Magneto
The back room of Stvol's is very much like every other room in Stvol's, really. Old, a bit run down, but with a certain dignity to its ancient architecture and furniture. Erik is on his feet, dressed somewhere between formality and not in a wine-red dress shirt and black slacks. He is waiting.
The woman who enters is dark of skin and hair and eyes, and warmth seems to radiate from her Mideastern complexion, although she's wrapped in warm clothes and a red scarf drapes around her neck. There are a few barely noticeable splatters of dried blood on her shoes, and Mystique's expression is already tense for reasons that have little to do with the man she is meeting. She pulls her gloves off as she enters, tugging them free finger by finger. Her attention remains focused on her task.
Magneto turns his head to squint at her when she enters, cold eyes sweeping automatically from top to bottom. They pause on the shoes. His life has made him observant to these sorts of details. But then his gaze lifts again, and without any comment upon the state of her, he offers a mild, "Hello."
Gloves, leather, are tucked neatly into her coat pockets, and then Mystique tugs at her scarf, unwinding it carefully. Eventually, she lifts her gaze to settle it on Erik, The tension does not fade when she meets his gaze, and there is a sort of careful mental preparation, bracing, as she replies with an acknowledging, "Erik."
Not exactly relaxed himself, Erik stands painfully upright and clean cut, with hair neatly trimmed and beard likewise shorn close and cleanly maintained. "I am tired of this," he says finally, after a measuring pause. "Also, the apocalypse may be imminent."
The change in appearance catches Mystique's attention, and she pauses for a moment with one hand in midair, grasping the tassels of her red scarf, while she studies him. It falls with a swift yank and the scarf slithers into her hands. "The apocalypse." She chooses to focus on the latter.
"There is an asteroid," Erik elaborates upon turning more fully to face her, "whose trajectory has a high likelihood of intersecting with our planet."
"Yes, I had heard. Not just scientist's exaggeration, then?" Mystique remains still, scarf held loosely before her.
"No." Posture having changed little, Erik watches her closely, but his eyes do occasionally flicker away, distracted despite a concentrated effort to remain otherwise. There are a great many drunk people on the other side of the wall, as it happens.
Mystique frowns, not in response to the answer, but in response to the distraction. Her gaze slides, once, toward the same wall, and there is a noticeable span of silence before she replies evenly, "That is inconvenient."
"I thought so." There is a certain carelessness to his delivery, there. The kind that accompanies hopelessness. He pulls in a slow breath, and forces himself to look up again. The drunk people are loud, but not particularly interesting, largely on account of their inebriation. "The government has asked Charles for help."
"Do they suppose that he can think it off track?" Mystique wonders with a perfectly cool (perfect control, hard-won in the neat organization of her mind) indifference.
"They are desperate, I imagine, and hope that he and his colleagues might be able to reason a solution that they cannot." Evenly, if warmly dispassionate on the subject overall, Erik sighs. "He came to me last night, anticipating that I might be of some assistance. Between you and I."
Mystique's chin lifts a touch at the last, and her brows draw down as she studies Erik. Silence again, and then she replies, "I see."
"I agreed." There is no elaboration there, but his tone suggests reluctance in that agreement, and he paces a few restless steps away to position himself opposite the room's only table from her.
Surprise is evident in her expression, and Mystique's brows twitch slightly as she studies him. "What is it that you think you can do, Erik?" she wonders. Her tone has gone a bit harsh, treading close to derision.
"Nothing," says Erik, voice stooping low under the weight of self-derision. "But it would be irresponsible not to try. I...cannot..." he pauses there, and thinks a moment to attempt a rephrase, "It is difficult to think that what little I have managed to accomplish has been for nothing."
"Is this why you have called me here?" Mystique wonders, voice gone suddenly and angrily sharp. Her expression shows nothing of the sharp stab of hurt that results from his words. Instead, it fuels the venom in her voice. "To rehash with me every perceived failing and to regret the past decades? I am not terribly interested, Erik."
A slow blink nearly becomes a roll of his eyes, but Erik draws in a breath to steel himself, only to falter somewhat at the dissonance in voice and emotion. It confuses him briefly, and for a moment, at least, he is slow to answer. "I called you here because I am tired of hostility, and I am tired of being apart. Whatever we have done to each other -- dwelling upon it after all this time makes me ill."
