charles xavier. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
forgodssake) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ataraxionlogs2014-09-09 07:52 pm
forgodssake) wrote in ataraxionlogs2014-09-09 07:52 pm
oo8. sort of open.
CHARACTERS: Charles Xavier and Nuala; Emma Swan; Captain Hook (Killian Jones); Severus Snape; Ilde Knox; Cassandra Anderson; Alex Summers; William Tsang; Claire Bennet; Nuala; Erik Lehnsherr; the Winter Soldier; others as they happen.
LOCATION: Medical bay; science department; level 5, holodeck, passenger quarters; media library; laundry facilities; oxygen gardens; level 14; others as they happen.
WARNINGS: Descriptions of body horror.
SUMMARY: Jump cycle thirty-five happens, and Charles continues to exist. Basically.
NOTES: Monthly catch all! This is only partially open because I'm not providing a fixed narrative thing to reply to. Hence, please let me know if you'd like to do anything, and I'll be happy to set up a thread (unless you feel ambitious).
LOCATION: Medical bay; science department; level 5, holodeck, passenger quarters; media library; laundry facilities; oxygen gardens; level 14; others as they happen.
WARNINGS: Descriptions of body horror.
SUMMARY: Jump cycle thirty-five happens, and Charles continues to exist. Basically.
NOTES: Monthly catch all! This is only partially open because I'm not providing a fixed narrative thing to reply to. Hence, please let me know if you'd like to do anything, and I'll be happy to set up a thread (unless you feel ambitious).
no subject
her mind flickers over the memory of charles, the first jump he'd returned from home. there is no judgment there, and she doesn't linger on the thought. neither one of them is using the alcohol as an escape right now.
she hums, quietly, thoughfully. ] I'm not sure I'd choose to go back, if the choice was offered to me.
[ she's been wondering about that. the tranquility is not the kindest environment, far from it, but it's no less unkind than mega city one, just in different ways. in mega city one, she'd wanted to make a difference by becoming a judge, but she knows ( thinks she knows ) that she failed her final assessment.
she can make a lot more of a difference here, just by offering the self-defense lessons, giving people something to do, looking after those she cares about- and there are more of those here than there were in mega city one.
( she hadn't been lonely, exactly- but there are more people here that she would call her friends. ) ]
no subject
Of some kind. ]
You won't be offered that choice, [ he says, but it comes across as musing, because hey, anything can happen. But what he projects is this; ] You will be taken back without warning and remember nothing of this place. Nothing of what you've learned or seen.
Or, [ he says, tipping his glass in gesture ] you'll remain long enough until we find a way to be free of this place, and settle somewhere else. Somewhere new.
[ This is offered to her as hope; he's not sure, meanwhile, what he wants. ]
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[ she has no illusion about how this place functions, about people getting a choice in coming or going. it isn't about that so much as it is about knowing for herself what she would want, if such a choice existed.
does she want to stay here? does she want to go home?
erik tells her that mega city one is better than the tranquility because people are free, but he hasn't seen, he doesn't know what it's like to live in a mega block, the hopelessness people feel.
people have more hope here, too.
maybe that means she should be wanting to go back to mega city one; it's where she belongs and where her parents died, it's where she can make the biggest difference if she manages to make one at all. ]
no subject
Before-- you know, [ when he was younger ] I wanted nothing more than to go home. I had things to do. We were still building our school, and it felt as though the whole world was in a balance, and any action could tip it one way or another.
And then I had to come to terms with the idea I'd never go back. It was easier to swallow, with Raven here. And Erik. And you, [ he adds. ] Others, from here specifically. Friends.
[ More names are easily plucked from his mind. Severus Snape. Emma Swan. Nuala. ]
I hadn't a lot of those, actually, back home.
[ He takes another sip of coarse liquor, slightly deeper, his drink reduced to a fine disc of amber settled at the bottom of his glass. ]
Now, it's just-- I still sort of feel it. Like I have a duty to a world I left behind, but if I did go back, I'd--
[ Be back to square one. As bad as he'd been when he first arrived. Worse, because he'd been comfortable. ]
So I don't know. I wouldn't want you to go home either.
no subject
in a way, it's idle musing because the choice is not hers to begin with. she's always figured that there is no sense in brooding about matters that she cannot change to begin with. change that which you can, and do not worry about that which you cannot, because it takes up too much energy that could be spent on the things you can change.
maybe she should take her own advice- and yet, here she is. ]
I'd miss you. [ him, erik- raven, even if she isn't as close to her as to charles. alex.
she misses takeshi, and she misses roy in a way that's a low ache, even if it's gotten easier with him. ] Not if I left, but if you did. [ because there is no memory, is there, if they're the one to go.
she remembers the soldier challenging her that it wouldn't matter if she helps, now, because he'll forget anyway. she remembers, too, that he'd accepted her answer, in the end: that it will have mattered for as long as they're here, even if they don't remember it after.
it's better to make the most of the time they have, isn't it, even not knowing when and how it'll end. ]
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It's just that Charles, before, wasn't sure fighting it was the way to be free. He suppose he believes the same now. But beyond all that-- ]
Who was Roy?
