[fic: xm:fc] Europe, After the Rain
Title: Europe, After the Rain
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Men can be war zones, and their reconstruction, no easy matter.
Author's Notes: This is terrible in its current state, but I am done messing with it, so here we are: Generic Angsty Plotless First Foray, wherein I attempt to get the voices down. Please. Criticize the lifeblood out of this. I beg of you.
Title pulled from a Max Ernst painting which, given its context, seemed fitting.
The house is made of stone, wood and dust, foreign elements all. Often, he will rise in the morning and dress in silence, stepping out into the mist in search of steel.
He is always greeted first by the satellite dish, a constant, burning imprint in the distance. Old foundations come next, sprawling down for what feels like miles of twisted iron. Then on to finer objects- strands of barbed wire in the soil, nails in rotting fence posts, stray bullets buried deep into trees-the remnants of hunts, or duels, or homicides. Horseshoes in the clay, discarded jewelery, lost things.
And some days, his hands feel the steady approach of an ornate watch, tin buttons and a belt buckle. Charles will be sleepy and pliant, fingers given to wander.
“What do you expect to discover, out here, at such an ungodly hour?” he’ll ask, lips to Erik’s ear.
Anchors. Reasons. Landmarks.
“You tell me.”
There are maps in Erik’s skin, and stories in his bones: scars shaped like mountain ranges, veins that run the paths of rivers. Love songs in a hundred different languages melting from his lips. “Let go,” Charles tells him; “Let go,” and white fingertips are pressing themselves against the thin flesh of his stomach, working upwards, exploring, discovering.
“God.” Please.
The unfamiliar sensation of his mind being rendered two-dimensional and legible overwhelms him; there are pinpricks of light navigating every inch of his thoughts, discovering byways and bridges long forgotten, finding (inventing) cathedrals where Erik only ever saw rubble. Charles presses impossibly close, as if fearful that his letting go would lead to the two of them tumbling off world’s edge and back into the sea. They wander, become lost, are found again. Charles’ mouth pushes against the warm pulse of blood at the base of Erik’s neck, following its course south until it deltas at the back of his hand; his palm runs the ridge of another scar, crossing Alps, Pyrenees, unquestioning as to their origin. “Souvenirs,” he calls the marks, too kind for his own good.
“Lessons,” Erik corrects him, murmuring. A feather-light touch mounts the crest of his iliac curve and lingers there. He shuts his eyes, gives in to weariness.
Do you know, Charles thinks, the words coming softly, already partway in dream, I once considered myself rather well-traveled…
Oh? Erik harrumphs and leans in to the warmth. What changed?
A sigh ghosts over the surface of his mind.
I met you, I suppose.
Some borders manage to remain uncrossed. Long, thin surgical lines down the flat plateau of Erik’s chest, and small dots of raised flesh at his temples where they turned in the screws-- Charles skirts around them, anxious to be elsewhere, lingering on skin that is unpatterned and whole. “This way,” he supplies, and they stumble through his study and into his bedroom, fumble onto a bed piled high with papers that crackle and hiss beneath their combined weight. Erik has read them, (‘In discovering the origins of those differences which, in spite their superficial natures, somehow continue to keep us apart, we may one day hope to heal the rends at the place where they began…’), sees them as pretty, empty things.
He finds himself pinned down and breathless; a dead butterfly on card; I’m not going anywhere, Charles, stop treating me like something to be caged-
Oh, my friend, if only… If only you knew… Charles glances upwards, the one being on Earth who has ever looked at Erik with reverence in its eyes. Every day I try, try to show you something better.
You have.
Oh? Laughter. Mirthless. A round, red mouth pushing insistently upon Erik’s colorless one, teeth scraping, catching. We’ll see.
“You want to tame me.”
“I want to save you.” Charles pulls his gaze from the chessboard. “Difference in that.”
“ One inevitably leads to the other.”
“I choose to see the best in you, my friend. Is that so terrible?”
There is selectivity in Charles, his discernments as finely tuned as those of nature. He is less the builder and more the seeker, finding that which is good-acceptable-useful- leaving the rest to decay. This has only grown more evident with time, in the way he strives to weed the killer instinct out of Erik’s blood, offering compromises and the lives of people Erik cannot, will not be.