Mystique stills at this, expression gone abruptly blank as her gaze freezes on him. It takes a moment for the words to process, and then to process again in a double check. Her reaction, when it stirs to life, is a mix of disbelief and suspicion. There's a faint flicker of something else beneath it, something deeper and warmer, but it's difficult to catch and place. For a moment she remains silent, and then she answers quietly, "You believe the world is ending and so you have decided to wake up again?"
"I would be lying if I said that had nothing to do with it. But we have known each other for decades. Saved each other's lives. And I have been restless for months. Long before there was news of the asteroid." Speaking a little more quickly than usual, Erik stops himself from saying too much, and changes the subject somewhat instead. "I don't have any ideas."
"Restless." Mystique latches onto that single word. Her study of Erik is restrained, and her breath stills for a moment.
Yes, that is what he said! Brows knit; Erik makes a brief, uneasy study of the table before him.
The table is unchanging. So, too, is the woman who stands opposite it, watching him.
"Anyway," says Erik, after a time, and to the table before he lifts his chin. "That is why I called you here."
In Mystique's mind, uncertainty swirls and clouds all other thoughts. Her expression, however, remains coolly even. She breathes out quietly and replies, "You left, Erik." A pause as her fingers come up to rest against her opposite forearms and she adds, "You made it quite clear that you did not wish to see me anymore."
"I was angry." It is unclear whether this is intended to be an excuse or an explanation. Either way it is somewhat lacking, but he doesn't seem to notice. He simply frowns at her.
"And now you are not." Mystique ventures this with a clear sort of suspicious doubt, while memory plays back recent encounters. They're washed in coldness, in distance, and underneath it is a quiet yearning for something different. An almost-hope.
"Not violently," Erik ventures after a lengthier pause. Honestly takes its time in overcoming everything that exists to argue against it, and he lifts a hand to rub it over his brow. In the bar, someone is being accused of cheating at a card game.
Emotions flatten and cool as with a sudden douse of cold water. Mystique's shoulders roll back, spine drawing up. "I see," she answers stiffly.
"Raven--" Strain flexes taut through the gravel in his voice and cords the muscles in his neck. "I am not angry. I am not...happy, but I would like to move past it."
Mystique closes her eyes, and for a moment there is a silence while her name echoes in her head. She blinks them open again and fixes her gaze on him across the span of the table that separates them. She breathes in. She breathes out and says quietly, "I have never wanted to see you unhappy."
Not entirely sure of what to say to that, and caught off guard, Erik watches her a bit blankly. "I do not expect that we will always get along, but I think, perhaps, it would benefit us both to..." His hands lift in a vague sort of gesture.
"What?" Mystique asks. Her eyes move across his face, noting once-familiar features and tracing over every slant, every twitch or wrinkle. Both hands drop free to her side. "What do you want, Erik?"
"I don't know." Erik's eyes are clear against the dark hollows that speak of sleep debt around them, but avoidant. He is beginning to get frustrated, with deep-carved lines tensing shadows into the salt and pepper of his whiskers. "If we keep on as we have I will go insane for lack of company."
Amusement flashes its spark in the depths of brown eyes and twitches something nearly a smile onto Mystique's lips. It is a tentatively warm emotion that draws out while she watches him in silence.
Erik does not trust himself to risk further elaboration. So he remains silent, with his last statement hanging awkwardly about him when he finally looks back to her.
Mystique does not speak either, but she does stir. A step forward deposits her scarf on the table between them, and then several more, carefully spaced and made without comment, start around the table. She does not look at him as she moves.
Magneto watches her for a moment, still a bit dumb from the tension wrapped thick about his chest and shoulders. He takes a step in her direction only after she has taken several in his, and his breathing has quickened. He is not subtle.
Several, and then several more, and Mystique's head lifts to him when he moves toward her. She stops just short of him, head tipped back the small distance it takes to make up the difference in her currently chosen height and his. There is a resurgence of uncertainty and wariness at the base of her mind, and it manifests itself in hesitating inaction.
Less hesitant largely for the reason that he lacks her patience, Erik glances quickly over her face, then covers the remaining distance to kiss her. Hard. It is not a gentle kiss.
Hesitation evaporates instantly to be replaced by a sudden surge of lust and longing. The two twine into a thick strand of emotion that focuses on Erik, specifically and personally. Mystique pushes up into the kiss with an adrenaline-fueled violence that stops just short of anything truly painful. One arm locks about his waist, the other about his neck, leverage for the clash of lips and tongue and teeth.
Bump, over into the table, which jars against the impact and leaves a bruise on his hip that will make walking painful tomorrow. But for what he lacks in grace, he makes up for with a heated intensity that has long been missing in most aspects of his life lately. The chair clatters over onto its side, and he holds her against him with force enough to restrict breathing. AND SO IT GOES.
