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xmenfirstkink2011-12-18 05:18 pm
starkmodistries.livejournal.com) wrote in xmenfirstkink2011-12-18 05:18 pm
Entry tags:
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...
FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
Erik closes his eyes to hide his heart. “You’re the only person I’ve ever loved who hasn’t been murdered yet.”
There is silence between them, for a minute, two, as Charles stands stock still and Erik does not dare to move for fear he might get up and grab at Charles to make him stay.
“Nonetheless,” Charles says, and his voice is gentler, now, if no less implacable. “nonetheless, Erik, my darling, no matter how much you love me - and I don’t doubt that - I cannot stay here. I’ve let this go on for too long while I was still muddle-headed over Raven, and maybe I still am, but it’s very clear to me that unless I leave now I never will, or if I do what leaves won’t be me any more. I love you desperately. But I never got the chance to find out if I would still have loved you without all of this. Wouldn’t you rather know I love you for you instead of loving you for being the only person I ever see?”
When Erik opens his eyes Charles’ expression is - it is -
“No.” It’s easier now to get up from the bed, heedless of his nakedness, and stand beside it, look at Charles from the position of an equal, across the space between them, barely an arm’s length. “No. I am very selfish, liebchen, and I won’t let you kill yourself by giving you what you want when I know I will lose you. No.”
“Erik - ”
“No!” His hands curl into fists at his sides, and he turns away, goes to the dresser to pull out fresh clothes for the day. “No, Charles, no. You know I hate saying no to you. Stop making me say it, again and again we talk about this, and again and again you force me to say it, and then I’m the bad guy yet again for not wanting you to die. I held Raven’s body in my arms, Charles. It was her blood on my face when I came back to you after, and it’s never really washed off. So no. I can’t do it.”
He steps into his underwear with sharp, short motions, dragging them up his legs and on with a physical frustration he cannot take out on Charles, wincing as the elastic scrapes over his swollen hole, and then arms are closing around him from behind, wrapping around his chest and holding him there gently, palms spreading flat against his body and pressing above his heart, his ribs. “You love me so fiercely,” Charles says, laying his cheek in the space between Erik’s shoulderblades, leaning into him so that Erik cannot pretend to be aloof from him, has to lean back, skin-hungry and desperate. “Can’t you love me enough to let me choose for myself?”
“Can’t you love me enough not to leave me?” Erik asks, voice cracking as he lays his hands over Charles’, something inside of him breaking as his head bows with the weight of his grief.
Charles doesn’t say anything at all to that.
Erik has never wished that he and Charles had never met; it’s pointless, and besides, it would be like excising a huge part of himself now, like separating two trees that have grown around one another, entwined with bark grafted into one skin, conjoined.
He tries it, to see if he can summon up the feeling, but it doesn’t take. He didn’t really expect it to.
He’s fairly certain Charles knows Erik is brooding over it, because the human backs off after their - fight? Discussion? - and does not raise the issue, just gives Erik space and does not ask to fuck him again. When Erik tries to kiss him - hurting, wanting - Charles kisses him back, but gently, without the fire to turn it into anything more.
Erik spends more and more time alone outside, walking in the grounds, but the more he walks the more he remembers that Charles can’t do this, and he’s rubbed too raw to harden himself against it as a necessity the way he has before.
Eventually he goes to Emma, who has been giving him space as well, and she is not smug about it at all when he lays her plan on the table in front of her and says, “Let’s talk.”
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
As always your balance between the outside and inside worlds is perfectly on point. Each one informs the other (with only Erik really seeing how it all painfully fits together) and it's always this balancing act. But as time goes on things are leaning one way over another -- something's going to break.
I'm in awe, totally floored by how beautifully you've written Erik and Charles in this update. The emotions pulsing at the core of their union even as tension builds is incredible. Charles broaching the "I want to fuck you" angle and Erik accepting/wanting it (and the way you write it all unfolding -- rough and sweet, intimate and raw) shows a vulnerability on both sides that speaks volumes. That they can still surprise each other, themselves. That they can still journey together, side-by-side in their own way.
Of course to have that followed by Charles' request to be freed...and I'm caught between wondering if it was just coincidental timing and/or part manipulation on Charles' part. Not in a malicious way but in a "this is the beginning of goodbye though I love you with my entire being, please don't forget that but I can't live like this anymore...love me enough to let me go." And the counterpoint (from Erik) being "love me enough to stay".
Certainly this isn't the ideal circumstance for either. Certainly Charles can understand why Erik thinks this is the only way. But I like that you have Erik increasingly mindful of what the cost of all this has been for Charles, locked away, cut off from the world. I love that Charles argues passionately about why he needs this -- fear of losing himself and disappearing completely, fear of his feelings for Erik being dictated by circumstance rather than genuine connection.
Erik is instinctively holding on to what he loves. He can count on one hand the people in his life who have truly mattered to him, who he's truly loved. And he's lost them all. If he loses Charles it's like game over for him. Maybe he'll disappear all together. And yet he's feeling Charles' pain more acutely now, increasingly it matters and weighs on him. He wants to protect Charles, as always, but the thought of hurting him in the process is taking its toll.
Charles may have let it go this time but this issue is going to grow and get far more aggressive -- yes, it's possible to love someone so much it hurts. Methinks it might end up being third party interference that's going to bring everything to a head.
Can't wait for the conversation with Emma!
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
but... HUHUHUHU Poor Charles, I really feel for him.
Whaaaaat? Last update next week? I JUST CAN'T--
I can't believe it! Is it really 2012 already?! wow!
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
I can't believe we're almost at the end!
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
Because, oh boys! I think the idea of Charles asking Erik to let him go as Magneto is being asked to let all the other people go is a contrast that just hits me and makes me wonder about so much in this story--their relationship and how it came to be so much more than just a protection and into something that is ultimately toxic to Charles.
But that toxic place also brought Charles one thing that he hadn't had before, and that was a joy to read. (You know me and my kinks so I can't say that I looked away when I saw what Charles asked.) There was something so powerful about Charles taking over and seeing how Erik responded to all of that determination from Charles and not himself.
There's a real part of me that's dreading this Friday, just knowing that my heart's going to be broken into some number of pieces for the sake of the end of this.
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
Re: FILL: Everyday Love in Stockholm 185/?
I'm crying. :'( Every update leave me in tears goddamn your brilliance once again jsdg
And i need to add I'm having my PMS now and I'm fucking emotional and this fic just made me cry into my pillows so hard ;_;