xmenfirstkink | round 3 overflow post

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round 3 overflow post

Round 3 Overflow Post

This post is for Round 3 fills only. We ask that when a round hits 8500 comments, fillers begin moving their fills to this post.

Format:
SUBJECT LINE -- Round #, short description of fic (ex: "Alex/Hank, lab partners")
--- Link to the prompt
--- Text of the prompt

--- Link to the fill
OR
--- Entire text of the fill

EXAMPLE:
Prompt: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=1038472#t2038174

Charles/Erik -- Charles is a bakery owner whose most frequent customer is Erik.

Fill: http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=0139482#t4502942

Charles started off the morning the same way he always did...

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The Ravenclaw common room was in chaos. Two teams of boys -- half of them without shirts on -- were batting something like a tiny perpetual explosion back and forth, shouting and running, trampling furniture, homework, and smaller students, while a third-year girl, levitating at the ceiling (apparently against her will) screamed for help. A group of first-years had a terrified house-elf cornered under a table and were trying to give it clothes.

"Everybody stop," Charles snapped, amplifying his voice with a twitch of his wand.

The room fell silent, one boy toppling over and breaking a chair as he tried to freeze in his tracks.

"Hi, Professor X," Dominique Weasley said in a tiny, sheepish voice. Her hair was frazzled and her eyes looked shadowed and sleepless.. Poor 'Minique, she had doubtless tried her best to keep things under control in his mental absence.

"Hello, sweetheart," he sighed. "You four, let the poor house-elf go. Immediately. Yes, I know, internalized oppression, et cetera, we'll talk about it later. You boys, put your clothes back on.. What is that thing?" The tiny explosion, dropped on the floor, was beginning to singe the carpet. "Wait, don't even tell me, it came from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes? I'm shocked. Whoever owns that abomination, douse it or lock it away or whatever will keep it out of my sight and away from flammable materials. Clarissa, darling, don't cry, I'm going to get you down."

With some semblance of order restored, he set the boys to setting the room to rights, while he fixed the chair and a few other bits of damaged furniture with a quick Reparo.

"I really tried to stop them, Professor," Dominique said meekly.

"I'm sure you did, sweetheart, don't worry about it. I know I haven't been around as much as you're accustomed to."

"Well, of course things have been... you know, demanding. With Imogen Cox and everything."

"Yes, well, I have a duty to the living students as well. Come on, 'Minique, tell me all the news. How are things with your... goodness, what is Dolly to you? Cousin of a cousin..."

"We've declared her an honorary Weasley cousin, probationary status," Dominique said, "We call her Probie," and proceeded to follow him throughout Ravenclaw Tower, chattering about everything he could possibly want to know about the Potter Pack and the Ravenclaws as he inspected the dormitories, patting heads and kissing the occasional skinned knee, both figurative and literal. He could feel his mind filing away details of what he saw and heard, to be properly catalogued and interpreted during a long-overdue Divination session. He should have time for that in the morning.

"And that's about everything, really," Dominique said at last. By this time they were sitting on a couch in the restored common room, with three students making up a board game as they went along at the table behind them, and the traumatized house-elf still trying to build up the fire with shaking hands. "What about you, Prof?"

"Me? Oh, you know, all manner of official... unpleasantness. Inevitable, when there's a student death."

"You seem to have made a new friend this year," Dominique said, perhaps a little teasingly.

Charles forbade himself to blush, but could feel his ears warming anyway. "I suppose you mean Eri – Professor Lehnsherr."

"Mm-hmm. Also known as Professor LandShark, Meanest Teeth in All Britain."

"He's not mean, not really. Um, is he?"

"Sometimes," Dominique said drily, "especially if you're stupid. He's getting better, though." She raised an eyebrow. "Almost like he had a mellowing influence or something."

"I try," Charles admitted.

"Well, try harder. Exams will be here before you know it and we need him all happy and relaxed by then."

Charles cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. Looking forward to the Halloween masquerade? Do you have your costume ready?"

Dominique smiled wolfishly and consented to the change in topic. The conversation became more enjoyable, and by the time Charles made his way back to his own rooms, it was almost possible to forget the weight of the letter over his heart.

