Blue Skies Prompt #10: Forever Young (X-Men)
Title: Forever Young
Author: mrstater
Prompt: #10, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: / Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, / And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; / And every fair from fair sometime declines, / By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; / But thy eternal summer shall not fade…(Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare)
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Mystique/Erik Lehnsherr
Rating & Warnings: rated PG-13 for mild sexuality and references to infidelity
Word Count: 350
Summary: Mystique doesn't age, but time still takes its toll on her relationship with Erik.
The elderly couple shamble along down the sidewalk, hand-in-hand, unaware of the pair of yellow eyes trained on them from across the street.
It was the man who first caught Mystique's attention, his pale hound dog cheeks and prominent nose beneath the brim of a fedora and above the upturned collar of an overcoat lending him a slightly European look that reminds her of Erik. But she follows the line of his gaze down to his wife and wonders how the hunched little woman who shuffles so haltingly in her white canvas shoes, clinging to his arm for balance, can elicit a more intense look of adoration and desire than Erik gives to her.
You are far superior to any other woman on earth, my dear, he's told her since the beginning, running his long fingers over taut plane of her stomach, up to the firm, full swell of her breasts, the pinnacle of human evolution. Once those words, whispers of awe, drove away her storms of teenage insecurity like the summer sun, but now he most often follows them with a sigh, and his gaze bends away from hers, ashamed. She's never understood how Erik can look like that after making love--or trying to make love--to her, so obviously regretful of the war time has aged on his body as fiercely as he has battled against non-mutants--and then stray from her with some other lovely young--always, young--mutant.
Until now. Watching this couple, who must be their own ages--Mystique's true age, which history tells though her body does not--it becomes clear to her that the ability to grow old together is one trump card humanity yet holds over their more highly evolved counterparts.
She doesn't notice Erik's approach until his voice rasps into her musings. "What are you looking at, Mystique?"
Not taking her eyes off the husband and wife, who've barely progressed a yard, she replies, "Them."
Erik watches for a moment, then turns away with a snort. But he looks back over his shoulder. "Aren't you glad that's not you?"
Author: mrstater
Prompt: #10, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: / Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, / And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; / And every fair from fair sometime declines, / By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; / But thy eternal summer shall not fade…(Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare)
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Mystique/Erik Lehnsherr
Rating & Warnings: rated PG-13 for mild sexuality and references to infidelity
Word Count: 350
Summary: Mystique doesn't age, but time still takes its toll on her relationship with Erik.
The elderly couple shamble along down the sidewalk, hand-in-hand, unaware of the pair of yellow eyes trained on them from across the street.
It was the man who first caught Mystique's attention, his pale hound dog cheeks and prominent nose beneath the brim of a fedora and above the upturned collar of an overcoat lending him a slightly European look that reminds her of Erik. But she follows the line of his gaze down to his wife and wonders how the hunched little woman who shuffles so haltingly in her white canvas shoes, clinging to his arm for balance, can elicit a more intense look of adoration and desire than Erik gives to her.
You are far superior to any other woman on earth, my dear, he's told her since the beginning, running his long fingers over taut plane of her stomach, up to the firm, full swell of her breasts, the pinnacle of human evolution. Once those words, whispers of awe, drove away her storms of teenage insecurity like the summer sun, but now he most often follows them with a sigh, and his gaze bends away from hers, ashamed. She's never understood how Erik can look like that after making love--or trying to make love--to her, so obviously regretful of the war time has aged on his body as fiercely as he has battled against non-mutants--and then stray from her with some other lovely young--always, young--mutant.
Until now. Watching this couple, who must be their own ages--Mystique's true age, which history tells though her body does not--it becomes clear to her that the ability to grow old together is one trump card humanity yet holds over their more highly evolved counterparts.
She doesn't notice Erik's approach until his voice rasps into her musings. "What are you looking at, Mystique?"
Not taking her eyes off the husband and wife, who've barely progressed a yard, she replies, "Them."
Erik watches for a moment, then turns away with a snort. But he looks back over his shoulder. "Aren't you glad that's not you?"