oo8. sort of open.

[forgodssake]

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).

Comments

[forgodssake]

"Aren't you the one who snips at me for talking about other people. To call off attention."

And they were done with Charles, remember? says a raise of his eyebrows. Detentions for everyone. It's not like that doesn't sting -- it says more about what Snape thinks than 'reckless arsehole' manages to imply -- but he can lick his wounds on his own time, more interesting in that sharp jerk of movement that sacrifices cigarette against metal.

Back up to the wizard's sharp profile. "I haven't quit everything."

[darkart]

"I'm not someone's patient, and I'm not in danger of accidentally forcing half the ship's population to run into walls against their will," Severus snaps back immediately, gaze hard as his previous resolution to dial it back evaporates. "I don't mess up, because I can't, or I will be in prison. Even here," and something seems to grind to a painful point inside him, desperate to claw its way out and hurt something, anything, "despite the fact that I've dragged this stupid inbred cunt from death twice I have to deal with him and every other sludge-brained Neanderthal he's wanked off up my arse the second I blink in someone else's presence."

His voice does-- an interesting thing, during that rant, slipping white-knuckled into the echo of an accent he doesn't actually use, starting at an escalation and finishing like a slammed door somewhere quieter, temper finally trapped back down.

"Maybe you could just leave."

[forgodssake]

This first part is not the worst thing anyone's ever flung at Charles, and it's over in a blink. There are arguments, about what it is to be a patient, what Severus is to him besides, about the fact that look, you're doing it again!!, but Charles just.

Listens, to words, and changes in tone, slants of accent, the creaking break of temper against leash before the quiet sets back in, as it would. He seems like he might say something, but dismissal is quick to snake in, and shoulders slacken slight under worn, brown leather.

He remembers something Snape said to him once. It doesn't really feel like a long time ago, so much as something that happened to some other version of himself, but not really.

He'd said, I don't feel so much, anymore.

"I know," is quite truthfully well-aware, fractionally apologetic as Charles persists anyway, as if leaving were in its own way more difficult. "But I want to ask you what's to this, now."

[darkart]

It's a lie. Of course. Not one Severus told willingly-- he thinks he doesn't feel so much because, most of the time, he doesn't. What he does feel is warped and uneven, emotions filtering in improperly and over-saturated when they manage to connect. He doesn't know what he's doing.

"So you can have more dirt on me?" like a guttered-out candle flame, he sounds flat again. Even more tired than before.

"The first thing that happened to me when I stepped out of the medbay for the first time was Black breaking half the bones in my face." Dully. Because he doesn't remember if he mentioned that to Charles before or if it's just something to be assumed; being hit is so ordinary to Severus that he forgets when it should be remarkable. "I should have killed him. I would have. I'd still be in the brig, or airlocked. I hesitated because he looks like his dead brother and for that one second, that one second I could have just done it, I choked."

The anger in him over the Marauders is a never-ending fire. The fact that Sirius has punctuated his entire experience here feels like acid in him, eating away at everything, all the time. He can't ever escape them and he wants so badly to, he wants them to hurt, and suffer, and it's not a desire he knows how to be rational about. His hate suffocates him.

[forgodssake]

This first part twinges bad enough that tension locks down taut along his jaw and ices over his regard. It hurts, stupidly, but a part of him has enough sense to put pressure on minor wound and stay quiet. Cornered dogs bite. People who are bad at this say sharp things. Charles knows that to be true. It's always easier to handle when he can hear their thoughts.

But Severus presses on and Charles stands still and quiet, while machinery hums and churns clothing, spin cycle activated before the change over to drying can take place.

"I remember," he says, a cautious approach, as if letting his presence become noticeable risks distraction and more sniping, but hell, he's not psychic (in this particular room), and can only respond with which feels honest to respond, "trying to tell Erik that killing wouldn't bring him peace. He wasn't having any of it, probably because I'd never hated anyone like that before. I couldn't know what I was talking about. It was a long time ago."

He didn't kill Erik, though. Just let him rot in jail. "Was his brother a--?" Friend, he wants to say. "--better man?"

[darkart]

Nothing but good can come of Sirius Black's death. All he does is fuck up and get away with it because he's charming; even wasting away in Azkaban, he finds a way to wriggle out of true culpability. Severus feels stupid and he hates it-- time and time again he's dragged that worthless bastard from death's clutches here, and look where he's gotten because of it. He meant it when he said never again.

Severus doesn't want to kill anymore. He's aware of his soul. But Merlin, certain people would be worth it.