---

Dawn, in Charles's experience, was the best time for a Divination reverie. He rolled out of bed, paused only to rinse his mouth and throw on his slippers, then opened the window wide to the chilly October sunrise and assumed lotus position on the floor in front of it.

He tried to keep his mind from fully waking, without actually going to back to sleep. The idea was to listen to his subconscious, to let it 'connect the dots' of information he'd acquired both consciously and not, and form it into a picture he might never have otherwise seen. He focused on slow, even breathing, kept his spine straight, and let the words, worries, and sensory impressions of the last few days tumble unimpeded through his mind.

Read the letter, his mind urged him, you should read Erik's letter right now, but he pushed past that. He wasn't deep enough in, yet, to trust what his mind told him.

At the end of ten minutes, he realized one of his Ravenclaws (poking at her plate -- face thinner since start of term -- grades dropping -- faint smell of vomit when she spoke, not enough to notice at the time) was developing an eating disorder. He would take her to Madam Pomfrey. She would know what to do.

At fifteen minutes, he realized two of his seventh-years were romantically involved and trying to hide it (longing looks -- excuses to touch -- how very familiar, but why -- she's Muggleborn, oh dear, his grandmother was a Black). Perhaps he should stay out of it but he probably wouldn't.

At twenty-five minutes, something began to build, delicately, tiny 'dots' that faded if he looked directly at them -- like faint stars -- star chart -- piled papers -- drowning, men drowning in a bottle -- star chart -- wand, important -- ink on parchment -- lines, swirls, notations -- star chart -- October -- WAND --

A knock at the door shattered his concentration, and Charles suddenly re-inhabited his gasping, shivering body. What idiot had opened the window?

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he snarled, when the knock sounded again before he could get to the door. He didn't have the presence of mind, yet, to wonder who it was and if he should be alarmed.

It was Erik. And he was grinning.

"Get dressed, Charles, come outside with me," he said. "Good heavens, what idiot opened your window? It's freezing out there."

"What? What do you want?" His voice sounded slurred, his brain felt slurred, he was sure it wasn't good for him to be knocked out of trance like that.

Erik chuckled and mussed his hair. "Get some coffee and put on something warm. I need you to help me with something."

Charles turned away and began fumbling with his teapot, muttering about help you, help you right out the window, laugh at your splattered corpse. Erik laughed again, shut the window and tucked a blanket around Charles's shoulders.

"Did you read the letter?"

"What?" Charles whirled, feeling the blood drain from his face.

Erik jerked back, frowned. "The letter, Charles. To Potter?"

"Right." Charles sagged a bit, tried not to pant. "Of course. Yes, it was fine, I sent it off already. Corrected your spelling a bit."

Erik looked at him strangely, but ventured a smile. "I would expect nothing less."

The sun was only just up when Charles found himself out on the grounds, on a hillside out of any clear view from the castle, with Erik handing him a gun.

He blinked down at it. It felt cold, and heavy, and quite solid. Probably not a hallucination. .22 caliber, some part of his mind catalogued automatically. Kimber Rimfire. Good hunting pistol.

"Erik," he said flatly. "What. The. Devil."

"I borrowed it from Summers. I have some ideas, Charles, on how to use magic to deflect bullets. Of course there's only one way to test them. I know you know how to shoot -- you used to complain about your dad taking you hunting -- so if you could just aim a little to the side of me, so I don't actually die if this doesn't work--"

"Erik. What the devil -- this is a school, Erik, there are children--" Charles could barely breathe. "You brought a loaded gun into a school?"

"It was already here. Technically."

"Yes, and Summers's job is toast, never fear. Oh my god. You actually -- you actually expect me to shoot at you. Right here. You really have no idea..." Charles kept his grip on the gun secure, though his skin wanted to flinch away from it.

Erik's grin had faded. "Come on now, Charles, don't act like it's going to bite you. It's just an object."

"Yes. Yes, that is exactly the point, it is just an object and it only does what a gun is supposed to do."

"Naturally," Erik said warily. "And I'm not aiming it at any of the students, Charles, do you think I'm an idiot?"