A conversation with Erik has a surprising ending. Well. Maybe not /that/ surprising.
12/8/2007
=NYC= Erik's Loft - Stvol's - The Docks
A smallish, rundown loft apartment over Stvol's, this place has an aged-but-unfinished look about it that makes it feel more like an attic than a living space. The half-kitchen is open to the living area, which features a single couch and a black and a small television on a wooden crate. The floors are unfinished wood, as is the peaked ceiling, and the walls are a simple white. Aside from a single warm lamp in the living area, lighting is scarce.
BRRRIIING. Apparently, somehow or another, Erik remembered to set his alarm clock before he fell asleep last night. The old school bell mounted on the top is particularly loud and annoying, but effective. One arm reaches over to grope a bit blindly for the button -- then the other. The ringing stops, though the room is only drearily touched by the first grey light of morning, and he pulls his right hand back in to rub over his face.
Mystique's startlement has her lifting her head with a quick jerk, instantly awake for a moment of processing before she squints across the span of Erik toward the clock and, noting the hour, calculates enough time to spend a portion of it in the luxury of quiet drowsiness. Her head falls back to the pillow, eyes closed. At some point during the night, she's gone native, and blue skin stands out vividly against the sheets. She makes a quiet sound that might be a protesting grumble.
Magneto cannot afford the same luxury for very long. The sleep rubbed roughly from the corners of his eyes, he draws in a deep breath and sits up -- the comforter drawn up to his shoulders thrown down to settle at his waist. The air is cold. Some feet from the foot of the bed, Achilles is curled up on a blanket, still snoring.
"Have you aquired a taste for New York sunrises?" Mystique wonders in a dry murmur, eyes still pressed closed against what light slants through the window.
"I have to go to work," is an answer that has not been uttered in the bedroom of Magneto for a good twenty or thirty years, at least. Voice roughened by dehydration, or from having slept with his mouth open, he simply sits for a moment, reluctant to vacate the warmth of the bed.
Mystique starts to laugh quietly, and after a moment she turns her head to blink one eye open at study him with bemusement. "To work?"
"You have a job," Erik points out not-quite-defensively, head turned back to her from the window with lifted brows.
"I do," Mystique acknowledges, and the roll of her head back to center is wearily exasperated. "What are you doing?"
"Teaching." Satisfied that he is no longer a direct source of amusement, he leans over the side of the bed to reach for is boxers on the floor.
Mystique's brows shoot up as she regards the ceiling. "Teaching what?" she wonders. And then, perhaps more pertantly, "Where?"
"It is complicated," says Erik once his boxers are retrieved, and have been tugged on awkwardly under the sheets. Then he is pushing up out of bed, and wincing at the chill of the wood flooring against his bare feet. "I will have to explain it sometime when it will not make me late."
Mystique frowns slightly. She turns to watch him again, this time pushing up to the brace of her elbows propped behind her.
Magneto is sore. His shoulders are stiff, and perhaps even more so once he's rolled them back and stretched a bit before moving to pace around the end of the bed for his dresser. The other clothes scattered about the floor and bed are left where they are.
After a moment's silence, Mystique pushes herself further upward and then swings her feet over the edge of the bed. Bare toes brush against the wood of the floor and hesitate a moment longer before she settles her full weight on them and rises. She has no dresser - her hunt is for the clothing discarded last night.
"What time do you have to go?" Erik inquires as he selects more casual gear than his usual fair; blue jeans, an old dress shirt, and a blazer left on top of the dresser.
"I am an attorney," Mystique replies with a twist of her lips. "My hours are-- flexible, I suppose. I try to be in the office by eight."
"Ah." Clothing tossed over his arm, he stoops to lift a plastic container of dog food from the dresser's side, and Achilles' bowl is refilled even though he is still asleep. "Eight for me as well, though I try to be there early."
Mystique straightens with underwear dangling absently from one hand. Her gaze, golden-warm, lights on Achilles for a moment before she remarks, "Lethe will be very cross with me."
"She is a cat," says Erik as he paces for the adjoining restroom. "Cats are supposed to kill their own food."
"Yes, well." Dry tones are measured carefully as Mystique adds a bra to her panties and reacquires the proper form to wear them. "I'll let her know that you think she should be self-sufficient in Manhattan."
