[Fic] Half Shame, Half Glory - Part 7
(Part VI)
Part VII - Let Me In
Michael is starting to regret leaving the hotel without at least putting a shirt on. There is a bit of a nip to the wind tonight, and his coat does not quite cut out the bite as much as he’d like. Socks would have been nice too. He suspects there will be some blisters in the morning to take care of.
These thoughts are not at the forefront of his mind, however. The memories are. The emotions. The sounds and smell and taste of horror.
The coin.
Despite everything, he still has the damned thing. It is on an open counter or hiding in his pocket, brushing against his hand when he least expects it. And with it come the memories and the itching under his skin.
If Michael were completely honest with himself (and God knows he can’t be with himself right now) he knows to whom the memories belong. He knows where it comes from. He’d have to be the world’s biggest ignoramus not to know Erik Lensherr. He is Erik Lensherr after all...
No. No he isn’t. He can’t afford to start thinking like that.
Not-Erik (Michael - come on, how hard is it to remember his own name?) walks blindly, heedless of the traffic, pedestrian and automotive. People part like a sea around him (he exudes an air of danger, of violence and rage - he is a shark swimming through the water) and cars miraculously manage not to run him down.
He wonders at his own (his borrowed) rage. It’s not a fire, but like a cold, gnawing hunger not unlike frostbite in his gut. A cold, unfeeling blade. With a gallows sense of humour, he is glad that Erik isn’t pyrokinetic, or the pyjamas - and likely his room and the rest of the hotel - would have gone up in flames.
Not-Michael (and-yet-Not-Erik) stops in the middle of the street. That was it. A loose train of mid-thought, and he’s finally ready to admit it.
These are Erik’s memories.
This is Erik’s rage.
This is Erik’s pain.
And now it’s his.
His mind opens - G-d, he can feel the barriers crumbling - and Michael-Erik’s mind unfurls like an aluminum flower (cold and malleable and bright with razor-sharp edges). It’s like opening his eyes, and everything is both new and old, strange and familiar. He practically hums with a wholeness, with the song of charged electrons and metals. Steel and copper and aluminum and iron and zinc and chrome-
(someone’s car horn is blaring)
- and it’s coming straight at him.
His hands come out in front of him (rage and serenity) and the metal screeches to a stop, even as it melts like butter around him, tearing like tissue paper. When he opens his eyes (they were closed? but he knew, how did he know?) the man is all but wrapped in the front end of a mini-van, and yet it hasn’t touched him.
Another twitch of his hands and he is free, but there is still a man-shaped imprint in the bumper. Michael-Erik stares, entranced, backing away slowly. He did this. He tingles and crackles and his thoughts are strange and bright as silver bells -
- wait -
is that...
It’s faint as a hummingbird’s breath, but there is a small bloom of warmth in his thoughts, familiar and different, full of fear and confusion and loss. He reaches for it, a brief touch and it grabs onto his psyche with raw fingers, and he tempers it with steel rings.
He knows this mind. They know this mind.
They turn to face him (he’s right behind them, Erik insists, he’s always been right behind us) with the smell of old books and mahogany and Scotch in their nose...
...and a whiff of salt water...
...just in time to feel a jolt of static shock in his brain.
Michael-who-is-not-Erik meets James-who-can’t-be-Charles’ eyes for a split second.
It is Erik who runs to Charles’ side, head heavy with an invisible weight (sand in the folds of his skin) and who cradles a friend in his lap.
“Charles...”
( Part VIII)
Part VII - Let Me In
Michael is starting to regret leaving the hotel without at least putting a shirt on. There is a bit of a nip to the wind tonight, and his coat does not quite cut out the bite as much as he’d like. Socks would have been nice too. He suspects there will be some blisters in the morning to take care of.
These thoughts are not at the forefront of his mind, however. The memories are. The emotions. The sounds and smell and taste of horror.
The coin.
Despite everything, he still has the damned thing. It is on an open counter or hiding in his pocket, brushing against his hand when he least expects it. And with it come the memories and the itching under his skin.
If Michael were completely honest with himself (and God knows he can’t be with himself right now) he knows to whom the memories belong. He knows where it comes from. He’d have to be the world’s biggest ignoramus not to know Erik Lensherr. He is Erik Lensherr after all...
No. No he isn’t. He can’t afford to start thinking like that.
Not-Erik (Michael - come on, how hard is it to remember his own name?) walks blindly, heedless of the traffic, pedestrian and automotive. People part like a sea around him (he exudes an air of danger, of violence and rage - he is a shark swimming through the water) and cars miraculously manage not to run him down.
He wonders at his own (his borrowed) rage. It’s not a fire, but like a cold, gnawing hunger not unlike frostbite in his gut. A cold, unfeeling blade. With a gallows sense of humour, he is glad that Erik isn’t pyrokinetic, or the pyjamas - and likely his room and the rest of the hotel - would have gone up in flames.
Not-Michael (and-yet-Not-Erik) stops in the middle of the street. That was it. A loose train of mid-thought, and he’s finally ready to admit it.
These are Erik’s memories.
This is Erik’s rage.
This is Erik’s pain.
And now it’s his.
His mind opens - G-d, he can feel the barriers crumbling - and Michael-Erik’s mind unfurls like an aluminum flower (cold and malleable and bright with razor-sharp edges). It’s like opening his eyes, and everything is both new and old, strange and familiar. He practically hums with a wholeness, with the song of charged electrons and metals. Steel and copper and aluminum and iron and zinc and chrome-
(someone’s car horn is blaring)
- and it’s coming straight at him.
His hands come out in front of him (rage and serenity) and the metal screeches to a stop, even as it melts like butter around him, tearing like tissue paper. When he opens his eyes (they were closed? but he knew, how did he know?) the man is all but wrapped in the front end of a mini-van, and yet it hasn’t touched him.
Another twitch of his hands and he is free, but there is still a man-shaped imprint in the bumper. Michael-Erik stares, entranced, backing away slowly. He did this. He tingles and crackles and his thoughts are strange and bright as silver bells -
- wait -
is that...
It’s faint as a hummingbird’s breath, but there is a small bloom of warmth in his thoughts, familiar and different, full of fear and confusion and loss. He reaches for it, a brief touch and it grabs onto his psyche with raw fingers, and he tempers it with steel rings.
He knows this mind. They know this mind.
They turn to face him (he’s right behind them, Erik insists, he’s always been right behind us) with the smell of old books and mahogany and Scotch in their nose...
...and a whiff of salt water...
...just in time to feel a jolt of static shock in his brain.
Michael-who-is-not-Erik meets James-who-can’t-be-Charles’ eyes for a split second.
It is Erik who runs to Charles’ side, head heavy with an invisible weight (sand in the folds of his skin) and who cradles a friend in his lap.
“Charles...”
( Part VIII)