thisavrou_log | (no subject)

He knows there are people in the mansion who aren't pleased with him at the moment, for any number of reasons, and that's precisely why he's reverted to old habits and has been spending more time in his room and less time in the rest of the house. He's not going to apologize for any of it, or change his mind about having done it. So why give anyone a chance to try and get him to do so?

Except that remaining hidden in his room means that, well, he's hidden in his room. And that he's letting someone else's displeasure dictate what he does. Which is why, a couple of weeks after the slaver incident, he begins to venture out again, into the usual parts of the house, most often the kitchen, the day room, and whatever passes as a library. He's going to live his life according to his principles and desires, and that means no more hiding in his room.

Those who are paying attention may have noticed that he hasn't said a thing about Peter leaving, but those with telepathic ability can tell that it's not because he doesn't care that it happened. It's because he doesn't know how to process anything other than anger.

[ Raven comes to the house - the mansion, really, and she just laughs because Charles would never not be Charles - because she has nowhere else to go. This is, apparently, where everyone lives and where everyone has settled down and she's not entirely sure how happy she is with the idea of it. She's still used to being on her own and even the mansion at home isn't exactly comfortable for her. It's not her childhood home and there are no shrines, but... It's finding comfort again.

She has a room, though, thanks to Charles, and she spends the first few days of her arrival there trying to settle and make herself comfortable with it. She finds something for her to put her name on the door and she spends most of her time arranging things how she likes. It's barren and empty and it's not homey at all, but -- it's fine. She's not used to having a home anyway.

Once she's settled, as comfortable as she can manage, she starts venturing out and actually exploring. She doesn't go blue all the time, not just yet, not until she's sure she's comfortable, but when she's a little more settled she lets herself shift into her natural form, stretching out limbs she hasn't used in days.

It's not exactly working, and she's on edge with regards to the people she knows and doesn't know, but she's trying. She's doing her best and what more could people ask for? ]

[He's not a telepath, so he doesn't notice when there's suddenly another mind around the house. He's been lying low recently, so he doesn't happen to be around when she moves in, either. It's not until they both happen to be out and about at the same time that he sees someone familiar also wandering through the house.

Or at least who he hopes is someone familiar.]

Raven?

[He looks much the same as he did when she saw him in Charles' house in the company of Apocalypse. He's dealing with a few things right now.]

[ She's settled in, at least a little, before the inevitable happens. Erik is there and he looks almost the same as she remembers him - but that doesn't mean very much when he barely aged over ten years. When she turns to face him, though, there's no anger or doubt on her features; just a gentle, almost-there smile, twitching up on the corner of her lips. ]

Erik. I was wondering when you'd find me.

[ Raven moves to lean against a wall, just watching him for a moment. ]

[He's been surprised a few times recently by the reactions to his presence here. Kurt had invited him to stay here almost in the same moment he had arrived. Jean had...well, at least seemed not to react as poorly to his arrival as others had.

Other reactions had been closer to what he expected. Peter had seemed almost personally offended by what had happened in D.C. But he doesn't want to think about Peter right now. Which at least seems to be a similar opinion of others in the house.

He hadn't known what kind of reaction to expect from Raven if she arrived here, but it hadn't been this one. They hadn't seen each other in ten years, for one thing, and hadn't parted on the best of terms. What could have caused a response like this one?]

I hadn't expected to see you here.

[ Raven isn't entirely sure what Erik does and does not remember, and she's not about to start prodding him for details just in case she makes a mistake. She knows what it's like to press Erik too far and ask too much from him and it results in him breaking apart a little, losing himself to the suffering that rests in his heart and the pain that's always present no matter how far they come in time.

She has no idea what he might have imagined, seeing her here, but she crosses her arms and watches him all the same. It would be easier, she thinks, if she knew what sort of man she was looking at - the one who wanted to murder her in D.C.? The one who shot her in Paris? Or the one that had come back to her in Cairo?

There's definitely a fear, a concern, and maybe that's why she doesn't ask. She doesn't want to put it into words. Instead she just watches, and waits, and listens for all the unspoken things. ]

I hadn't expected to be here.

