xmenfirstkink | round 3 overflow post

He wrenches the words from his throat, throws them back. “I’m here.”

The figure that appears in the doorway to the corridor is wretched, curled in on itself, tear-stained and swollen. Charles’ eyes are so red it’s as though every blood vessel has burst at once, leaving him looking more like a mutant than he ever has before. “Erik,” he says again, and steps forward, hesitant, then faster, until by the time he collides with Erik’s chest he’s built up enough momentum to drive all the air out of him, and Charles doesn’t even move his arms, just leans in against him as though that’s all he can do, all he has energy for. “Oh God, Erik. Raven. She… she’s…”

Erik finds he cannot say anything at all, finds that his face is wet, that he is holding onto Charles so tightly that he cannot move for fear of cracking wide open, feels brittle and honeycombed, like something waiting to snap.

They do not move for a long time.

LXXIV

When Erik wakes up the next day Charles is weeping again, somewhere out in the corridor. His side of the bed is tangled and cold, the sheets torn away from the mattress by his restless tossing and turning. Erik is surprised that he himself fell asleep at all, but then, he’s used to seeing terrible things whenever he shuts his eyes.

He stares at the ceiling, that far-off other country, and finds it stripped bare of meaning, napalmed and naked-soiled, salted and burned.

Charles’ breath is heaving and sobbing, trying to be quiet, but his nose sounds blocked up and it makes his voice wet and cloying, louder than it would have been if he hadn’t tried to keep from waking Erik.

For the longest time Erik cannot move, cannot muster the will to do anything but breathe and blink, slowly, like cleaning a lens of the mist that draws over it again and again, to see his grief and self-loathing more clearly. Eventually he musters the energy to roll onto his side, to look at the open door and let his limbs fall where they may. After that it takes even longer to get up, to stagger out into the corridor and past Charles into the bathroom to be noisily and painfully sick, until there is nothing left in him.

When he comes back out he falls down next to Charles and they lean in against one another, say nothing.

For once he is left alone for the entire day. Nobody tries to get in touch with Erik at all.

LXXV

The next day he knows what he has to do.

“Finally,” says Emma.

LXXVI

With Emma working on it full time, the network that had organised the hit is torn apart, its secrets shaken from its members - all human - and used against them to find more, always more. Erik builds the compounds himself with hands that do not shake, that he cannot let shake. It is too reminiscent of his past, but then, he was not the one who staged a reenactment of Schmidt’s most heinous crime against Erik, was not the one who put Erik - put Magneto - right back to the place he has always fought hardest to get away from.

If the humans want to play at being oppressed, then Magneto will show them what the word means. And they will never, ever, get to anyone he loves ever again.

Charles - says nothing, just looks at Erik as though he cannot muster any greater disapproval. It’s enough to make Erik flinch, but not enough to change his mind.

LXXVII

They never have Kurt up to the apartment any more. With Raven gone Azazel doesn’t know about Charles, and subsequently has no thought as to using him for a babysitter. This, too, the humans have taken from Charles, the same way they have taken everything else. Erik blames them for this, too.

LXXVIII

They move to the new headquarters the next year, a grand and imposing building suitable for a proper government. Eventually Charles’ grief softens, becomes background to the foreground of their lives, and slowly they become used to one another again, start to function again.

They stay that way for the next four years.

Wow. This. This hurts so fucking much. It's not exactly a rare event for fanfic to reduce me to tears, but yeah, I'm definitely crying. Even knowing this was coming eventually doesn't make it any less terrible, and oh FUCK YOU OF COURSE ERIK'S THE ONE WHO KILLS HER OH GOD NO. No no no no No. *sobbing*

I can't possibly give you any deeper thoughts right now, except to say this story is just absolutely beautiful. You're crafting something truly spectacular here *applause*

Thank you so much! I'm sorry I made you cry but not that you connected with it this strongly, if that makes sense?