"She doesn't like me anyway." Clothes tossed carelessly over the back of the toilet, Erik sets about beginning the tooth-brushing and razor preparation process.
"She doesn't particularly like anyone," Mystique replies. "Sometimes I suspect she only tolerates me."
Through foaming toothpaste, Erik says something that sounds vaguely like, "Charming animal."
"Mmm." The sound is noncommittal as Mystique tugs her shirt on over her head, once more dusky-skinned, and then she adds softly, "I'm quite fond of her."
Erik has nothing to say to that. He brushes his teeth; he spits; he lifts his electric razor, squints in the mirror, decides that he is not in dire need of a trim, and sets it down again.
Mystique takes a moment to straighten her clothing before she appears in the bathroom behind him, the better to stare in the mirror of his shoulder. The benefits of flexible height. She frowns. "I suppose I really will have to go home first."
"Or else explain to your co-workers why you are wearing the same clothes and smell like sex," says Erik to his reflection as he sets about washing his hands. His eyes flicker to the reflection of hers on a short delay.
Dark brows rise slightly as her eyes meet his. After a brief but pointed silence, she answers, "They would never ask. I hardly wear /these/ clothes to the office, Erik. I was rather more concerned with the blood, to be quite honest."
"Ah," says Erik after a moment, recalling the blood spattered shoes. "I suppose there is that."
"Do you have a toothbrush?" Mystique inquires.
"You can use mine."
"Sanitary," she murmurs.
"I know where your mouth has been." Not smug in the least, Erik levels his brows at her reflection and turns away to the shower.
Not before Mystique smiles abruptly, a slightly unnerving expression in the sudden warmth of it, and leans in to press an open-mouthed kiss against the back of his neck. She moves aside as he turns and bends for his toothbrush.
Magneto chuckles to himself, loses the boxers, and steps into the shower, where there is a woosh of air and a quiet curse when the water blasts freezing out of faucet.
"Careful," Mystique murmurs with low amusement, and then she dips her head to the sink for the mundane task of cleaning her teeth.
Morning after.
The woman who enters is dark of skin and hair and eyes, and warmth seems to radiate from her Mideastern complexion, although she's wrapped in warm clothes and a red scarf drapes around her neck. There are a few barely noticeable splatters of dried blood on her shoes, and Mystique's expression is already tense for reasons that have little to do with the man she is meeting. She pulls her gloves off as she enters, tugging them free finger by finger. Her attention remains focused on her task.
Magneto turns his head to squint at her when she enters, cold eyes sweeping automatically from top to bottom. They pause on the shoes. His life has made him observant to these sorts of details. But then his gaze lifts again, and without any comment upon the state of her, he offers a mild, "Hello."
Gloves, leather, are tucked neatly into her coat pockets, and then Mystique tugs at her scarf, unwinding it carefully. Eventually, she lifts her gaze to settle it on Erik, The tension does not fade when she meets his gaze, and there is a sort of careful mental preparation, bracing, as she replies with an acknowledging, "Erik."
Not exactly relaxed himself, Erik stands painfully upright and clean cut, with hair neatly trimmed and beard likewise shorn close and cleanly maintained. "I am tired of this," he says finally, after a measuring pause. "Also, the apocalypse may be imminent."
The change in appearance catches Mystique's attention, and she pauses for a moment with one hand in midair, grasping the tassels of her red scarf, while she studies him. It falls with a swift yank and the scarf slithers into her hands. "The apocalypse." She chooses to focus on the latter.
"There is an asteroid," Erik elaborates upon turning more fully to face her, "whose trajectory has a high likelihood of intersecting with our planet."
"Yes, I had heard. Not just scientist's exaggeration, then?" Mystique remains still, scarf held loosely before her.
"No." Posture having changed little, Erik watches her closely, but his eyes do occasionally flicker away, distracted despite a concentrated effort to remain otherwise. There are a great many drunk people on the other side of the wall, as it happens.
Mystique frowns, not in response to the answer, but in response to the distraction. Her gaze slides, once, toward the same wall, and there is a noticeable span of silence before she replies evenly, "That is inconvenient."
"I thought so." There is a certain carelessness to his delivery, there. The kind that accompanies hopelessness. He pulls in a slow breath, and forces himself to look up again. The drunk people are loud, but not particularly interesting, largely on account of their inebriation. "The government has asked Charles for help."
"Do they suppose that he can think it off track?" Mystique wonders with a perfectly cool (perfect control, hard-won in the neat organization of her mind) indifference.