“It isn’t so simple.” He folds a bitter smile around the rim of his glass. “I come whole or not at all.”
“People change,” Charles replies, so flippantly it hurts.
The fire crackles. A flicker of movement-the black queen spinning slowly between pale fingers-and Erik somehow finds himself drained of the will to argue.
He pushes his last pawn forward, arching towards the opposite side, hoping for safe passage.
He visits the cemetery, one week before the world ends, to see how the peaceful end their days.
Neat rows. Trees. Birdsong. Copper statues bending their green-hued heads to gaze somberly down. As he kneels, palms pressed to the soil to feel out the faintest threads of iron in the earth, a shadow rises behind him. It coughs politely.
“Charming plot,” Erik notes.
“Depends on your point of view.” Erik tightens his grip on the earth, blades of grass standing up between his fingers. He is struck by a passing whimsy, of raising the coffins by their silver fastenings, lifting them through the clay, rotting wood and rotting corpses and feasting maggots all. Already he can hear the clatter of bone on bone- see the skinless smiles- Instead he leaves them be.
“You follow me more and more these days,” he says, rising. “Enjoy the hunt, do you?”
Charles looks more asleep than awake. He shrugs his slender shoulders in their wrinkled sleeves of silk and cotton, yawning. Erik steps closer and takes on some of the other man’s weight, listening to the steady pattern of his breaths. He can feel small bursts of anxiety bleeding through, their escape the result of a still-sluggish mind.
“What are you so afraid of?” he asks.
Silence. The wind in the leaves.
I would try to stay, Charles. I would have you with me. For all your foolish ideals, we aren’t so different.
Two cool fingers press against the edge of his temple before gently sailing away. Charles-who fights even after he has given up, who holds Erik despite seeing him as already gone-shakes his head, and shuts his eyes.
(Sun. Sand. A burning sea. And he cannot help but feel that this goodbye has already been rehearsed, a thousand times over.)
They walk back one next to the other, shoulders brushing, eyes to the front. Erik’s fingers hang loose at his sides and sing to every piece of metal within a hundred rolling acres: to please, please… Hold him here.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Men can be war zones, and their reconstruction, no easy matter.
Author's Notes: This is terrible in its current state, but I am done messing with it, so here we are: Generic Angsty Plotless First Foray, wherein I attempt to get the voices down. Please. Criticize the lifeblood out of this. I beg of you.
Title pulled from a Max Ernst painting which, given its context, seemed fitting.
The house is made of stone, wood and dust, foreign elements all. Often, he will rise in the morning and dress in silence, stepping out into the mist in search of steel.
He is always greeted first by the satellite dish, a constant, burning imprint in the distance. Old foundations come next, sprawling down for what feels like miles of twisted iron. Then on to finer objects- strands of barbed wire in the soil, nails in rotting fence posts, stray bullets buried deep into trees-the remnants of hunts, or duels, or homicides. Horseshoes in the clay, discarded jewelery, lost things.
And some days, his hands feel the steady approach of an ornate watch, tin buttons and a belt buckle. Charles will be sleepy and pliant, fingers given to wander.
“What do you expect to discover, out here, at such an ungodly hour?” he’ll ask, lips to Erik’s ear.
Anchors. Reasons. Landmarks.
“You tell me.”
There are maps in Erik’s skin, and stories in his bones: scars shaped like mountain ranges, veins that run the paths of rivers. Love songs in a hundred different languages melting from his lips. “Let go,” Charles tells him; “Let go,” and white fingertips are pressing themselves against the thin flesh of his stomach, working upwards, exploring, discovering.
“God.” Please.
The unfamiliar sensation of his mind being rendered two-dimensional and legible overwhelms him; there are pinpricks of light navigating every inch of his thoughts, discovering byways and bridges long forgotten, finding (inventing) cathedrals where Erik only ever saw rubble. Charles presses impossibly close, as if fearful that his letting go would lead to the two of them tumbling off world’s edge and back into the sea. They wander, become lost, are found again. Charles’ mouth pushes against the warm pulse of blood at the base of Erik’s neck, following its course south until it deltas at the back of his hand; his palm runs the ridge of another scar, crossing Alps, Pyrenees, unquestioning as to their origin. “Souvenirs,” he calls the marks, too kind for his own good.