And the poetic symmetry of Erik's deflection killing Raven was too strong to ignore. It had to go down that way. I realised it like a bolt out of the blue about two months ago when I was doing something else.

When Azazel came I fucking lost it. This is just. Azazel. Ugh, and now Charles can't even see Kurt and my heart is breaking and this was gorgeous bu so damn sad.

Thank you, bb - that's kind of what I was going for so I'm happy it made you sad but in a non-sadistic way.

Jesus Christ.

It's one thing to know that at some point Raven would be killed off. It's quite another when the time actually comes. This is utterly devastating and I really like the way you've handled it -- there's this lead up (between Erik and Charles) where there's a bit of foreshadowing that something big could and might happen. The attack itself comes about amidst this myriad of emotions (nervousness, pride, confidence -- panic, confusion, destruction, retaliation) and when the dust momentarily settles it's just chaos.

Losing Raven is heartbreaking yet one of those things that, given the life they're all leading, was almost bound to happen. Their lives are too precarious, too unstable, there's too much riding on everything -- someone, anyone, everyone, was bound to be a casualty. What's fascinating is not only Erik's implosion and explosion (at what he's lost and then lashing out at any and everyone potentially responsible) but the way he jettisons from taking some responsibility to foisting it on others (all the while clinging to Charles -- wanting to protect him, save him, keep him nicely compartmentalized because god forbid he/they really deal with their situation and it's confusing hypocrisy, it's oh-so-human confliction of heart and mind).

And Erik does what he does best. What he did before Charles came to mean the world. He strikes out and hard. And I get it -- because falling in love with Charles changes parts of him but doesn't rewrite his DNA and I appreciate that you never sugarcoated that. Erik's a fighter. He's a survivalist. He will break walls and bones. He will unleash a fury the likes of which have never been seen...he lets his emotions get the better of him. It's what makes him both passionate and destructive. His lashing out so brutally isn't going to squash the human resistance. It's going to be embolden them. And the love between he and Charles is going to become another casualty. Deep down inside they know the point of no return is being crossed. Charles, in his grief, doesn't have it in him to argue. Erik sees it in his eyes, his body language, tries to shove it aside. Something's going to blow (surely connected to Charles' work that Hank now has).

You've done an impressive job dealing (albeit briefly) with the immediate aftermath of Raven's death. The way you describe Erik's emotions, his actions, the way you detail what he finds in the apartment, the brokenness of Charles, the two of them clinging to each other but also mindful of this wall still there, is beautifully tragic. I knew Raven's death would be a life changer for Charles -- she's his sister (blood relation be damned), his oldest friend, one of his trusted connections to the world outside and now she's gone. It hadn't even crossed my mind that her death would be Charles would lose Kurt too and that was like a punch to the gut. And now all he has is Erik who is consumed and overwhelmed.

And I could imagine Charles being resigned and inwardly furious and lamenting his situation because it's all now a reminder who fucked up everything is. Charles is absolutely isolated now. He is so cut off and this can't keep going on, not like this. This is the tipping point. Love is all fine and well but you can't live on it alone.

Whew!

On a slightly happier/more amusing note -- I generally don't give much thought to Erik's uniform -- cape and all that jazz. I tended to regard it as a costume. You made me look at it in a whole other light. The way you balance it's symbolic and practical value is tremendous. You turned it into a viable weapon! I have a whole other appreciation for Erik cataloging the metal here and there, the ways he can use it. It's so fucking cool :-)

So does the next part pick up four years later? Can't wait to see what's happened in that jump forward.

This was a really big deal to write - it's all been leading up to this point, and I could see it getting closer, in that anticipating-but-scared way where you both want and don't want to get there. This is the pivot point on which everything else hangs. This one event shapes everything.

