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 194/?

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

The teleporter looks shocked, twisting to look over his shoulder at Charles, who has not yet moved - just stares back at Erik, hands clenched around the edge of the windowseat. “Loves him?” Azazel’s arms have loosened, hands falling into his lap where before he was posed so self-righteously. He looks wildly out of place on their old worn-in couch, among all the journals and books Charles has left scattered around, the mugs of tea he either hasn’t finished or hasn’t washed up yet, the Formica kitchen cabinets and Erik’s metalwork on his own desk, Charles’ projects on his. Neither Azazel nor Emma fit into this apartment, into this part of Erik’s life that he has tried so hard to keep separate, to keep for himself - Emma with her elegant, rich poise and Azazel, more knife than man, and neither of them should be anywhere near Charles -

The first thing he says when Emma returns control of his voice is, “Charles, are you alright?” When that gains him a nod, the second thing he says, with a sensation like the bottom of his stomach falling out, with a sudden flash of unwanted insight, is, “You knew they knew, last night, didn’t you? You knew.”

“I knew,” Charles says, and finally, finally stands up, moves forward from the window so that the light from outside is no longer bright enough to hide his face in contrast to the dim inside of the room, so that Erik can see the sorrow in his eyes, the downward curl of his mouth, unhappy but not cowed. “Azazel followed Kurt here yesterday when my nephew - his son - came to visit. Raven had photographs, he recognised me. We talked.”

It’s awful, a shot to the heart, and Erik sags against Emma’s hold on him, because Charles will never believe him now that Erik had decided to let him go on his own, before anything forced his hand, that Erik would have given him his freedom willingly. A choice that had torn him in two, relegated in one fell swoop to a footnote, irrelevant. Because Emma is a bitch, she gives him a look that could almost be called sympathetic, but then abruptly lets go of him so that he has to fumble for his own controls so as not to fall over, staggering just a little as his knees refuse to straighten.

“That’s where Kurt’s been going, then,” Erik says when he has reclaimed his own posture, stands as straight as he can, folds his arms behind his back, feet together, shoulders back and down. Dignity is a poor panacea, but it’s what he has. “And you - ”

“Kept it from you, yes.”

Erik looks to Emma, as sleek and pale and implacable as ever, like the diamond she becomes. Without his helmet there is no question who would win if it came to a fight, especially with Azazel on her side; there is no point to a confrontation. With an effort he pushes all of his feelings down and away, imagines them locked up tight in a pit below the earth out of her reach, chained like Atlas, or Milton’s Lucifer in the lake of fire. “What do you intend to do?”

In the corner of his eye he can see Charles wrap his arms around himself, looking at Erik as though he’s kicked Charles’ puppy, as though he’s the one who gets to be heartbroken here. He does not look back.

Emma purses her lips, twines a lock of her hair around her finger slowly before answering, her gaze never leaving his. “He can’t stay here forever, sugar. Frankly I’m impressed you’ve kept Xavier secret for so long. But eventually someone other than us is going to find out, and then the fallout is going to be catastrophic. The Great and Powerful Magneto, First Mutant, has been hiding a human fucktoy in his apartment for five years, and no lesser fucktoy than Professor Charles Xavier, of Number Fifteen fame?”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Erik snaps before he can stop himself, and Charles makes a soft noise, one that hits him like a dagger. He has to turn away, turns his back on them all while he rubs a hand over his face, over his stinging eyes where scowling is making his face hurt, push his hair back away from his forehead, stare at the helmet where it’s sat on the table, gleaming innocently and worthless, utterly worthless now.