all_inclusive | choosing the impossible

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choosing the impossible

In the dark, Erik ran, the sounds of skittering and and an eerie humming echoing, ambient, in the air around him. They didn't wear metal, any of them, except the ones who carried knives— but they didn't need knives to hurt, to kill. He'd seen that firsthand.

He rounded a corner into a long gallery space, one entire wall made of glass, an arresting view of the city's grandeur and the vastness of the ocean that surrounded it. Even after weeks of this, living in the half-light of flares and sputtering neon, it still caught at him— he was under water, miles from the sun or a breath of fresh air. Like the vastness of space outside his window on the Proserpina, the ocean was endless, and he was stuck in this tomb of a city trying like hell to find his way out. Looking out over the city with fish swimming like flocks of birds between the skyscrapers, Erik spared a thought to wish he could have visited it in its heyday.

Those seconds of distraction cost him. A splicer dropped in front of him, startling a shout from him as he reeled back, jerking himself out of reach as it swiped at him with something— not metal, glass perhaps?— he felt the pull on his upper arm, then the burn as the pain set in. Almost too fast to track, another one skittered out from the shadows, and Erik could hear the hyena laugh that signaled another wasn't far off. Fuck. Where was the goddamned door, anyway? He'd been working for an eternity to make his way back here, and he was so close—

"Find a better hiding place, monster," the one in front of him hissed, its teeth bared in an insane grin, and Erik didn't waste another second before lashing out. A cloud of slender blades hovered by his left shoulder like a wizard's familiar; his left hand shot out and the blades flew, zipping through the air like hornets to pierce the splicer's flesh, burrowing in and through and out, only to twist midair and come back for more.

Ignoring the screams, Erik gestured with his other hand to the hulking splicer advancing on him from the right. Lightning arced from his palm, tracing a parabola between him and his attacker, the purple light illuminating his own fierce satisfaction at the sight of the splicer writhing in agony. The swarm of blades finished their bloody work just in time for Erik to turn, wild-eyed, as the third splicer dropped to the ground behind him. His pulse was racing, the taste of ozone in his mouth, and he threw both his hands out in front of him, metal and electricity flying free.

Three splicers lay dead at his feet. His arm throbbing, blood seeping through his sweater, Erik reoriented himself and headed toward the bathysphere station. The door wasn't far— he'd be home before he knew it... as long as there were no more nasty surprises.

[Find him in Rapture during or after the splicers attack, or once he's come back through the door. He's singed and filthy and bleeding from a long cut on his left bicep. He's injected himself with the Electro Bolt plasmid, which gives him the ability to electrically charge or shock things at will. For those who see him regularly, he's been stuck in Rapture for over a month.]

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Peggy was walking down one of the hallways in the hotel when a door opened and a bit of war came through.

If anyone had asked, she wouldn't have been able to tell them exactly what she was reacting to. There was no obvious threat, just an exhausted man and an open door. Maybe it was the blood and dirt, maybe it was the smell of smoke and desperation. Maybe she'd been subconsciously expecting something dangerous to happen here. No place with so many doors to so many varied places could be as safe as this hotel seemed to be.

But one second she was walking down the hall as if she was safe, the next second she was crouching behind a service cart, her lovely new needler pointed half way between the man and the open door, not entirely sure which one was the threat. Or if there even was a threat.

Nothing more came through the door, so Peggy looked at the man. No immediate threat. But that cut...

"You'll want to have that looked at," Peggy said, automatically using her authoritative nurse voice, only slightly different from her authoritative general voice. "It probably needs stitches. Is anything dangerous going to come through that doorway?" Her needler never wavered.

For a moment Erik's world had narrowed to the wall at his back, the strip of carpet he could see between his knees, the burn in his lungs as his breathing eased and slowed, the yellow warmth of sunlight striping his feet from the window at the end of the hall. He'd made it back; he was safe.

The voice slapped him back into alertness, his mess of blades flying up off the floor to hover at the ready, a reflex to the wary tension humming through him as he looked for the attack— but it was just one woman, a strange pistol in one hand, coolly assessing him from ten feet away.

The metal shards fell to the floor again in a haphazard pile and Erik straightened, resisting the urge to scrub a hand over his grimy face. It took him a moment to get past the brisk Britishness of her voice and understand what she'd actually said. He looked down at his arm; the slice was bleeding only sluggishly now, though his sleeve was red almost to the wrist.

"I've had worse," he said, his voice hoarse. He didn't glance behind him before adding, "And no, nothing's coming."