Erik's reaction here is really a mirrored version of his reaction in the original beach scene, and I wanted to use this to connect the two universes and show how they're both the same and different from one another, how the characters are the same underneath. In the film Erik reacts in just the same way - his initial reaction is to apologise, but then he blames Moira and cannot accept when Charles tells him it's his fault. He lashes out, unable to deal with what has happened, and reverts back to his most deeply ingrained response - the one Shaw trained into him - violence. It's his default setting, under all of his careful self-control and self-image. And it always gets him in deeper.

I'm really glad the grief section worked for you, because writing it put me into a two-day funk, so it needed to work! I'd like to pretend it's because I'm some kind of virtuoso, but the truth is that I've just lived in that place myself, and it still affects me even seven years on. My mother died very suddenly and unexpectedly in my late teens, and Erik's reaction - the emotional side of it - is pretty much what mine was. I'm drawing off experience here instead of creating it wholesale.

The next part will now pick up where Part One left off - we've completed the circle, so Part Five will follow on from that.

*has her big girl pants on now*

Oh damn! I was actually just randomly IMing a friend as I read this just at the point when Charles said that he'd potentially watch Erik die and I just knew (not that I haven't know that Raven was going to die, but the particulars you know) and it broke me all the same.

Then you add that Charles doesn't get to see Kurt as Azazel doesn't know a thing about him and I'm left to curl up into a ball and want to cry. (Or in my actual case alpha read another friend's story or write something myself.)

At the end, though, I'm left with another punch to the gut. That there's some stasis is for Charles and Erik after the pain of Raven's death being FOUR years. Oh! OH! OH! *weeps*

This part was all about the build-up of tension, so I'm glad that came across! SORRY TO MAKE YOU CRY THOUGH BB *hugs*

Oh God. This killed me a little. I knew it was going to happen, but the way you did it was amazing. And horrible. I don't know why this effects me the most, but the fact that Charles can't babysit anymore makes me SO SAD. ;___; I can't wait for the next part.

Thank you! It was really tough to write and to follow through, even though this is so important for everything that comes after, so that people liked it makes it worth it :)

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! IN THIS BEAUTIFUL SUNNY SATURDAY MORNING?
Wow... I honestly feel remorse, sad, depressed, down for Charles & Erik. it's true that the ones left behind are the ones who hurt the most. I hope the assassins all die. DIEEEE! :P
*crappy comment is crappy. too early in the morning to function*

To be fair, it was a dark rainy English Friday night when I posted it XD

And don't worry, Erik killed them all by beating them to death with their own guns in a fit of rage. THERE I FIXED IT FOR YOU

Oh, my heart.

This hurt a lot to read. I'm actually surprised you decided to use Erik and his deflection of bullets as the cause for her death. Oh boy, he's just always hurting one of the Xavier siblings with his powers, isn't he?

Charles, god. I cannot imagine what Charles must be going through. He's hit rock bottom. Not only does he lose Raven, but he also loses Kurt, his only connection to her, and has to deal with Erik's campaign to destroy the humans.

But ouch, man, I definitely cannot wait for the next update.

The thing for me with the manner of Raven's death was that it had to be something that was a natural continuation of the world they live in, but that also made a real and enormous impact on Erik, because this scene, this event, is the catalyst for his really tipping over the edge and reaching the Erik we see in Part One. This makes him that Erik.

Also, the poetic symmetry of revisiting the beach scene from the film but in a very different manner was really too much to ignore - they're by the water, he's giving a speech, then he is shot at and somebody else is hurt by his powers and by his act of self-defence, except that in this case it's fatal. And that has this massive psychological effect on Erik - in the same way paralysing Charles made Erik into Magneto in the film, killing Raven makes him take that step where he can institute these camps and controls, because it makes him go that bit farther. It had to fall out this way.

Next update should be next week as usual, pending disaster!

Oh god, I didn't expect it to happen like *that*

And I love the way that you just cover the next four years with those few simple words. We don't need the details - this is enough to understand how Erik and Charles got from where they were to where they are back when this fic started. It's enough to understand how Charles has let himself become Erik's creature, and how Erik has come to let himself treat Charles that way.

