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 163/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

“Oh, the Ice Queen won’t like that,” Mystique says, smirking and scales flickering like falling snow all over her body until she stands a little taller, hip cocked and frowning delicately with Emma’s face, one hand curled gently by her cheek and subtly flashing those talons Emma likes to wear for nails. “You know how she likes to play the spider, not the fly.”

“She’ll do it.”

“She’ll do it, but she’ll probably give me some kind of terrible mental itch that won’t go away.” She runs her hands down her smart white dress and it slides back into blue beneath her palms, her skin rippling out from the centre until she is herself again. “Just watch your back, alright? We have no idea when this is going to happen, and everyone knows you’re Humanity’s Most Wanted.”

“And you’re on there twice, Number Three.”

“Don’t forget Number Twenty-Two. Or do I get promoted when they knock off people above me?” she asks, and tries to grin, make it a joke, but both of them are grimacing, because it’s not funny, not really.

Charles is Number Fifteen. Or Number Eleven, now. Mystique may be Number Three, but Raven Xavier is now only Number Thirteen.

“Watch yourself, too,” he says, and when she steps in to give him a hug he allows it, bends enough to be Erik and offer her a shoulder to hide her face in for a minute, stretched up on lengthening legs to keep off her tiptoes, scales brushing like dry paper at the skin of his cheek.



LXII

That night Erik kisses Charles fiercely and holds him more tightly than usual, and Charles does not ask for an explanation, just lets him, touches him back with as much fervour, pulls him close after and brushes Erik’s sweat-tangled hair back from his forehead silently, and does not complain when Erik makes him stay there for a long time, tucked in safe inside the curve of his body.



LXIII

“They want to send a delegation,” Emma says, handing Magneto the thick, creamy sheet of parchment with absolutely no indication on her face of her feelings on the matter. “Intelligence differs on whether they’re looking to ally as equals or join us.”

He looks over the letter, reading it slowly and with a rising sense of satisfaction. “Excellent. Let them come, then. We’ll send Azazel.”

It’s a mistake.



LXIV

From the moment it’s announced that the Asian Mutant Coalition is sending a delegation to America to coincide with the anniversary of the first nuclear explosion that had started the whole sorry mess, the already tempestuous public atmosphere explodes, humans and mutants getting into fights in the streets and newspapers sniping at Magneto, at humans, at each other, each more incendiary than the last. Chatter coming in through Mystique’s networks increases tenfold, until it’s impossible to sort the gold from the dross; television debates rage, and Magneto can hardly go outside without questions and accusations being shouted at him.

“If Europe had offered to send a delegation, I would have received them,” he says in a carefully-controlled press conference, all of the reporters present warned that they will be thrown out if they don’t keep quiet while he’s talking. “That the AMC have offered to come and open relations with us has no bearing on my European policy, nor my policy towards humans. That you are all obsessed with accusing me of plotting genocide and think I would need foreign aid to follow through is as insulting as it is idiotic.”

From behind the camera, her back to the press, Emma widens her eyes at him as though she cannot believe what he has just said, and Magneto stifles a sigh, qualifies his previous comments by adding, “I lived through the Holocaust, ladies and gentlemen. I have no interest in wars or genocides. I have had quite enough of both to last me. I only want to see this great country live up to its potential as a world leader, and to do that we need to speak to other nations, to cooperate and share ideas.”

“First Mutant, isn’t it also true that you personally destroyed several European ships in the Battle of Guanabara Bay?” one man asks, a pencil hovering nervously over his notepad as he cranes his neck to meet Magneto’s eyes where he’s stood on the podium.