"They are desperate, I imagine, and hope that he and his colleagues might be able to reason a solution that they cannot." Evenly, if warmly dispassionate on the subject overall, Erik sighs. "He came to me last night, anticipating that I might be of some assistance. Between you and I."
Mystique's chin lifts a touch at the last, and her brows draw down as she studies Erik. Silence again, and then she replies, "I see."
"I agreed." There is no elaboration there, but his tone suggests reluctance in that agreement, and he paces a few restless steps away to position himself opposite the room's only table from her.
Surprise is evident in her expression, and Mystique's brows twitch slightly as she studies him. "What is it that you think you can do, Erik?" she wonders. Her tone has gone a bit harsh, treading close to derision.
"Nothing," says Erik, voice stooping low under the weight of self-derision. "But it would be irresponsible not to try. I...cannot..." he pauses there, and thinks a moment to attempt a rephrase, "It is difficult to think that what little I have managed to accomplish has been for nothing."
"Is this why you have called me here?" Mystique wonders, voice gone suddenly and angrily sharp. Her expression shows nothing of the sharp stab of hurt that results from his words. Instead, it fuels the venom in her voice. "To rehash with me every perceived failing and to regret the past decades? I am not terribly interested, Erik."
A slow blink nearly becomes a roll of his eyes, but Erik draws in a breath to steel himself, only to falter somewhat at the dissonance in voice and emotion. It confuses him briefly, and for a moment, at least, he is slow to answer. "I called you here because I am tired of hostility, and I am tired of being apart. Whatever we have done to each other -- dwelling upon it after all this time makes me ill."
Mystique stills at this, expression gone abruptly blank as her gaze freezes on him. It takes a moment for the words to process, and then to process again in a double check. Her reaction, when it stirs to life, is a mix of disbelief and suspicion. There's a faint flicker of something else beneath it, something deeper and warmer, but it's difficult to catch and place. For a moment she remains silent, and then she answers quietly, "You believe the world is ending and so you have decided to wake up again?"
"I would be lying if I said that had nothing to do with it. But we have known each other for decades. Saved each other's lives. And I have been restless for months. Long before there was news of the asteroid." Speaking a little more quickly than usual, Erik stops himself from saying too much, and changes the subject somewhat instead. "I don't have any ideas."
"Restless." Mystique latches onto that single word. Her study of Erik is restrained, and her breath stills for a moment.
Yes, that is what he said! Brows knit; Erik makes a brief, uneasy study of the table before him.
The table is unchanging. So, too, is the woman who stands opposite it, watching him.
"Anyway," says Erik, after a time, and to the table before he lifts his chin. "That is why I called you here."
In Mystique's mind, uncertainty swirls and clouds all other thoughts. Her expression, however, remains coolly even. She breathes out quietly and replies, "You left, Erik." A pause as her fingers come up to rest against her opposite forearms and she adds, "You made it quite clear that you did not wish to see me anymore."
"I was angry." It is unclear whether this is intended to be an excuse or an explanation. Either way it is somewhat lacking, but he doesn't seem to notice. He simply frowns at her.
"And now you are not." Mystique ventures this with a clear sort of suspicious doubt, while memory plays back recent encounters. They're washed in coldness, in distance, and underneath it is a quiet yearning for something different. An almost-hope.
"Not violently," Erik ventures after a lengthier pause. Honestly takes its time in overcoming everything that exists to argue against it, and he lifts a hand to rub it over his brow. In the bar, someone is being accused of cheating at a card game.
Emotions flatten and cool as with a sudden douse of cold water. Mystique's shoulders roll back, spine drawing up. "I see," she answers stiffly.
"Raven--" Strain flexes taut through the gravel in his voice and cords the muscles in his neck. "I am not angry. I am not...happy, but I would like to move past it."
Mystique closes her eyes, and for a moment there is a silence while her name echoes in her head. She blinks them open again and fixes her gaze on him across the span of the table that separates them. She breathes in. She breathes out and says quietly, "I have never wanted to see you unhappy."
Not entirely sure of what to say to that, and caught off guard, Erik watches her a bit blankly. "I do not expect that we will always get along, but I think, perhaps, it would benefit us both to..." His hands lift in a vague sort of gesture.
"What?" Mystique asks. Her eyes move across his face, noting once-familiar features and tracing over every slant, every twitch or wrinkle. Both hands drop free to her side. "What do you want, Erik?"
"I don't know." Erik's eyes are clear against the dark hollows that speak of sleep debt around them, but avoidant. He is beginning to get frustrated, with deep-carved lines tensing shadows into the salt and pepper of his whiskers. "If we keep on as we have I will go insane for lack of company."
