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 168/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

“Today,” he starts, and the microphone picks up his voice, makes it ring out loud in the silence until it is everywhere, until everyone can hear him. “Today, we welcome new friends, and remember old ones. We remember the devastation of two years ago, which started on the whim of one man, and was carried on by many; we remember that we are still here when many others are not, were killed in the madness of that month. And we remember that we are still fighting that battle, that - ”

There is a loud crack and a bang, and for an instant he thinks it is Azazel teleporting in, missing his cue; then he is flinging up a raw burst of force to deflect the bullet from smashing into his face and caving in his skull, artless and without direction.

Screams explode from the crowd and people panic, trying to get away and shoving and pushing at one another, tripping over feet and the fallen and there are more bullets flying now, from more than one gun, and Magneto is deflecting them as best he can, trying to keep them from hitting him at the same time as trying to find where they’re coming from, but his focus is on staying alive, and then there is a scream from behind him at the same time as he is flicking his hand to deflect another wave, and he half-turns, the force turning with him and twisting the bullets -

Mystique wrestling with another human, one with a gun Magneto cannot feel - ceramic, with ceramic bullets, what the -

Emma fighting another one, blood gushing from the man’s nose and splashing onto her diamond skin as she takes over his mind and crushes it ruthlessly -

Another burst of metal bullets at his back, and he flings up a hand desperately at the last moment, deflects them even more gracelessly than before, no thought in it, just the raw need to repel them -

They bend around him, arcs of force -

And there is a choked scream from Mystique, which cuts off sharply as there is a sudden spray of blood, and Erik screams as she -

falls -

limp, like a doll whose strings have been cut, the human beneath her already dead from the bullet that had been deflected right through his right eye socket, left a gory mess behind where the back of his skull has exploded outward from the force.

There is a moment in which everything. Stops. Time freezes in an endless second of pure and unadulterated agony.

Before he can even think about it Erik spins and reaches for the guns out there, mindless of any bullets that might be winging towards him right now, and wrenches them from their holders, lashes out with them, too full of rage to fire them and instead simply battering at the gunmen until they, too, fall, screaming, and then, not.

When he turns around again Raven has not moved, is laying there like a thing discarded, and he knows, then. He knows.

His heart has turned to a rock in his chest, hard and unbeating. It feels like it could fall out at any moment, from the hole in his chest where someone has stoved it in.

Anyone could kill him now and he would hardly notice. Erik slides to his knees, legs giving way, and cannot force himself to join Emma when she moves over to see, to grab for Raven, to put fingers to her pulse before noticing the great hollow in the centre of Raven’s torso where a bullet had punched right through her.

There is nothing, just numb disbelief and so much horror he cannot believe he has not died himself, has not destroyed himself from the inside out, torn apart by this wrenching, awful, empty void like a black hole, swallowing everything and leaving behind a wreck, the hollow bones of a sinking ship stripped bare.

Somewhere in the city, he knows, Charles is doing the same.

Oh, God. Let Charles have slept too long to have seen this.

He won’t have.