"Augh, who am I talking to, you're from a culture that hands out wands capable of lethal spells at the age of eleven, you simply don't understand -- Erik, to kill someone with magic requires intent, all the lethal spells are powered by your own determination to kill this person, you can't do it on accident. Right? You following me? That's why it's perfectly safe to throw the words 'Avada Kedavra!' around right and left, it's not going to do a thing unless you mean it, right? Guns are not like that."

Erik reached to take the gun back, and Charles tightened his grip on it -- no, he couldn't let Erik carry this around, so devoid of the wariness Muggles instinctively treated guns with, what if a child got hold of it, some pureblood child who didn't even know what it was --

"Erik, a bullet won't care if you meant to fire it or not, it fires anyway," he said, and Erik was trying to pry it from his hand now, Charles pulled it closer, and oh struggling over a gun was not not not a wise thing, "and you could kill someone, Erik, you could hurt yourself or me or one of the children without ever meaning to--"

"Charles, you're pointing it at yourself, even I know better than that!"

"I'm not," though he knew it might look that way, and Erik's hands were panicky now, scrabbling --

"Stop it, stop it, just be still!" Charles forced himself to do likewise, and they stood there, rather more tangled together than he'd realized because he was half-turned away and Erik had tried to pull him back. Neither of them was breathing evenly and the gun was cold against Charles's stomach. "Erik," he said, very calmly, when he could, "I'm not giving this back to you, because you don't know how to handle it, and I can't be sure you'd give it the proper respect. I'm going to unload it, disassemble it if I can, and hide it in my room until I can decide what to do about it and you and Alex bloody Summers. That is what's going to happen. Now let me go."

Erik let his arms drop, slowly, but didn't step back. "Charles," he said, breath against Charles's hair, "I wouldn't let anything happen. I would never let you be hurt."

Charles sighed, resting his head against Erik's collar. The letter in his pocket crinkled at the movement. "I know you wouldn't, my friend. I know."

***

vggrgjhdwuuygbjjkvrf all the feels hhhhhh I love this fic so muhuhuhuccccch

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! This was a wonderful update. So much happening here. I actually yelled when Charles was interrupted in his meditation. It's a very interesting turn you have taken with the whole Divination thing. I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Already waiting for the next update.

Thank you! I'm glad you like the Divination thing -- I felt like there had to be a way to make the subject actually relevant and useful to the non-Gifted, and that Charles would be the one to find it.

Also, I love your icon. That is the most perfect fic-comment icon ever.

I can't wait for Charles to read the letter. And, *eyes "30ish"* sounds good!

I'm not promising thirty, we are definitely coming up on the end sequence and if it's shorter, it's shorter, but I know myself and how my stories tend to spiral out of control in terms of length, so...

Charles and this letter. He's still trying to come to terms with its existence before he can even think about actually reading it. I'm as eager for him to open it as you are! I promise, it will happen!

I just read the whole story up to here, and it is absolutely amazing!

Charles, read the letter! And tell Erik about the wand! And keep that gun away from him! But do have long talks about feelings with him that lead to lots of making out and also hot lovin'!

Erik, continue on your path of becoming less of a moron! And don't get killed by Shaw! And don't get consumed by hatred, either! There's Charles to love and make out with!

Shaw? Die die die die die die die! Or be imprisoned in Azkaban forever and ever and ever! You bastard.

I am really excited for the next part of this.

Your comment is made of truth and beauty. It should be cross-stitched onto a silver cloth with golden thread and framed in a museum.

That is all.

Aw, thanks! I'd stitch it myself but I don't have any silver cloth.

Yay! So happy to see more of this.

Kudos to everything. Seriously, this fic of reviving nostalgic true romance for Charles/Erik is also reviving my happy memories of reading HP for the first time...

Mine, too, actually! The process of writing this has made me excited about the HP universe all over again. I'm very happy to hear it's having a similar effect for others!

HOW DID CHARLES NOT DIE OF CURIOSITY??? READ THE BLOODY LETTER, CHARLES!!! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S IN IT!!!

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round 3 overflow post

FILL: The Better Men (18f/30ish)

FILL: The Better Men (18g/30ish)

FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)

Re: FILL: The Better Men (18h/30ish)