )
Intemperance of a Mad PatientI.
Erik comes home one night in mid-February.
He's skinny and bruised, bleeding from wounds that bloody his clothing, and Charles aches to know what has happened between October (Cuba) and now, but he has no time to ask: Erik falls to his knees in front of Charles, weak, and wraps his arms around Charles' waist.
His head falls against Charles' chest, listening to the beat of his heart. Charles worries - this isn't like Erik - and calls for Hank, tempering the young man's anger as best he can with images of just what Erik looks like. (He may have abandoned them that day and Charles may still have some bitterness in him over what had happened, but he still cares for Erik and he's fretting already over how terrible Erik appears.)
II.
Getting him cleaned up takes all three of the boys plus Charles - Alex and Hank to hold him up, Charles to wash him with cloths and a basin of water that turns a gritty pinkish-gray by the end, and Sean to struggle Erik into a pair of pajamas they've rustled up from the abandoned dresser in Erik's old room.
Together they get him into Charles' bed per his insistent demand, and after, linger over the mattress wondering just what they're to do with the world's most feared mutant.
Charles answers the question with complete confidence, "We make him well and worry about everything else later," before shooing them from the room; he drags himself up, over Erik, and collapses onto the cover and reaches for the book on the nightstand.
(He's sick and injured and really, since they've no solid idea what he has and won't until tomorrow when the doctor can come around, Charles is certainly not comfortable leaving him alone.)
"I'm sorry," Erik mumbles once Charles has settled, drifting off before Charles can respond.
III.
By morning, Erik's left eye has swollen shut and he's got blood in his urine. (Charles wonders just who Erik had come up against that he's been so thoroughly beaten. Charles worries just who could do this much damage.) He tells Charles, "It's not bad," with a fat lip and Charles replies, "You'll excuse me if I don't believe you. Take your aspirin."
Joseph Rosberg, the doctor Charles has known since he was young, comes around first shortly thereafter; when Erik tells him the same thing, "It's not bad," Rosberg says, "Son, you're not the worst I've seen, but you're certainly not the best," and Erik doesn't even try arguing further. Instead he lays there, against Charles' pillows, with lips pursed and hands clenched.
"Stop sulking," Charles tells him.
"I'm fine."
Rosberg's snort is short and amused, and he declares, "Son, you've got Bronchitis, both your kidneys are bruised, you've fractured your foot, sprained your wrists, and you've got more contusions than a prize fighter after a round in the ring. I hear those are often the criteria for fine."
Erik growls and begins coughing, closes his eyes against the fit and thinks it must be Charles touching him when a hand settles on his chest. (He doesn't see that it belongs to the old doctor, doesn't realize that Rosberg's power is that to ease pain.)
"I'll leave a prescription for some antibiotics with one of the boys," Joseph says, "and he'll need to stay put for a while. You know the rest - steam, aspirin, the usual.
"If the blood in his urine gets worse, if he can't void, call me."
"I'm in the room."
Rosberg ignores him. "I'll come by in a few days to check on him."
"Thank you."
"Now, I think I'll go find myself a cup of coffee and be on my way," he says and tips his head at Charles, leaving the room with Hank at his side; he, again, pays no attention to Erik when he grouses about being able to take care of himself.
All evidence to the contrary, Charles retorts. Get some rest.
I hate you all.
I'm sure you do. Rest.
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Erik's fever comes and goes: the playful banter slides into hallucinations that crumble into tears.
Charles keeps the boys away, refusing to let them see Erik so vulnerable, and runs himself ragged as he feeds Erik pills and broth, wipes him down, changes the blankets.
(When this is over, he's sure he'll be sick but right now, there's no one else Charles trusts with Erik.)
V.
"I can't lift you, Erik, you have to stand," Charles tells him. "You have to stand."
"I want to sleep."
"I know and you can - once we've gotten you bathed, all right?"
Erik rolls to the side and sits up, coughing hard as he reaches out for the bed post and pulls himself up, to his feet. That is as far as he makes it and says, once he's stopped coughing, "Change the sheets?"
"Yes, we will. Once we've gotten you bathed." Frowning, Charles brushes his mind against Erik's fevered one and tells him, Think about how good it'll feel to not be sticky, Erik. Nice cool water on your skin and then some clean sheets...
Erik blinks and looks through a fringe of sweat-plastered hair, flicks his eyes to the bathroom doorway and then to his legs. It seems to take everything in him to speak and he surprises Charles when he admits, "Could you get Hank?"
Charles supposes it took a great deal out of Erik's pride to ask for help and he quickly calls Hank into the room from his station outside the door. He watches as Hank slowly maneuvers Erik from the bedroom to the ensuite and thanks him once Erik is in the tub, water cresting his knees and no further; he asks Hank to change the sheets, then closes the bathroom door and sets to work.
"This is good," Erik mumbles a little while later, leaning forward so Charles can drop cupfuls of water down his back.
"I thought you'd like it. Nothing better when you're feeling rotten than cleaning off the sick." Charles reaches for the cloth he'd dropped into the tub and pulls it up, brushing by Erik's thigh. (If this was months ago, Erik would have pulled Charles into the tub, kissed him, but this is here and now and instead, Erik sits there looking miserably sick yet content as Charles wipes at his face.)
There's silence after that, broken only by the lapping water.
VI.
Erik's hallucinations and his fever reach their pinnacle a day later, and he asks, "Is this still home?" before launching into a coughing fit.
VII.
"Charles," Erik mumbles a few nights later, laying in Charles' bed and able to recognize that fact. His fever is gone, been gone for a while, and his foot is no longer aching though he knows it's still healing; he's not coughing as horrendously as he has been. He feels tremendously better and he knows (as Charles knows) that it is only a matter of time before he leaves the Mansion.
Goes back to the Brotherhood. (The Brotherhood whom Erik hadn't trusted to care for him while he was ill and injured and what does that say about the people he's chosen to be at his side?) Goes back to trying to survive and thrive in this world that fears him and their kind.
He knows it bothers Charles, the intimation that things will eventually go back as they were. Things have certainly been... different while they'd been in this bubble of reality, but it cannot last.
Charles murmurs, "Erik," and waits.
Neither looks at the other.
The question is as softly spoken as it was days ago, this time unfettered by the fever that had caused Charles to brush it off the first time: "Is this still home?"
"Always, Erik."
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