Peggy tensed, the aim of her gun shifting toward the cloud of metal as it formed. She didn't understand; she didn't need to understand, as long as she was ready to shoot, ready to duck, ready to act as the situation warranted. But nothing more happened, and the blades fell to the ground again.

Peggy waited a few seconds, alert for any further movement, either from mysteriously flying bits of metal or from the open door. But the metal remained inert and she saw no sign that the wounded man was wrong and the door might disgorge -- but she hadn't the slightest notion what that door might disgorge. She waited a few extra seconds on that thought, but when there was still nothing, she let out her breath and pushed the cart a few inches with her foot. She'd take the slightly better view, even with the trade-off of being slightly more exposed.

"You'll still want to get it looked at," Peggy said to the wounded man with a slight roll of her eyes for the tendency of men to downplay their wounds. The Howlers did that too.

"Are those yours?" she asked of the shards of metal on the floor. She might not know what was going on, but they'd hovered around him, so it seemed like a reasonable guess.

Erik looked behind him at the shards, then back at her, unable to tell whether she was asking if they were important or implying he ought to pick up after himself. Shrugging, he waved his hand at the nearby housekeeping cart, sending the debris flying into the trash with a tinny jangle. "It was all I had on hand," he said. At least, it had been until he'd found the plasmid.

"Where should I go to get this looked at, then?" He'd never taken note of an infirmary— never stayed in a hotel that contained one either, though he suspected that whatever the Nexus was, it was better prepared than most places to handle the unexpected.

Edited 2015-07-07 20:55 (UTC)

Peggy didn't relax completely just because the flying metal had been disposed of, but she did consider it to be a gesture of good will. And from what she'd observed, though it might be chaos through any of the doors, the hotel itself was at peace. She would have to get used to that, but meanwhile, she was the only one making a threat now.

She holstered her needler. Good will on both sides, she thought.

"There's a clinic," she told him, competent as always. She'd explored the hotel thoroughly, and checked the parts that seemed stable a couple of times since then, so she knew the location well. At least, as well as anything in this hotel.

"I'll show you," she decided. She knew she could find it, but she wasn't sure about giving directions. And the nurse in her wanted to make sure he actually got it looked after.

Jaenelle has explored many of the doors but she hasn't been into this one yet. It's not exactly a friendly world but that isn't something that deters her; she grew up in Hell, more or less, and her uncle is the High Lord. A spooky atmosphere isn't going to run her off.

She's a little surprised to see Erik surrounded by three corpses, injured and, from the looks of it, worse for the wear.

"Erik? The door's this way," she says, nodding back toward where she came. "Do you think you can make it through before I heal you or should I try to make a web down here?"

Erik whirled, relaxing when he saw it was Jaenelle. She could protect herself, if there were more of them... he still hoped there wouldn't be. "I'll make it," he rasped, his face grim as he forced himself to move, his stiff muscles protesting. "The door you came through; is it close? The one I came through..."

He trailed off, trying to remember how long it had been since he'd come here, shaking his head in disgust when he failed. "What's the date? I've been here a few weeks, I think. The door— we need to get to the bathysphere, unless your door is closer."

Edited 2015-05-01 19:37 (UTC)

"You have," Jaenelle confirms. "I wondered if you had disappeared entirely and then I found this door and found you." She looks back toward where her door was and decides that it's possibly best to push forward.

"We can go forward toward this bathysphere. Once we get out of here, you need to rest." Jaenelle's tone is stern because while Erik is an adult and a powerful one, from what she can tell, she's a Queen and a Healer. "Conserve your strength. I can handle things if we run into trouble."

"I haven't got any left to conserve," he groused, some of his humor returning to him now that the danger was lessened. And what a relief, to have been found by someone whose assurance of competency he could believe. Jaenelle's power was erratic, but in the face of a threat, he knew he'd be in good hands.

It was dark, and she was still shit at making lights without blowing things up, so Erik let a little of his new ability out, a blue haze that clung to his fingertips and gave them just enough light to see by. "They come from above, sometimes," he said. "I'll watch above and behind if you take care of whatever's ahead."

"If I had time, I would weave an illusion web to trap them in but anything I could do on the fly might be unpredictable and ineffective. We'll just keep trying to move forward," she says.

Jaenelle cocks her head and looks at his hand, admiring the haze. "How are you doing that, Erik?"

He couldn't keep back a grin, teeth flashing fierce and white in the dim blue light. "You like it?" he asked. "Just a little something I picked up as a souvenir from my trip."

To one side a hallway opened up, the glass ceiling offering them a watery view of neon and fish, and another splicer skittering toward them. "On your left," Erik barked, lightning shooting from his palm just a second too late to catch the thing before it leapt straight at them.

