(no subject)
The time is eveningish, the day's adventures concluded without either murder or mayhem. Ellen has returned home to a quiet apartment, and having taken the time to clean the counters and Windex the windows, finds herself at loose ends. Out again, and then back much more quickly, eveningish drawing closer towards true evening, and Magneto's bedroom as a door. Ellen stands frowning at it for a long moment, measuring interruption against other things. Finally she lifts her fist and knocks.
The response is quick, if not immediate. And not from Erik. Snuffling and huffing, a big black nose pushes itself against the crack between door and floor to suck in Ellen's scent. Achilles whuffs, and then again while bedsprings creak, and sheets are pushed back. Erik pulls open the door, looking only slightly homeless. His clothes are clean, but not particularly formal - a black shirt and grey pajama-type trousers. He squints at Ellen while the bulk of his dog pushes out past them both into the hallway. "What time is it?"
A little more formal in a pale dress shirt and dark slacks, Ellen looks crisp and clean and not homeless at all. She takes a single step backwards to allow Achilles a little more room to pass, without getting especially tail-thwapped. She also looks slightly puzzled by the question, but answers it with a slight tilt of her head. "It's a little before seven," she says.
Magneto's answer is indistinct. His ribs lift around a breath pulled in deep through his nose -- not quite a yawn, and his eyes fall briefly before they lift again. "I'll be out in a moment." The door is pushed closed, and in the meanwhile, a tail-thwapping is inevitable while Achilles crowds Ellen's legs.
Ellen sort of stands there frowning at the door, and then frowns at the animal instead. "Hello, Achilles," she says, although her tone does suggest more bemused resignation than any sort of expectation that the dog might answer. She clasps her hands behind her back and puffs a breath through her nose, mouth closing down firmly, and looks back irresolutely towards the living room, wondering if that means she ought to have gone out there.
Bump, bump, bump. As big as Achilles' head is, the brain inside of it cannot seem to comprehend a concept as simple as a desire for personal space. He is excited that people are awake. Also, he might have to pee. From within the room, there are various forms of rustling while Erik pulls his black shirt over his head and quickly tugs on a light blue dress shirt over the undershirt left behind. Pajama pants are replaced by black trousers in much the same manner, though he doesn't bother with socks or shoes. Soon enough, the door is open again.
The hand of Ellen's that falls idly upon Achilles's very large head is enough to inform her much of the state of his bladder, and indeed, all of his other internal organs. She does not do anything to him, but wanders idly amidst his cells, as one might flip through a magazine in a waiting room. It is thus that when the door opens again, she startles as out of a daze, and blinks at Erik as though she has forgotten entirely what she was going to say.
Better dressed but even more rumpled than he was when he began, Erik startles when Ellen startles, and looks back at her at much the same manner. This lasts for approximately two or three seconds before he mutters something about "piss" and steps past her in the direction of the bathroom. Apparently Achilles is not the only one!
This time Ellen turns and nudges Achilles out of the way with the press of her thigh, at least enough that she can walk by him through limited space to go to the living room. Once out there, she looks around and scrubs her hands together with a faint frown before turning to trot into the kitchen and muck about with such things as arranging paper plates and napkins in a more orderly fashion upon the recently cleaned counter.
Magneto is not long in the bathroom. There is the rush of running water with a flush, and then again while he washes his hands. He emerges with the silver of his hair damped back into a more reasonable sort of organization, and pads into the living room after dog and mutant.
Having spent paltry moments in the kitchen to discover its order as close to perfect as it is possible for a kitchen to achieve in between uses, Ellen turns and pads out of it again in time for Erik to emerge. She looks up at him with a blink and proceeds to impart important information: "I went to the deli." She points to the brown paper bag that she has left on the counter. Plates. Napkins. Bag! "There is roast beef or turkey. It makes no difference which is mine."
Stiff-backed and sluggish, Erik flexes his shoulders until the space between them cracks. Then he paces for the kitchen, where Achilles already waits, nose stretched nearly to the counter top. "I suppose I shall take the road beef."
That decision made, Ellen nods solemnly and turns on her heel to follow him back into the kitchen, that she might take her sandwich when he has his. "I almost thought I had been recognized in line for the sandwiches, but he thought I was someone else," she says, her fingers held loosely together before her. "Unless it was a come-on. I'm never certain."
"Oh?" Not yet at 100% power, Erik crumples around in the bag, squints at the first sandwich he withdraws, and hands it aside to Ellen. Turkey. The next sandwich is taken for himself - paper and bread and meat all dropped uncerimoniously onto a plate before he bothers to unwrap it. "Well. Did he touch you?"