[ Scotch sip. ]
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instead of answering with words, she thinks about how she remembers roy: his bitterness and depression, the suicide attempt and how much he'd hated himself and the fact that he couldn't use his legs, the self-loathing when he'd been naked and she'd helped him out of the pod-
but also the stories he'd told her, that he'd given his wheelchair to bran, the push-and-pull of wanting to get better, of caring inside of him, the time after the colony when she'd needed to feel something real and he'd pulled her onto his hospital bed and held her and let her put her finger to his pulsepoint and remember that they're alive, not ghosts.
she never put a label on what she'd felt for roy. ]
no subject
he remembers that helplessness, and he remembers hating it. Of burdening Hank with caring for him, carrying him, of being a hovering and helpless presence when the pain and loss of control and sorrow swept all coherency out of Charles, undoing him from a lifetime of being that prim and proper academic in perfect control of all aspects of his existence, to sobbing mess. Normally, it's the sort of mental associations he would be able to control, but he can't help it, caught off-guard, his telepathy some unwieldy thing he's only now trying to reacquaint himself with.
The flood is strong and quick before he manages to wrangle it water tight, just barely. This last memory on offer is a raft. The tiny pulse she remembers, hummingbird feathers under her fingertips, the safety and love -- yes, love, his assigns it this label even when she doesn't -- strong enough to cling to. It strengthens between their combined efforts, becomes clear.
And permits him to shove away his own memories, although not quick enough that chagrin isn't swift to set in. His hand goes out to take up scotch and top himself off, more for want of a physical distraction than anything else. ]
no subject
her own memories cease, drying down to a trickle in comparison to the flood he is wrangling, managing, and instead, she considers the raft-- or rather, the label he's applied to it that she never did.
love.
she might have been in love with roy walker. he's gone now, though, and she hopes that wherever he is, he's at least still alive and getting help.
out loud, what she says is: ] I'm sorry.
[ she knows enough about charles' past that she should have anticipated the effect the parallels between charles and roy might have. ]
no subject
[ Firmly. ]
No, I'm sorry. [ There is an element of being disgusted with himself, but it's a trace of a feeling; more contrite. He can wallow in self-pity later, but not now. ] Thank you for sharing that, Cassandra. I'm sorry you lost him.
[ And he does mean it, propensity for selfishness aside, kisses aside. The lingering ache of flashback memories remains, but it's ignored, offering out scotch to top up her glass, if she desires. ]
But it was good to have, wasn't it? While you could. Something you mightn't have had, if not for this place.
[ This terrible place. ]
no subject
That was almost a year ago, now. [ is not meant to detract from the sentiment, but an acknowledgement that she's moved on, that it hurts less than it did in the beginning to miss him, even if she does still miss him.
( it was hardest the times she gave ned self defense lessons, because he looks so much like roy. )
taking another slow sip of her now-full-again glass. ] It was good. I wouldn't take any of it back. [ even if she's sorry she had to lose him.
it mattered, for as long as it lasted. nothing is permanent, is it? that's not just this place, the same is true in mega city one.
( there's crime, there, and cancer. ) ]
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His mouth twists, almost mirth. ]
A year is nothing. [ Sets down the bottle. ] Although-- I suppose that's less true, when you're here. Time does seem to just stretch.
[ He hesitates, then gestures a little with his glass. ]
The next jump will be my tenth.
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It's longer than the time I knew him for. [ time does stretch, seemingly, and- perhaps it's because of the danger and frequent trauma. it's the kind of thing that fuses people together closely and quickly, if they go through it together.
there's another nod. and my 17th is thought and not verbalised, a conscious choice that makes absolutely no difference when she's talking to charles.
she picks up an earlier line of thinking, again: ] Maybe there is no point in worrying about it, if we can't change it.
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[ Charles brings up charged glass, feeling its weight, the amount he's permitted himself. There's a looked tossed at her -- he doesn't have to explain. His thoughts on his past between time-warp leap frogging has been laid bare to her multiple times before, including in this same conversation.
He stopped thinking there was a point too. ]
I think it's less about worry and more about holding onto hope. Daring to.
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there is a difference about accepting that which cannot be changed, and losing hope, thinking that there is no longer a point to any of it, that there is nothing at all that they can change.
anderson still believes that she can make a difference.
( she'd like to think that she's made a difference in his, too, at least while they're both here. ) ]
Hope is difficult for a lot of people.
[ maybe because the more hopes you have, the easier it is to be disappointed when they don't come true. she's seen it in mega city one whwere so many people, families have no hope at all and turn to drugs to numb themselves from everything.
anderson has always hoped. ]
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Before that assumption can be made-- ]
Why is that?
Not the-- I mean. How do you hold onto it.
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I don't know.
[ maybe it's just who she is. maybe she is wired that way. ] I just know that if I stop, it won't help anyone. [ and she wants to help, to make a difference.
not just for herself, but for others. ]