Amusement flashes its spark in the depths of brown eyes and twitches something nearly a smile onto Mystique's lips. It is a tentatively warm emotion that draws out while she watches him in silence.
Erik does not trust himself to risk further elaboration. So he remains silent, with his last statement hanging awkwardly about him when he finally looks back to her.
Mystique does not speak either, but she does stir. A step forward deposits her scarf on the table between them, and then several more, carefully spaced and made without comment, start around the table. She does not look at him as she moves.
Magneto watches her for a moment, still a bit dumb from the tension wrapped thick about his chest and shoulders. He takes a step in her direction only after she has taken several in his, and his breathing has quickened. He is not subtle.
Several, and then several more, and Mystique's head lifts to him when he moves toward her. She stops just short of him, head tipped back the small distance it takes to make up the difference in her currently chosen height and his. There is a resurgence of uncertainty and wariness at the base of her mind, and it manifests itself in hesitating inaction.
Less hesitant largely for the reason that he lacks her patience, Erik glances quickly over her face, then covers the remaining distance to kiss her. Hard. It is not a gentle kiss.
Hesitation evaporates instantly to be replaced by a sudden surge of lust and longing. The two twine into a thick strand of emotion that focuses on Erik, specifically and personally. Mystique pushes up into the kiss with an adrenaline-fueled violence that stops just short of anything truly painful. One arm locks about his waist, the other about his neck, leverage for the clash of lips and tongue and teeth.
Bump, over into the table, which jars against the impact and leaves a bruise on his hip that will make walking painful tomorrow. But for what he lacks in grace, he makes up for with a heated intensity that has long been missing in most aspects of his life lately. The chair clatters over onto its side, and he holds her against him with force enough to restrict breathing. AND SO IT GOES.
A conversation with Erik has a surprising ending. Well. Maybe not /that/ surprising.
12/8/2007
=NYC= Erik's Loft - Stvol's - The Docks
A smallish, rundown loft apartment over Stvol's, this place has an aged-but-unfinished look about it that makes it feel more like an attic than a living space. The half-kitchen is open to the living area, which features a single couch and a black and a small television on a wooden crate. The floors are unfinished wood, as is the peaked ceiling, and the walls are a simple white. Aside from a single warm lamp in the living area, lighting is scarce.
BRRRIIING. Apparently, somehow or another, Erik remembered to set his alarm clock before he fell asleep last night. The old school bell mounted on the top is particularly loud and annoying, but effective. One arm reaches over to grope a bit blindly for the button -- then the other. The ringing stops, though the room is only drearily touched by the first grey light of morning, and he pulls his right hand back in to rub over his face.
Mystique's startlement has her lifting her head with a quick jerk, instantly awake for a moment of processing before she squints across the span of Erik toward the clock and, noting the hour, calculates enough time to spend a portion of it in the luxury of quiet drowsiness. Her head falls back to the pillow, eyes closed. At some point during the night, she's gone native, and blue skin stands out vividly against the sheets. She makes a quiet sound that might be a protesting grumble.
Magneto cannot afford the same luxury for very long. The sleep rubbed roughly from the corners of his eyes, he draws in a deep breath and sits up -- the comforter drawn up to his shoulders thrown down to settle at his waist. The air is cold. Some feet from the foot of the bed, Achilles is curled up on a blanket, still snoring.
"Have you aquired a taste for New York sunrises?" Mystique wonders in a dry murmur, eyes still pressed closed against what light slants through the window.
"I have to go to work," is an answer that has not been uttered in the bedroom of Magneto for a good twenty or thirty years, at least. Voice roughened by dehydration, or from having slept with his mouth open, he simply sits for a moment, reluctant to vacate the warmth of the bed.
Mystique starts to laugh quietly, and after a moment she turns her head to blink one eye open at study him with bemusement. "To work?"
"You have a job," Erik points out not-quite-defensively, head turned back to her from the window with lifted brows.
"I do," Mystique acknowledges, and the roll of her head back to center is wearily exasperated. "What are you doing?"
"Teaching." Satisfied that he is no longer a direct source of amusement, he leans over the side of the bed to reach for is boxers on the floor.
Mystique's brows shoot up as she regards the ceiling. "Teaching what?" she wonders. And then, perhaps more pertantly, "Where?"
"It is complicated," says Erik once his boxers are retrieved, and have been tugged on awkwardly under the sheets. