choosing the impossible

[morethanhuman]

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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[hopeagain]

"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."

[morethanhuman]

"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.

[hopeagain]

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."

[morethanhuman]

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.

[hopeagain]

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."

[morethanhuman]

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."

[hopeagain]

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.

[morethanhuman]

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."