Leo Slatkin, Dohnányi, Previn, DePaur.
If John ever figures out what exactly it is about a person that can invert everything simply as a matter of breathing, all without shifting a thing (the conjurer's tug, freeing white linen from bone china and wet crystal) -- he'll have to sell it, because he doesn't know what to do with it himself. It's interesting, in theory, and promises smaller and smaller chances of pain. Its guarantee is one of increasing distance, growing attraction. Gravity must be the way planets hate each other, alone and spinning without the slightest perception of movement.
Those are a lot of words to describe what, after all this time, he feels when he sees his face among more familiar ones in the Nexus. And as if to an invisible jury, he wants to slap conditionals and explanations over every feeling the alien-familiar voice evokes. Too many to count, confusing in their rapid arrival and rabid insistence on importance, he'd have to write it all down to sort out any of it. John is not in the habit of keeping a journal. He is in the habit of keeping explosives, stored up and straining at the lid until needed. He does not write:
Was he going fucking nuts, because that wasn't Erik, that was just ... some guy. Some guy, and he didn't care what Erik thought, or would think: he and Henry and Warren clawed their way through hell to get Liz back, and that means more than anything he's ever done in his entire life. If anything, Erik disappointed him. That part of his life is over. (It's easier to remember this when he's with Helena. Helena who, with her gills and family and painful reminders of what it means to be an outsider always, grants his life more normality and comfortable mundanity than he ever found at Xavier's.) He can get the fuck over these stupid and tenacious fixations any day now.
Any day now.
Those are a lot of words to describe what, after all this time, he feels when he sees his face among more familiar ones in the Nexus. And as if to an invisible jury, he wants to slap conditionals and explanations over every feeling the alien-familiar voice evokes. Too many to count, confusing in their rapid arrival and rabid insistence on importance, he'd have to write it all down to sort out any of it. John is not in the habit of keeping a journal. He is in the habit of keeping explosives, stored up and straining at the lid until needed. He does not write:
- That it isn't about loyalty. (Although it is, really, and that's the other problem, the lying.)
- That he still believes Erik will prevail, in one way or another. (This is demonstrated by his reaction to what he wants badly to not believe but to know is just another man with his face; and so, he is almost afraid to ask, and won't be able to accept any answer given.)
- That he's not completely ready to say no, I wouldn't help you again.
- That he must protect his family from this -- invasion. (Particularly, he hopes his fears and guilt for Warren are unbased, that Warren would laugh in the face of an old man trying to convince him of something Warren should not be doing; he hopes he is projecting, or jealous, or delusional. He hopes that the sick little joke he played on himself won't come to fruition.)
- That there is something wrong with him, because this is ridiculous and nothing will happen and apparently he needs medication for paranoia but fuck that.
- That he wasn't smart enough, or strong enough, to help Magneto the way he should have.
- That he's fought for his family and he will not be persuaded to give them up ...
- ... but that if anybody could persuade him, Erik could ...
- ... and that Erik will take one look at him and figure out a way around this, if he wants ...
- ... and that he's afraid that Erik won't want to.
Was he going fucking nuts, because that wasn't Erik, that was just ... some guy. Some guy, and he didn't care what Erik thought, or would think: he and Henry and Warren clawed their way through hell to get Liz back, and that means more than anything he's ever done in his entire life. If anything, Erik disappointed him. That part of his life is over. (It's easier to remember this when he's with Helena. Helena who, with her gills and family and painful reminders of what it means to be an outsider always, grants his life more normality and comfortable mundanity than he ever found at Xavier's.) He can get the fuck over these stupid and tenacious fixations any day now.
Any day now.