"Yes." Blunt, pointed. The weight of it suggests friend may have gotten the same answer. "He stayed with his family. He tried. I never knew it but he-- defected." The unspoken like I did is palpable. Both of their covers were too good for the other to ever know at the time. "No one ever knew how he died. He'd just vanished. I learned here, from Harry Potter. He'd defied the Dark Lord and was killed. Horribly. Black - Sirius - is lauded as this self-sacrificing hero, leaving his 'awful' family. But it's easy to leave what you don't like."

Much harder to step away from what's kind to you because you know it's wrong. What did Black sacrifice? He left a wealthy family who didn't like him to live with a wealthy family who did like him. Regulus betrayed parents who loved him. (Severus betrayed his friends.)

[forgodssake]

It makes more sense, details etched into the broadstrokes understanding Charles has. Sirius Black, and the actions he takes to separate himself from his family. Where Severus fits into that and the ramifications beyond schoolyard bullying. He remembers trying to deal with Tyke, the sheer brick wall of her disregard he had to contend with, and can see where Black's presence must cast a shadow in light of context. Thought is telegraphed only as a pause.

Maybe Charles shouldn't say anything. But he doesn't want to just stand there and listen and say nothing, like he really is ~gathering dirt~. "The thing with this place is that our stories are awfully secondary," he tries, focus ducking between them, hands folding. "For the most part, we are defined solely by our actions. You and I both know Edgeworth's a tosspot, that Tyke isn't fair and just like she thinks she is, like she ought to be.

"But plenty of people wouldn't take his word as gospel just because those back in your world would. You've come too far here for any of that. You should know you'd be fought for."

A beat, a hesitation, ultimately falling silent rather than relating further personal experience. Maybe another time.

"I'm sorry, about news of your friend. I didn't know."

[darkart]

Severus is being horrible right now, but Charles could have left. Charles still could leave. It's not as if the wizard is ever going to apologize, it's not as if the other man is getting anything from this.

He shakes his head, sharp. Angry. Nobody knew about Regulus, it's not something that needs to be commented on. Does Sirius even know? He doubts it.

"Why do you phrase it 'should know', like it's something else I've done incorrectly?"

His tone makes it sound rhetorical. The laundry machine dings, stills. Severus stares at it for a moment, then looks at Charles. His eyes are blank, his expression tailored slightly angry, unnerving without the actual heat behind it.

"No one ever has. I've never needed it."

(He did need it. When he was a child. It's too late now; the chances of him ever accepting, to say nothing of trusting, are all but long dead.)

[forgodssake]

Charles has been frequently horrible to people in the past couple of months. During their first argument, Severus had showed Charles very little mercy in return, but dug into other ways to help him, written in detailed report, in carefully tailored potions, in taking notice from his distance, in ways Charles hasn't experienced before. Charles is unsure he can help Severus in the same way, not about Black, whose existence will be a relentless burden.

He can only help in his way. They're very different men.

But he raises an eyebrow at this initial point, and then a flicker of something else at this second -- exasperation, another small injury accumulated. Had he been more patient, before? Or had he just felt like he could argue back, and trust himself to do so? It feels like a far away time to be.

"I phrased it that way because I'm bossy, nothing more."

Charles pushes off his lean, tapping out. He used to tell better, before, when it was a good time to let up off on Severus when it came to heart to hearts, and currently he's unsure if he should have done that five minutes ago, or if he should continue. Fortunately, at least he's always felt a little clumsy, without innate knowledge of thought behind words.

But he doesn't want another argument, not a real one, not right now, and he can feel his own patience shortening. So. "My money's on you're wrong, that if no one has, no one will -- but it'd be nice if we never have to find out. Your clothes're done."

He'll go.

[darkart]

This is a really, phenomenally stupid thing to even be arguing about. It's the sort of thing a normal person might need to vent and cry about or get out of their system but Severus is just mad at himself about it, and mad at Charles for noticing. Like a complete lunatic. Or like someone who's never learned how to properly deal with his emotions. Either one.

Charles doesn't volunteer himself as someone who would stick up for him and that's-- interesting, because a.) it feeds into the notion that no one would anyway not even the person arguing with him about it and b.) Severus wouldn't believe him if he said so. The impossible conflict doesn't occur to him; everything is happening like he expects (because he's forcing it to).

Severus doesn't say anything. Just looks at him.

He should go.

[forgodssake]

It is, of course, that highly predictable paradox that Charles is avoiding tangling with -- keeping it abstract instead of giving Severus something tangible to argue. If he doesn't put himself out there, he doesn't have to be told that he's unreliable, without ethic, that past efforts to stand up for Severus didn't happen, that he's too much of someone's patient to function also as their friend.

That it wouldn't be good enough. Charles looks back, just as flatly, before he goes to leave, hands folded neutral behind him.