round 3 overflow post

[starkmodistries.livejournal.com]

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...

Comments

FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 127/?

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

“There isn’t really anything to say.” Erik thinks about the photograph again, about the one or two very precious ones they had had taken on special occasions when he was a child. His mother had sat primly in her Sunday best on a chair in the middle, Erik standing at her side in a too-tight suit and his father behind her, one hand resting lightly on the slope of her shoulder, very much the gentle protector, the benevolent head of their family. His father had been very noble, and kind, with strong, deft hands Erik had loved to watch when he fixed things around the house. He had liked to leave things for people to find that he thought they would like, instead of making a production of it. Mother had kept the photographs lined up on the mantelpiece until Erik’s aunt had warned her that the sunlight would make them fade, after which she had put them safely in the drawer beside her favourite spot on the settle. She had forgotten them when they had left the house that final time, in too much of a hurry to get away to think of them.

Erik is not very much like his father. Not his biological one, anyway.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Raven says after they have been quiet for a little while, swinging her feet down to the floor and getting up with a grunt of effort, rubbing a hand in the small of her back. “Ugh, that’s harder than it used to be. Don’t go anywhere, okay?” And she leaves without further explanation, leaving the men cold-lapped on the couch.

“What do you think she’s up to?” Charles turns so that he’s fully facing Erik, weight resting on one hip and head still leant against the arm Erik has along the back of the cushions, snug in the crook of Erik’s elbow.

Erik shrugs, tries to loosen his joints where they have seized up without his input, tight like unoiled hinges. “I try not to speculate when it comes to Mystique. It’s in the name.”

Outside it’s getting dark now, enough that he reaches out and flicks the switch of the standing lamp so that soft light falls out of it as though he’s removed the stopper from a bottle, illuminating the floating dust as it drifts past like flecks of gold. It only takes a little further effort to snap the dust out of the air with a wave of static that sets the hair on Charles’ arms on end and the hair on his head to floating upward a little bit at the top; Charles shudders, a full-body quiver against Erik, and lets out a gasp.

“What did you just do?”

“I hate dust,” Erik says, flicking the collected fluff into the trash can in the kitchen and out of sight. “There was always ash in my nose and in my mouth. It tastes the same.”

The other man looks at him with a sudden focus, not unkind but considering, even as he strokes down the length of his arms to discharge the static and smooth down the hairs again. “I think this is the most you’ve ever talked about it,” Charles says, gently, so carefully, like he is laying a feather on top of something fragile and willing it not to break.

“He made me watch, you know.” Erik did not mean to say this, either, but it’s as though he cannot stop, now that the floodgates have been opened. “He would have made her carry her myself but I wasn’t strong enough. So he made me watch instead, when they took her away to burn. I could taste it for days. I’m amazed he didn’t make me drag her.” He wipes a hand over his face, cannot decide if he is surprised to find it dry, though he does not really cry, any more. Charles’ expression is white and horrified, mouth slack and nostrils pinched, as though he can smell the crematorium the way Erik still can. It had smelled like meat, sometimes. “Sorry. That was too much. It doesn’t matter any more, anyway. Like you said, it’s ancient history.”

“God, Erik,” and Charles leans up to kiss him once, brief and hard, on the mouth, there and gone too soon. “I’m so sorry,” he says, and for once it doesn’t sound like a platitude. “Of course it matters.”

“It was a long time ago.” Erik bends his head to find Charles’ lips again, returning the kiss as carefully as he knows how, closed-mouthed and chaste. “I’m alright now,” he says against Charles’ mouth when they break away, sighing a little under his breath.