(Untitled)

[markedformore]

It happens, again.

One moment, Erik feels himself safe in the embrace of his mother -- Schmidt dead behind him and the nightmare gone -- and the next, he finds he is back at the beginning and watching in horror as Schmidt requests -- asks, demands, insists -- that he move the coin. His anguish must be palpable and easy to hear from continents away

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[thebettermen]

It's dizzying. Back and forth and back again. Charles barely has a chance to catch his breath before the change happens anew, and he is once more standing in an increasingly familiar hallway. What power has brought them there remains a frustrating mystery, the island surely the only culprit to blame, though it is presently a world away. Even so, Charles can't waste the time to give the matter any more thought, rushing instead into the office, but careful to shield himself and Billy from all eyes save Erik's.

Erik.

Erik, whose hands are deceptively clean from the blood he just spilled in the name of vengeance. Erik, who stands before him as beaten as he did the day this was first lived. Erik, who will kill Shaw no matter what happens here. Had Charles been a fool to ever think he could guide anyone away from such a well-laid path?

What do you mean to do? he asks of Erik wordlessly, his voice that of his older self. Do you see, now?

[halfscarlet]

Billy blinks when they're back in the same damn building again to go through the same event. What will be different this time, they escape again? Or do they hold Erik down to keep him from killing the man? What does it even matter, if they're just going to end up here yet again?

He wants to be back home with Teddy, not going along with this new form of torture.

What now? he thinks at Charles, tired and wary and wanting to get out of there. He doesn't care where, he just doesn't want to be in this office with Erik's pain anymore.

[markedformore]

Erik doesn't know what he's meant to do. He stares balefully and pleadingly at Charles, as though asking what he must do -- what he possibly can do. I don't know what to do, Charles, he broadcasts, hopeless and tinged with the edge of despair. I don't know what I'm meant to accomplish by being here and soon, very soon, he's going to take her from me again.

His focus is being pulled in two different directions and he's finding it difficult to focus on the both.

[thebettermen]

Perhaps you are not meant to accomplish anything, suggests Charles, not unkindly for all that he is angry at what's been done -- at himself, at Erik, at Shaw. He could take control of the latter once more, but he is not eager to delve into such a mind again so soon, and besides that, he is equally at a loss as to what to do. Charles wants to save Erik's mother as much as Erik himself, wants no one to die, but they've tried that approach, and to what end? The events simply started again.

We're in the past, Erik. Whatever forces brought us here must know that all of this has already happened.

[halfscarlet]

Billy is slowly catching up to what they're talking about, and when he realizes who the her in question must be, he understands why Erik is so hell bent on stopping the event from happening. He almost wants to interrupt again, try to do something to save her, but Charles is right. They've done it both ways and nothing has happened.

It's hard to picture the thin, devastated boy as the man he'll become, especially when all Billy wants to do is take him in his arms and make false promises that everything will be okay.

[markedformore]

Erik's fingers twitch with frustration and the edge of despair as Charles' words sink in and a terrifying acknowledgement of logic begins to take grip of his heart and his mind. Erik begins to understand what is going to happen -- what he is going to witness and what he must not do. He must not change the course of the future for if he does, then everything his life has led towards will be for naught.

He will never have met likeminded people.

He will never have met Charles.

Panic grips him in the midst of despair and anger. He looks to Charles and mouths a simple I'm sorry because of what's happened. He's done a terrible thing and he's sorry that Charles and Billy have been here to witness it, not that he's done it. He knows, now, what is going to happen and he doesn't want to be observed like a laboratory rat for the remainder of this torture.

Please. Go.

[thebettermen]

No matter his age, Charles is not someone who can abide being helpless. He's always had his way, has always managed to wheedle out a solution where others might simply give up, all the while maintaining some sense of good morals. But they've found themselves in an impossible situation. Act, and they will simply start the loop anew. Fail to act, and they will have to witness not only another death, but the creation of the man Erik has become, one bitter and fueled by revenge.

Charles doesn't want to leave, would rather find some novel solution to fix all of this, and yet their hands are seemingly tied. He touches Billy's arm, fingers wrapping around the boy's wrist. Erik's fate might be sealed by the vault of history, but he can protect Billy from the brutality of what's to follow.

Come with me.

[halfscarlet]

If it weren't for Erik asking them to, Billy would have stayed and watched, just so he didn't have to go through it again on his own. He wants to tug his hand out of Charles's grasp, tell him he's seen things no child is supposed to and this won't be any different.

But he gently shakes his wrist free and heads to the door without another look back, knowing if he sees Erik again, he'll try to stop this, do something else. And he doesn't want to be responsible for him living through it once more.

[markedformore]

When they are gone, it's almost as if Erik's life now speeds up like film at its highest speed rushing before his eyes. He knows these events so intimately that they are burned into his brain and he need not watch them to remind himself what will happen -- he has never forgotten. Erik can see that Schmidt is disappointed in Erik and so he will bring out his lesson, his cautionary tale. Soon, he will take the brightest light from Erik's young life and snuff it out as carelessly as one might a candle.

Erik thinks, briefly, that he must stop the bullet. He thinks of their aborted and failed attempts and knows that stopping the events will not do them any good.

He thinks, then, that he must save his mother. He also knows that this will do him no good. It will bring him back here and acting as her saviour will only prolong this emotional torture. At the last minute, with Schmidt's finger on the trigger, Erik knows better. Shoot me, he remembers, I can stop it. But, now, heart heavy with grief and tired of this day, he's unsure that he