[He knows there are plenty of things that he has done that, while he may not be particularly sorry for them, he did allow to go too far, and there's no knowing how much farther they would have gone if someone hadn't stopped him. When it comes to Raven though, it's different. He hadn't exactly thought those actions through, and he really would have been sorry if his plans had gone like he had intended.

She's the one who had crept into his thoughts during those ten long years in the Pentagon, and sometimes after that too, in Poland, though less frequently after he'd had a wife and daughter. Out of the people he had never expected to see again, Raven was the one whose reaction he regrets most. As thrilling as he had once found it to hear her repeat his words, all that had happened in D.C. was a path of destruction and a different sort of loss of freedom. He still hadn't gotten to live the life he wanted. He suspects that none of them had.

He knows what he is. It's too late for him. But he had never intended to hurt Charles, or turn Raven into a different version of him. She shouldn't be burdened with that.

Peter was right to be upset. He ruins things, just by coming into contact with them.]

I'm glad you're here.

[Not for her sake. He doesn't think anyone wants to be here. For the sake of those who care about her.]

[There have been many things keeping him busy over the last few weeks. Distant, upset, emotional in every way he shouldn't be. At first, it had been simply a question of necessity: the kids get themselves into trouble, and his primary concern becomes their well-being. One ends up in a coma for a week, and it means he's rarely home. It's only afterward that it turns into a strange sort of dance, walking (or rolling, as it were) on eggshells when the whole house seems to be holding together by a very tense, fraying thread.

He doesn't push, and he isn't asked. And it stays this way for days, the quiet in the house becoming near as oppressive as the fear that had preceeded it.

But even in a house that large, it's not as easy to hide as one might think. And it's in the kitchens that Charles finally, and maybe a little accidentally, finds Erik. He thinks, hovering in the doorframe, to turn back around and leave him be: he's processing. Charles doesn't need to pry very hard to understand the level of upset just beneath the surface.

However, he also knows that the only thing that had kept him sane in loss after loss after loss--in the wake of learning to use new muscles to account for those he no longer had access to, in the wake of still shaking in the middle of the night to recollections of feeling Shaw die, and in the wake of every student and teacher, everyone he cared for, leaving and dying themselves--had been the fact that he wasn't alone.

He still felt it some days. Many of them. But all those years ago, if it hadn't been for Hank...well. He wouldn't be here to talk at all, much less worry about accidentally saying the wrong thing.]

How are you feeling?

[It's careful, and not specific. It could mean anything. He knows, deep down, what's really on Erik's mind, and what he's wrestling with in his own. But he can't force his way through either.]

Edited 2017-06-05 02:29 (UTC)

['How are you feeling?' It's four simple words, but there's no simple answer. He's been trying to figure that out for days now, and being asked his feelings on a specific thing wouldn't make it the question any easier to answer.

Angry is the obvious answer, but this time he's got nothing to direct his anger at. So it's just there, with nowhere to go and nothing to diffuse it.

But he's not even sure what he's angry about, in this case. That he'd learned the truth about Peter so soon before Peter had disappeared? That he hadn't known it sooner? That Peter had disappeared in the first place?

Or that he'd even known at all, if it was going to end like this?

So there's only one thing he can say for sure when Charles asks him how he's feeling.]

I don't know.

[Charles continues to frown, a somber thing that understands far too much. He, in contrast to Erik's roiling anger, isn't much of anything anymore other than tired and saddened with a growing disillusionment to match. It's not enough to quite give up hope, not enough to get him to fully change his mind on how they--as a group entity, if one actually does exist--should respond to these outrageous and distressing situations. But it is enough to question.

He moves from the doorway to the end of the kitchen table, ignoring putting on a show when he's here for Erik, not real use of the room, and continues to regard him with the same morose expression that's not quite conciliatory.]

I'm not going to say you should talk about it, though...you should, even if it's not with me. [He did just say it anyway but that isn't the point.] But I am sorry, Erik.

[He won't qualify that with what. Not when it's still potentially so volatile. Not when he'd screwed this up the last time. He's certain Erik knows. Whatever loss he wants to recognize in that is on him. Both, if he wants it, there's certainly no lacking for pain here or back home.]