“Lessons,” Erik corrects him, murmuring. A feather-light touch mounts the crest of his iliac curve and lingers there. He shuts his eyes, gives in to weariness.
Do you know, Charles thinks, the words coming softly, already partway in dream, I once considered myself rather well-traveled…
Oh? Erik harrumphs and leans in to the warmth. What changed?
A sigh ghosts over the surface of his mind.
I met you, I suppose.
Some borders manage to remain uncrossed. Long, thin surgical lines down the flat plateau of Erik’s chest, and small dots of raised flesh at his temples where they turned in the screws-- Charles skirts around them, anxious to be elsewhere, lingering on skin that is unpatterned and whole. “This way,” he supplies, and they stumble through his study and into his bedroom, fumble onto a bed piled high with papers that crackle and hiss beneath their combined weight. Erik has read them, (‘In discovering the origins of those differences which, in spite their superficial natures, somehow continue to keep us apart, we may one day hope to heal the rends at the place where they began…’), sees them as pretty, empty things.
He finds himself pinned down and breathless; a dead butterfly on card; I’m not going anywhere, Charles, stop treating me like something to be caged-
Oh, my friend, if only… If only you knew… Charles glances upwards, the one being on Earth who has ever looked at Erik with reverence in its eyes. Every day I try, try to show you something better.
You have.
Oh? Laughter. Mirthless. A round, red mouth pushing insistently upon Erik’s colorless one, teeth scraping, catching. We’ll see.
“You want to tame me.”
“I want to save you.” Charles pulls his gaze from the chessboard. “Difference in that.”
“ One inevitably leads to the other.”
“I choose to see the best in you, my friend. Is that so terrible?”
There is selectivity in Charles, his discernments as finely tuned as those of nature. He is less the builder and more the seeker, finding that which is good-acceptable-useful- leaving the rest to decay. This has only grown more evident with time, in the way he strives to weed the killer instinct out of Erik’s blood, offering compromises and the lives of people Erik cannot, will not be.
“It isn’t so simple.” He folds a bitter smile around the rim of his glass. “I come whole or not at all.”
“People change,” Charles replies, so flippantly it hurts.
The fire crackles. A flicker of movement-the black queen spinning slowly between pale fingers-and Erik somehow finds himself drained of the will to argue.
He pushes his last pawn forward, arching towards the opposite side, hoping for safe passage.
He visits the cemetery, one week before the world ends, to see how the peaceful end their days.
Neat rows. Trees. Birdsong. Copper statues bending their green-hued heads to gaze somberly down. As he kneels, palms pressed to the soil to feel out the faintest threads of iron in the earth, a shadow rises behind him. It coughs politely.
“Charming plot,” Erik notes.
“Depends on your point of view.” Erik tightens his grip on the earth, blades of grass standing up between his fingers. He is struck by a passing whimsy, of raising the coffins by their silver fastenings, lifting them through the clay, rotting wood and rotting corpses and feasting maggots all. Already he can hear the clatter of bone on bone- see the skinless smiles- Instead he leaves them be.
“You follow me more and more these days,” he says, rising. “Enjoy the hunt, do you?”
Charles looks more asleep than awake. He shrugs his slender shoulders in their wrinkled sleeves of silk and cotton, yawning. Erik steps closer and takes on some of the other man’s weight, listening to the steady pattern of his breaths. He can feel small bursts of anxiety bleeding through, their escape the result of a still-sluggish mind.
“What are you so afraid of?” he asks.
Silence. The wind in the leaves.
I would try to stay, Charles. I would have you with me. For all your foolish ideals, we aren’t so different.
Two cool fingers press against the edge of his temple before gently sailing away. Charles-who fights even after he has given up, who holds Erik despite seeing him as already gone-shakes his head, and shuts his eyes.
(Sun. Sand. A burning sea. And he cannot help but feel that this goodbye has already been rehearsed, a thousand times over.)
They walk back one next to the other, shoulders brushing, eyes to the front. Erik’s fingers hang loose at his sides and sing to every piece of metal within a hundred rolling acres: to please, please… Hold him here.