"You attack, I'll heal," Jaenelle decides. Healing comes much more naturally to her than any sort of combat magic and she thinks Erik is more than capable of handling himself when it comes to the latter. She's always been a Queen and a Healer first; it's only because of circumstances that she's learned to weave webs and make poisons. Jaenelle likes the excitement but not at the cost of friends, so she wants out sooner rather than later.

She moves behind him, adopting a defensive position. "Keep pressing forward?"

His second bolt of lightning caught the splicer in midair and it dropped, twitching and shrieking, to the floor. Erik's chin dipped once in a quick nod, and he let her drop behind him with a warning, "Keep your eyes up." They reached a crossroads— thankfully, the sign directing them to the bathysphere hadn't been ripped down here, and he went left without hesitation.

The next half hour was more of the same— splicers quickly dispatched by Erik's blades or his electricity, their path detouring around collapsed hallways, periodic glances over his shoulder to catch Jaenelle's profile backlit in the flickering neon. At last they turned a corner and the door to the bathysphere station loomed before them, and Erik couldn't keep back a fervent muttered "Yes!" as they started toward it.

Inside, he pulled the levers to make the thing start its shaky ascent, and he slumped against the wall, heaving the first deep breath (it seemed) he'd taken in weeks. His hands were shaking; the Electro-Bolt left him that way sometimes. Clenching them into fists, he looked up at Jaenelle, who looked disheveled but defiant, ready for whatever still stood between them and the door. He was immensely grateful for her— but the words to say so eluded him, so he settled instead on, "How the hell did you end up here?"

"I made a web to look for you," Jaenelle says simply, as if this were the most mundane and practical answer a person could give. It was, in her mind, but she knows that her type of magic isn't very common in the Nexus. She hasn't met anyone else who is Blood.

"I found the door after I wove the web. It was sort of difficult, since I didn't have any of your blood to use as a focus."

The stillness of the house was something that even now, Charles was still getting used to. Odd, he thought, how when placed against nearly an entire life lived within these quiet mansion walls, less than a year's time could leave such an indelible imprint. Anyone who looked at him could see clearly enough that he was an entirely different creature from the man who had so naively started a school for the different, the gifted, the outcasts. And yet, there were still moments when his ear expected the clatter of footsteps and muffled laughter of students.

The bang of the front door was a gunshot in the thick autumn silence, startling enough that upstairs, the glass slipped from Charles' fingers and shattered on the parquet floor.

"HANK!" he yelled, shaking scotch from his fingers with a low curse, and then recalled that Hank was in the city for the day and wouldn't return until the morning.

Squinting against the afternoon sun, Charles stepped out to the landing and pushed the hair from his eyes.

"I'm afraid you've the wrong house, friend," he said, and paused on the stairs. His expression of mild curiosity fell instantly sober as his vision adjusted to the light.

"Oh, you bloody idiot," he spat once his throat opened enough to allow him to speak, opened shirt flapping behind him as he rushed down the remaining stairs and hurried barefoot past Erik to swing out the open door and stare wide-eyed at the overgrown expanse of the front drive.

"How long until the police arrive? Any idea at all, or did that part even occur to you?"

Edited 2015-05-06 00:33 (UTC)

Erik's pulse was still thundering in his ears, his vision going hazy at the edges as he gasped air back into his lungs. Charles's presence registered as little more than irate noise; it wasn't until he could breathe normally again that he looked up, his hands still braced on his knees with his back to the wall, and realized he hadn't stumbled back into the Nexus at all, but into his own past. No— not the past, he realized as he took in the sheen of dust and the pervasive silence in the house. His present, perhaps, the world he would have inhabited had the Proserpina not stolen him away. But where had everyone gone?

It was only the sound of the front door slamming shut that snapped him out of his amazed silence. "The police?" he repeated, a touch of derision in the word. How long it had been since he'd worried about something so mundane as law enforcement, he honestly couldn't remember. "You clearly have me confused with—"

He turned as he spoke, and saw Charles standing in front of him, furious and unkempt and standing. The rest of the sentence died in Erik's throat and he stared, his mouth hanging open, naked shock and disbelief arresting his features. What universe had he come to, what place where Charles had escaped that day in Cuba unscathed? He almost turned and marched for the door that second. Better Rapture and the splicers than being taunted by this terrible apparition of something he had made impossible. But his eyes barely flicked across the door before snapping back to Charles, and he couldn't quite make himself move toward it.

"I'm in the wrong place," he said, the words scratching their way out of him. It hurt, and yet he'd never been more sure of anything in his life.