"No," Ellen replies, with a faint knit of her brows. She begins to peel the plastic away from her sandwich, reaching for another plate once it is halfway freed of its clear and crinkly bonds. "That would perhaps have resolved the ambiguity, or at the very least, given me an immediate avenue of escape."
"True," says Erik, voice low while he observes the plastic bound around his own sandwich. It is several seconds before he moves to peel the edges back. "What happened?"
"It was really not very eventful. He asked if he knew me from somewhere, and I looked at him, and he said that he must have mistaken me for someone else." Ellen continues to peel plastic away from her sandwich, flipping it over on the plate so that she can get to the other side. Plastic removed, she crumples it up into a ball and then pushes it to the side of her plate, turning to drift out of the kitchen. "I have been somewhat banal of late."
"It has been a slow month." Not entirely truthful, but attuned to the conversation at least, Erik takes his sweet time in working away plastic, only occasionally glancing down into the hopeful, wrinkled face of Achilles at his hip.
Ellen sinks down onto the corner of the couch with one leg curled beneath her, her plate balanced on her knee. She cants her head slightly to one side and frowns into the middle distance without beginning to eat as of yet. "I suppose."
Prod, prod. Crinkle. Erik knits his brows and works his jaw, and makes very little progress in the process of unwrapping and eating. "I think," he says eventually, "at times that I am hard wired for violence."
Ellen tears a thin strip of turkey from the edge of her sandwich, peeping out from between slices of bread. This she eats. The rest of the sandwich remains pristine. "How do you mean?"
"I don't know." That is also possibly a lie, and a less discreet one, so that he feels compelled to correct himself after a brief (if awkward) pause. "It hasn't been a problem in a very long time."
"You lack an outlet." Ellen picks up her sandwich in both hands and eyes it. "You are a warrior. You have no battle nor even the certain promise of one. I am familiar with this." She tears off a large bite of turkey and lettuce and cheese and bread, and chews it vehemently.
Magneto chuckles quietly at that, peeling plastic slooowly back as he does so. "You have a way of making things sound noble."
Ellen looks a trifle puzzled. She swallows. She tips her head one way, and then the other. "You would put it differently?"
"Violent impulses are not normal. Nor are they polite. Or convenient. Or appropriate. I do not think my self-control is what it used to be."
"Discipline is a matter of focus." Ellen sets her sandwich down on her plate. "Have you inconveniently destroyed something?"
"Not yet." Temporary amusement fades into seriousness, and Erik crumples the plastic exoskeleton of his sandwich in one hand.
"I have always been at war with myself over self-control. Discipline is strength." Ellen bows her head, and frowns down at her turkey sandwich, perhaps because its presence on the paper plate is somehow contrary to her solemnity. It is an incongruous sandwich. "My temper is my enemy. It has been a struggle."
"I was quite good at it, for a time." Long fingers work gradually into a fist, and the plastic goes from a mere crumple to a crush. Achilles snuffles around for crumbs cast to the floor in the process. "But I do not think it was ever natural."
Ellen is silent for a long moment. She looks at him, and then at his dog, and then at her sandwich again. "Perhaps if you could find some sort of outlet," she says. "I am not sure what. There are few enough simple battles."
"Perhaps," says Erik, fist still clenched at his side, "I might look into a leather uniform. I could fight crime." The ball of plastic is dropped onto the counter.
"That is always a possibility," Ellen says mildly, lifting her head. "Though the crime-fighting market may already be cornered."
"Ah, yes." Erik frowns down at his sandwich and leans against the counter. "There is that."
Picking up her sandwich again, Ellen takes two smaller bites in rapid succession and then tears off a thin fragment of lettuce to follow them up with.
Magneto eventually follows her example -- lifting his sandwich to bite off a corner when the ice in his stomach becomes too difficult to ignore. He chews.
Ellen continues to quietly eat, her sandwich half-eaten before she puts it down again and drops out of her upright posture to lean her shoulers back against the couch behind her.
"If you were to inconvenience yourself through being destructive," she says, "I can always effect what human repairs you require."
Erik swallows, and considers his sandwich. He takes another bite - smaller, this time - sets about the chewing and swallowing process much as before. "Thank you, Ellen."
"You're welcome," Ellen says solemnly. She tears off a larger chunk of bread and eats that, beginning to decimate the sandwich down to its initial building blocks.
Less intent upon the necessary process of eating, Erik sets his sandwich down and extricates himself from the kitchen to meander about the dining area. Achilles' leash is collected from its rest across the back of a chair. "I believe it is my turn."
"Oh," Ellen says, looking up across at him with a leaf of lettuce held between two fingertips. She nods. "All right."
The leash is latched onto the chain collar around the dog's neck (who is still padding hopefully after his master) and Erik nods a lazy farewell before turning to lead the brute for and out the door.
Magneto is restless.