Oh god...

Surprise! Yay?

I'm really glad the light skim over those four years worked for you, because the thought of trying to write them in more depth - there was just no way to do it and keep it interesting and not get repetitive and dull, or to add more without it being conversely too much information and too little at the same time. Grief is like this, really - you lose time. Things happen and you barely notice and before you know it it's two weeks later and you can't remember a single thing you did.

And yes, poor Charles - and poor Erik! This really pushes him over the edge of this moral precipice he's been trying so hard to balance on.

Well done,

tahariel

Not a moment this turns into an overly sentimental sob story. Instead you bring it back to the barest bones, the hardest grief that catapults Charles and Erik into even further different directions. Tipping my hat.

Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 170/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

tahariel.livejournal.com - 2012-03-04 10:07 (UTC) - Expand

Dear god.

Somehow... somehow that happiness had to pay off, SOMEHOW. A life for a life, then. Poor Kurt. Poor Charles. His existence is down to one again. Suddenly funneling time through so quickly after the incident was brilliant IMO, you made the way hours fade into weeks fade into grey years for the grieving REAL to your readers. Lovely use of the bullet deflection accident, because this figuratively paralyzes/ kills/ incapacitates Charles even as it did it to him physically in the film. Lovely foreshadowing of Raven's death with Charles taking up the position he took up in the beach (in the film), head on Erik's lap. I love how your grief is described briefly and swiftly. If this were art, this in my mind is like something simple in heavy strokes with lots of white space, which put weight and focus on the lines.

The line: “I am a mutant. The Nazis took my nationality from me long ago.”

My goodness. Good lord. Let me... let me... let me get my bearings. You deserve something wonderful for this, Tarahiel, you really do.

Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 170/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

tahariel.livejournal.com - 2012-03-04 10:12 (UTC) - Expand

This fill is prophetic, in a sense. My friend just passed away. I'm thankful I can work it out through this. These people lived through it, I can do it too. I just wanna say thank you. People say fanfiction is useless, but it helps a great deal. Your writing helped me a great deal. So thank you, so much.

Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 170/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

tahariel.livejournal.com - 2012-03-04 10:16 (UTC) - Expand

while i'm reading this there's this dreadful feeling i can't shake off. this dytopian universe you've created, i'm convinced that there's just no way you're gonna be able to give them a plausible enough normal, happy ending. i keep thinking erik will never ever let charles go because he thinks that if he does grant charles his freedom, the professor is just gonna be proven right that everything about them and their relationship is unhealthy and will leave him in favor of rediscovering the outside world that he's been deprived of for so long... or that maybe charles is gonna have a very difficult time adapting back to society and would realize that no one cares about him anymore or even knows he still exists, and he's gonna feel like he's an outsider and that it's pointless and so he'll choose to just go back to eric where they're gonna live like hermits and die of codependence. D:

Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 170/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

tahariel.livejournal.com - 2012-03-04 13:43 (UTC) - Expand

They stay that way for the next four years.

That's it, I'm now a catatonic mess. My safety preparations for going into this included a list of fix-it fluff, but right now I'm too miserable to read that.

Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 170/? TW: CHARACTER DEATH

tahariel.livejournal.com - 2012-03-05 21:10 (UTC) - Expand

Oh god. I had to reread and find out that Erik's deflected bullet killed Raven. I just.. god. And When finally Great Magneto wanted to give Humans a chance and it turned for the worse, and there is no backing out now, no second chances (I hope there is but Raven...) God this fic is just so heartbreaking and full of life's very own contradictions that plague us eg: the part where Charles was talking about publishing a book and telling Erik that he knows he cant but at the same time is fucking sick of "no". I just love how you manage to write out these contradictions and make it so apparent and relatable. And of course, this seems to take an even darker tone to the first part of the story (I reread the beginning and god its positively heartbreaking).