Edited 2015-05-06 21:30 (UTC)

"Yes," Charles replied, his words quick and snappish, mouth setting into a terse line as he stepped back to stare at Erik. "Yes, for once you're absolutely bloody right, you are in the wrong place. Pity that didn't occur to you before you made the trip and brought the whole damned government down on our heads."

The impulse to throw a punch was acute, even with Erik seeming so winded and out of sorts, and Charles curled his fingers briefly into a white-knuckled fist before the urge passed and he shook them back out again. Outrage sang sharp and sweet through him, his prevailing thought that of how dare he: How dare he turn up here, how dare he mount an escape, how dare he exist in a space where Charles had to look at him. Beneath it all was the distinct knowledge that had it not been for that last meeting at the Nexus, years ago now, he would have swung.

"I don't suppose you've a plan," he bit out, throwing his arms angrily out. "If you think I'll hide you here, you're wrong."

"Hide me?" Erik retorted, Charles's visible fury making him prickle in return, despite the numb shock still seeping through him at the sight of Charles on his feet. "I don't need to hide, I didn't come here to— I didn't mean to come here at all, I was trying to get back—"

He stopped mid-sentence, as it struck him suddenly that this Charles might not know about the Nexus— that this might be an alternate world like the one Mystique had come from, similar to his own but distinctly not. Certainly this was a vision of Charles he could never have imagined: unshaven and messy, exhaustion and resentment oozing from him, hanging palpable in the air.

"I don't know how to explain this in a way that makes sense," Erik said, schooling his voice to a level of calm he didn't at all feel. Hesitant, but knowing there was no easier way to get Charles on board with helping him find a way back to the hotel, he gestured at his head. "You should just— just look." He couldn't meet Charles's eyes. "It's easier than talking."

Overriding the urge to acknowledge his own hypocrisy, it occurred to him then to wonder why Charles hadn't done just that already. Whatever had turned him into this disheveled shadow of his former self, Erik was at a loss to imagine anything that could make Charles shy about using his powers.

"And you always were one for whatever was easier," Charles acidly replied with a low huff of indignation. Yet as outwardly offended as he was, he was glad that Erik couldn't stand to look at him, for fear he might suss out the truth from Charles' own evasive gaze.

Knowing that Erik's judgment was simply a matter of time only compounded Charles' agitation, and he spun, shirttails trailing after him as he strode dismissively into the next room. Keeping his back to Erik, he swiftly unstoppered a crystal bottle of scotch and nearly filled a rocks glass to the rim. He took a bracing sip, his eyes sliding closed with a low sigh.

I don't know how to explain this in a way that makes sense, Erik had said. I didn't mean to come here at all...

"Oh bloody hell," Charles muttered, and turned to look at Erik over his shoulder. "You've come from the Nexus."

"I— yes," Erik said from the doorway, now too taken aback to bother trying to hide the frustration in his voice. "And if you know about the Nexus, that means I have more questions for you than you could possibly have for me."

He'd drifted after Charles almost in a daze, and now felt like the doorjamb might actually be propping him up. It had been so long since Erik had seen him— seven months, eight or nine at most. Charles looked as though he'd aged years in that span, and those years hadn't been kind. He watched, dumbfounded, as Charles took a healthy slug from his glass, knocking back a long swallow of scotch like it was water. He'd been drinking heavily that night in the Smoking Room, too; Erik remembered the whole thing with scalding clarity. He'd behaved badly— really, all three of them had— and he and Charles hadn't parted on any better terms than they'd been on before.

At least they hadn't shouted at each other that time. Erik had counted that a victory, but with the months of silence culminating here— in the unexplained phenomenon of Charles walking unassisted, Charles who in spite of this apparent miracle still refused to meet Erik's gaze and gripped his rocks glass like he was afraid of what might happen if he let go— he wondered if he'd been a fool to take it at face value.

Edited 2015-07-07 21:34 (UTC)

He did not want to do this. There was a great deal about the current state of the world which Charles was uncertain of, but on this much he was firm: He absolutely did not want to do this. He hadn't wanted to do it when he and Erik had met again the first time at the Nexus, and he most assuredly did not want to do it now.

And yet, here they were.

There was no angle to be found, no subtle manipulation he might glean from Erik's mind to steer the topic to something safer, less hurtful. There was just the plain fact of it, now: Another Erik, locked away for the rest of his life, and himself, as broken and ordinary as any human.

"Try another door," Charles suggested, turning away again to take another sip from his glass. "Maybe it will work and we can avoid this entire exercise."

There was a part of Erik that shouted at him to accept Charles's rejection for what it was— inevitable, unsurprising— but the overwhelmingly larger part was too exhausted to care what Charles wanted. He was filthy and singed and sore all over, the musty salt and smoke of Rapture still lying thick on the back of his tongue, and if he couldn't go back where he belonged, at least he wasn't risking imminent and bloody death by staying in one place.

