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 195/?

[tahariel.livejournal.com]

There’s a slither of fabric, probably Emma uncrossing and recrossing her legs, a click of a heel settling back on the hardwood floor, final. “That’s what they’re going to say. All of your reputation - shot to shit in seconds. Everything we’ve built rests on your shoulders, as loathe as I am to admit it.”

“And what about you, Azazel?” Erik turns just far enough to see the teleporter over his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to contribute.”

“You’ve been keeping my brother-in-law in your apartment because my wife asked you to,” Azazel says, and the scar down his cheek has more expression than he does. “Raven was many things, Magneto, but no fool. I am - she did not tell me. I have plenty to say to her, if ever we meet again.”

“He’s human, you know,” Erik says, testing, and Azazel gives him a disgusted look, replies, “I believe the correct term here is ‘duh’, to take a note from my son.”

Charles steps forward into his eyeline, bending his head to try and catch Erik’s gaze. “Erik - ”

He turns away again. Looking at Charles now would be too difficult. “I was going to - I - never mind,” and when he meets Emma’s eyes Erik has set his expression to hard and unfeeling stone, wiped away emotion and crammed it all back down. “I suspect McTaggert would be happy to help us with this, as well,” he says, and sees her understanding in the way she smooths her skirt, gets gracefully to her feet and ignores the creak of the old couch.

“Erik, what were you going to do?” Charles asks, and moves around from behind the couch to walk right up to him, where Erik cannot ignore him. Erik tries, but when Charles reaches for his face he does not resist, cannot, and lets his head be turned for him so that they are looking at one another, close, so close, keeps his expression blank even as Charles gives him sorrow and remorse and determination and love, looks at him with everything in his eyes that Erik doesn’t want to see. “What were you going to do?” Charles asks again, and if his voice is soft it is still a demand.

“I was going to let you go,” Erik says, and pulls Charles’ hand away from his face. “Azazel, if you could.”

Azazel steps forward, and for once does not make a smart remark. “Of course.” And then he is taking Charles’ arm, and Charles is pulling against his grip, trying to reach out to Erik, saying “Erik, I’m sor-”

And then they are gone.

“I love you,” he says to the space where Charles had been, and Emma has the decency to let herself out.



XXV

Erik spends the next month alternating between drunk and hungover, though the latter rarely lasts for long.

It doesn’t help.



XXVI

The month after that he realises how freeing it is to have nobody to care about, to be responsible for nobody but himself and his actions, just as he used to be after Auschwitz, before New York; there is nobody to tell him he’s selfish, or irresponsible, or to eat or sleep or do anything he doesn’t want to, or to see him sit in Charles’ windowseat watching everything happening outside with no desire whatsoever to take part in it.



XXVII

He very deliberately avoids hearing news about the return of Professor Xavier as much as he can. It’s for the best.



XXVIII

He doesn’t see Charles again for two and a half years.