[drabble] après moi, le déluge;
remember the time vee had to watch 30 minutes of training videos for her new receptionist job tomorrow but instead spent two hours responding to lj comments and writing really terrible and angsty first class drabbles? yeah....this is that time. :|
title: après moi, le déluge
rating: G
word count: 765
characters: charles, alex, hank, sean, implied charles/erik but so little of it that if you blink, you'll probably miss it
summary: everyone learns to cope, to move on, to live without the ones they love.
note: so much angst, my creys. this happened listening to the new bon iver album, SO CLEARLY IT'S THEIR FAULT AND NOT MINE.
-
charles comes home and it doesn't exactly feel like home anymore. it's cold. it's empty. devoid of love. so he fills it with students, kids bursting with talent, budding bright eyes full of wonder, kids who need to be hidden from the world because the world is scared of them, and charles has learned that the world can get dangerous when scared. hank has a great time organizing classes and coming up with lectures -- charles thinks he was made for this teaching thing -- and sean and alex are having too much fun playfully picking on the new kids, as teenage boys are wont to do. and charles watches all this with a half-smile on his face, because yes, he's happy, but not as happy as he could be. there's this tug inside of him that tells him he can't be complacent with how life has turned out for him, because there could've been so much more. so much. this -- this half of a family. charles realizes why this house has suddenly grown a distant demeanor, and that is because it's moved on without him, left him behind to ponder what went wrong.
it's moved on without all of them. he catches hank staring out at the window on rainy days sometimes, distractedly, as if raven would somehow materialize out of the mist and take him into her arms, whispering, it's okay, it's okay, i'm here. and he knows alex still thinks about darwin, how their close and burgeoning friendship was cut short by angel's betrayal, and he sees in the boy's eyes all this misplaced rage because he couldn't do anything but watch his friend deterioate before his eyes. sean -- sean acts as detached as always, but charles can see that he misses it too, what everything used to be. is it because the irish boy's never had a family before this? now that he thinks about it, none of them had, really.
it's different. everything's different.
the worst part is, he can't even reach erik anymore. just let me feel you, feel your presence in the world. i just want to go to sleep at night knowing you're there, somewhere. but every night he stretches his mind as far as he can, trying to touch upon that familiar aura, trying to find, trying, falls alseep trying. please, erik, let me in. i just want to know you're there.
the new students are so innocent. they don't even know about the war that nearly occured a month ago, the almost-war that ripped them apart. their blissfully ignorant faces when they catch hank lost in thought, and ask him what's wrong, and he responds "nothing" with an incomprehensible pain clearly etched on his face. "best to leave hank alone now, yes? perhaps we should break for lunch," charles suggests, and when everyone leaves, he pats hank lightly on the hand, and the blue beast of a boy can't even look his professor in the eyes. it's enough that hank's felt alone for the entirety of his life, but to have someone stripped away from him after he's finally found a kindred soul? "if you want to talk, you can always come to me," charles reassures him, and hank gives a vague nod.
times passes slowly. each new month is harder yet easier at the same time; wounds heal but scars still sting, palpably so. it's not so much that they've gotten over it, more like they've learned how to live with the loss and the memory, more like they're going through the motions and don't know how to stop. hanks plans lessons. alex has started running, especially in the mornings, but he still hasn't completely shaken the loner habits from his confinement days. sean likes to practice flying and badgers hank from time to time to upgrade his wings, which elicits a small smile from the scientist when he remembers how much sean disliked them in the early days. charles teaches, teaches, teaches, sometimes he thinks he's preaching what he couldn't convince erik of, sometimes he sits at the head of a classroom and sees a whole audience of magneto's staring back at him. and goddamn does he miss him, does he wish his words of love and serenity could've convinced him to stay just a bit longer.
they learn to cope. it's sad, but paths diverge and cannot be grafted back together with broken promises. they're mutants, first and foremost, and they learn to evolve without the most vital of their limbs. onwards again, through clumps of dust and glass.
title: après moi, le déluge
rating: G
word count: 765
characters: charles, alex, hank, sean, implied charles/erik but so little of it that if you blink, you'll probably miss it
summary: everyone learns to cope, to move on, to live without the ones they love.
note: so much angst, my creys. this happened listening to the new bon iver album, SO CLEARLY IT'S THEIR FAULT AND NOT MINE.
-
charles comes home and it doesn't exactly feel like home anymore. it's cold. it's empty. devoid of love. so he fills it with students, kids bursting with talent, budding bright eyes full of wonder, kids who need to be hidden from the world because the world is scared of them, and charles has learned that the world can get dangerous when scared. hank has a great time organizing classes and coming up with lectures -- charles thinks he was made for this teaching thing -- and sean and alex are having too much fun playfully picking on the new kids, as teenage boys are wont to do. and charles watches all this with a half-smile on his face, because yes, he's happy, but not as happy as he could be. there's this tug inside of him that tells him he can't be complacent with how life has turned out for him, because there could've been so much more. so much. this -- this half of a family. charles realizes why this house has suddenly grown a distant demeanor, and that is because it's moved on without him, left him behind to ponder what went wrong.
it's moved on without all of them. he catches hank staring out at the window on rainy days sometimes, distractedly, as if raven would somehow materialize out of the mist and take him into her arms, whispering, it's okay, it's okay, i'm here. and he knows alex still thinks about darwin, how their close and burgeoning friendship was cut short by angel's betrayal, and he sees in the boy's eyes all this misplaced rage because he couldn't do anything but watch his friend deterioate before his eyes. sean -- sean acts as detached as always, but charles can see that he misses it too, what everything used to be. is it because the irish boy's never had a family before this? now that he thinks about it, none of them had, really.
it's different. everything's different.
the worst part is, he can't even reach erik anymore. just let me feel you, feel your presence in the world. i just want to go to sleep at night knowing you're there, somewhere. but every night he stretches his mind as far as he can, trying to touch upon that familiar aura, trying to find, trying, falls alseep trying. please, erik, let me in. i just want to know you're there.
the new students are so innocent. they don't even know about the war that nearly occured a month ago, the almost-war that ripped them apart. their blissfully ignorant faces when they catch hank lost in thought, and ask him what's wrong, and he responds "nothing" with an incomprehensible pain clearly etched on his face. "best to leave hank alone now, yes? perhaps we should break for lunch," charles suggests, and when everyone leaves, he pats hank lightly on the hand, and the blue beast of a boy can't even look his professor in the eyes. it's enough that hank's felt alone for the entirety of his life, but to have someone stripped away from him after he's finally found a kindred soul? "if you want to talk, you can always come to me," charles reassures him, and hank gives a vague nod.
times passes slowly. each new month is harder yet easier at the same time; wounds heal but scars still sting, palpably so. it's not so much that they've gotten over it, more like they've learned how to live with the loss and the memory, more like they're going through the motions and don't know how to stop. hanks plans lessons. alex has started running, especially in the mornings, but he still hasn't completely shaken the loner habits from his confinement days. sean likes to practice flying and badgers hank from time to time to upgrade his wings, which elicits a small smile from the scientist when he remembers how much sean disliked them in the early days. charles teaches, teaches, teaches, sometimes he thinks he's preaching what he couldn't convince erik of, sometimes he sits at the head of a classroom and sees a whole audience of magneto's staring back at him. and goddamn does he miss him, does he wish his words of love and serenity could've convinced him to stay just a bit longer.
they learn to cope. it's sad, but paths diverge and cannot be grafted back together with broken promises. they're mutants, first and foremost, and they learn to evolve without the most vital of their limbs. onwards again, through clumps of dust and glass.