Risking Charles's ire, perhaps, but that had never daunted Erik for long. "How are you walking?" he asked bluntly. Suddenly it was the only thing he cared about. He pushed off the door and crossed to the table, to Charles's side, resting both hands on the tabletop and dipping his head to try and catch Charles's eye. "If you want me gone, that's my price. Tell me that, and I'll go."

His voice caught in his throat toward the end— dehydration and smoke, most likely. The city had been a ruin, and supplies hadn't exactly been thick on the ground; he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a shower or a full meal. But none of it seemed as important as this, and Erik let himself stare, trying to imagine the answer to his question while he waited for Charles to look at him.

There it was again, sharp as a slap in the face: How dare he. Charles wanted to physically shove Erik back, to reclaim the sacred bubble of his personal space and widen it, as wide as wide would go. This room, this house, this entire bloody state was his personal space, and Erik should never have been within it.

His mouth twisted bitterly, gaze fixed resolutely down as he settled his glass upon the dusty desktop, the shudder of the amber liquid betraying any calmness or control he might have hoped to project.

"Hank," he answered, and then looked up, his blue eyes hard chips of ice. "Now get out."

The loathing in Charles's gaze arrested him and for half a heartbeat Erik thought about doing what he was told. But then sense regained its toehold in his mind and he snorted, rolling his eyes as he pushed away from the table, not intending to occupy the plush chair in front of the desk until he'd done it.

"You can do better than that," he said, stretching his legs out, resting his hands on the arms of the chair. It felt so good to sit down; now that he'd done it, there was a chance Charles might have to have him thrown bodily from the house.

He raised his eyes to Charles's, still pouring forth hostility, and waved vaguely at Charles's glass with an air of unconcern. In for a penny, in for a pound. "A drink wouldn't hurt, either. I was almost blown up today."

A scream crawled swiftly up Charles' throat, swallowed back only at the last moment and with considerable effort. Erik's air of casual superiority crawled across his skin like a physical thing, and here he was, the great wayward telepath, hamstrung because his lone adherent had taken the bloody day off.

It was all going to come out, he could see that now. He knew that look, that practiced easiness. But damn if he was going to give Erik the satisfaction of simply giving in.

"What a surprise that your word is utterly worthless yet again," he snapped, keenly aware of his own lack of composure as well as his inability to do much about it. He stoppered the decanter and gave it a hard shove so that it slid across the desktop. It shuddered to a stop with one crystal corner just off the edge, liquid sloshing, and pure luck that it didn't go over onto the floor.

"Make your own bloody drink. You're going to need it."

Ah, there it was. A breath of the upper hand, its dismal impetus slouching him into his desk chair, wrists laid across the arms and tumbler dangling loosely from his fingertips as he stared coolly back at Erik and arched his eyebrows.

"Here's how this is going to work," he said, each syllable perfectly crisp. "You don't get to ask me questions about myself. You forfeited that right long ago. Instead, I'm going to tell you all about you and exactly what you've been up to since you left me to die on that beach in Cuba. And then you're going to leave. Understood?"

He glanced to the decanter, and then back to Erik, waiting.

Charles's venom only earned him a scant shrug. If Erik felt the sting, he didn't let it show— only reached out and grazed the edge of the decanter with his fingertips, pulling its square weight into his palm. Tempted for a moment to drink straight from its mouth, he chose prudence instead, beckoning the brass bar cart away from the wall with a halfhearted twitch of his hand.

He poured in silence, thinking. This was more than he'd bargained for, by a long shot, but if the answer to his question was a byproduct of Charles venting his spleen, it would be worth it.

And if there had ever been a chance of his leaving, it was gone now that a peek into his own future was on the table. Mystique had told him a lot, the vast stores of the Proserpina's database had told him more, much of it contradictory— there were a multitude of worlds, Abed had told him, a dozen permutations of himself with no two alike. But here, in his own world, presented with the chance to find out about what actually became of him— well, leaving was simply out of the question.

His mind brushed briefly against the idea that Charles had known that was the likely outcome, then eeled away just as fast. Their old partnership had, in time, soured into morbid fascination— and Erik might be masochistic enough to prolong the interaction, but Charles was as straightforward in his hate as he'd once been in love. He wanted Erik gone, and would do whatever it took to make it happen.

Which made Erik all the more curious why Charles didn't simply enter his mind and force him to leave.

"Go on, then," he said at last, gesturing with his glass. "I'm all ears."

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