Edited 2017-06-06 03:48 (UTC)

It won't change anything. [It happened, all of it, and there's nothing anyone can do about it anymore. Talking about it won't make things suddenly any different. It's better just to put it behind him and get on with his life.

He doesn't know how much Charles knows, either, and there's no way to know that without asking. Which then brings up more conversations he doesn't want to have, that won't make a difference.

He still hasn't looked directly at Charles, instead directing his attention to the sandwich he's currently assembling.]

No, it won't.

[He's not going to pretend that there's anything that brings them back. The world, for all of its wonders and intricacies, hasn't evolved quite that far. He knows plenty, either afraid to address it or unsure of how, but that doesn't change how it's a constant consideration.

Pain always is.

He continues to keep his eyes on Erik, even if it isn't a gesture given in kind.]

But you're still here. Surely that counts for something?

Wanda managed for about a week and a half because she had to. Everything was such a mess that she simply couldn't afford to collapse in the wake of Peter's disappearance. There were people to rescue from their own bad decisions and then everything was such a mess that not keeping it together was not an option.

But eventually, the external stressors lessen and there's nothing left to keep her from emotionally crashing hard.

Wanda doesn't leave her room much for a week, and when she does venture into the kitchen it's at off times. She's not sure what to do with another round of 'sorry's and pity. She doubts she'd get that from Erik (not if that simmering anger is anything to go by) and she really is hungry, so Wanda decides against retreating to her room.

She's not really sure what to say (or if she should say anything at all) but that decision is quickly taken from her. Erik's standing in front of the cabinet with the frying pan.

"Excuse me." Her voice is a little hoarse from disuse. Clearly she's not handling this well either.

[Did he just hear that right? Did Charles Xavier admit that there's something that can't be solved by talking?

Not that he has any more of an idea of what would help here. Further reason not to waste too much time with talking about it.]

Does it? If there's somewhere I'd rather be?

[Talking won't resurrect the dead, no. He's not that naive. But he does absolutely still subscribe to the thought that this silence is only delaying grief and the coping that comes after. It's only that stating as much will--he assumes--be taken as accusatory when it's anything but.

There have been idiotic choices made in the last few weeks. He will be, and likely has been, the first to say as much. He's not entirely absolved on that front either. But those choices, at least those that have settled unspoken in the air between then, are only informed by this pain that hasn't been dealt with, and pain that only continues to mount and grow.]

Perhaps that would be better stated as "still breathing." [The clipped laugh that follows is soft, and an awkward fill of space more than it is amused.] I think we would all rather be somewhere else, my friend.

[Replicated mansion or no. It isn't the same. This too is simply a delay in dealing, isn't it?]

[ It would be easy to start an argument with Erik, Raven thinks, to drag up the past and ignore the brighter future they were all working towards, to dig in deep with the brunt of her emotions and drag him out of it - as Charles had said they weren't talking properly, that Erik was being his usual self and as she was the one always capable of pulling words from him when he was quiet, angry and voiceless. She had been the one to help reach him in Cairo, even if she's sure it was all of them being at risk that finally got through to him in the end.

She's glad, at least, that Erik isn't the telepath in their little group. She's better at protecting her thoughts, at keeping them off her face, but she still watches him with a touch of uncertainty, not sure what to say or what she should expect from him. All it does is put her on edge and Erik is trained and experienced enough to be able to pick up on it. She just wishes, ironically, that she knew what he was thinking, something to help her with the balance of it all in her mind.

Breathing out, something like a sigh, Raven shakes her head. ]

You're the first person to say that to me.

[ Others have been shocked, or given her condolences, but Erik is glad. It's almost funny. ]

How long have you been here, Erik?

[Still breathing. As opposed to all of those who aren't. Because of their connection to him. Those he failed to save. First his mother, shot before he could summon his powers at will. Then the young mutants, who suffered and died while he was locked away and couldn't save them. Magda and Nina, who were only in that place because of him, who would still be alive today if only he hadn't reacted without thinking. He'd thought that he could prevent it if he went without trouble. If only Nina had understood the situation...

Maybe they wouldn't have been collateral damage.]

Sometimes it's hard to tell what that counts for.

"Oh." He turns when he hears he speak. He hadn't heard her come in, and hadn't known she was there until she said something. Not just because she didn't make much noise, but because he's preoccupied with other things as well. "Of course."

He moves out of the way, to a different section of the counter, where he sets down his mug of space-coffee. "You're doing better? After...the mess from last month?"

If they talk about that, then they don't have to talk about what neither of them wants to talk about.

When have I ever done what anyone else did? [They'd worked together once, the whole group of them, briefly, until Erik had brought that crashing down. He hasn't forgotten what it was like to be part of that, but on the other hand, he doesn't agree with Charles that if they just keep their heads down, things will be fine. He'd been a target before, for no reason other than being born to the wrong people, and no amount of supplication of staying out of it had changed anything.

So for now, the memories of being part of a group will have to do. Even if that means that he and Raven are at odds now too. He did mean what he said though. He's not going to start lying to her now.]

A little over three months.

[Sometimes it feels like more than that. Sometimes it feels like less. The days are mostly the same here, and bleed into one another.]

Never. [ Which, maybe, is part of the problem. As wonderful as Erik's unpredictability is... Sometimes it's too much. Isn't that why he and Raven ended up splitting, in the end? She wanted to take her own path, to wander somewhere else, to grow stronger and better and take control of her world, and it was different to the mass of things that Erik had planned. They came to a point where it was hard to understand one another, with the pain of the death of their friends hanging heavy on their shoulders, and it was impossible to reunite their ideals.

Erik has been here longer than she had imagined, though, and it gives her something to think about. She doesn't think, for a moment, that the time will have softened him or calmed the edges of his personality, but it might have given him some time to think. Sometimes Erik needs that or he loses himself completely to his dreams and hopes for a world that's not entirely ready to listen. ]

And how are you?

[ She wonders how many people have asked him that. ]

[He could be insulted by that, but if anyone has the right to say it, it's Raven. He said it first himself, anyway. He's not sure what, if anything, to do with the information now that it's out there, or if anything can be done. He is what Shaw made him, what he has been since he bent the gate separating him from his parents.

It's too late now to start being anything but what he is.

It's at least not the first time he's heard that question, even if no one except Charles asked it until Peter disappeared.]

Life here really isn't that much different from life at home.

[If someone was going to bring him here against his will, the least they could have done was provide some incentive for it.]

At least not in the ways that count.

Edited 2017-06-11 03:11 (UTC)

It counts for plenty, Erik. [But he's finding that increasingly difficult to explain when every attempt is either downplayed or somehow turns antagonistic when that's the farthest from his actual intentions.] I've never once taken you for a man willing to give up.

I didn't say I'm giving up. [After all, he is still here, in whatever form of 'here' is applied to the situation. He's still here, and he hasn't tried it take it out on anyone who had nothing to do with it.]

It's just that this place isn't turning out to be very different from home.

I don't know, it seems plenty different to me. [Alternate timelines? Disappearances that don't stay permanent? The fact that Erik is here and staying?] Hardship is hardship. That's life, of course that doesn't change. We carry that with us, Erik. We all do and we always will.

But you can change what you do with it. What it makes you. You don't have to resign yourself to it.

[His hands faintly tremble around the ceramic pot he's holding, lips moving a mile a minute as he mutters to himself, iridescent eyes flicking between the miniature alien plant and his feet.

It shouldn't be unexpected that Kurt finds comfort in seeing Raven walk around in her natural form. He has grown used to encountering her throughout the day, regardless of his devotion to his overflowing schedule. Ever since their arrival on Thisavrou, he's grown to relish having his own room and being able to fill it with things that bring him happiness.

He's hoping that's what Raven will get from this exotic little shrub to decorate her space with.

Continuing down the hall, Kurt pauses when he steps past a room, backpedals and examines the name written on the surface of the door, the edges of his lips curling into a smile. That certainly makes things a bit easier in the case of hunting her down to present his housewarming gift.

After tucking the item into the crook of his arm, he knocks on the door and waits as patiently as he can manage, trying not to squirm too much. There's so much that he wants to tell her and yet, he won't be able to reveal everything all in one day.

This is a decent place to start, though.]

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Erik | ota

raven | ota

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[backdt to last weekish]

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backdated to before fogpocalypse

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mom /holds chest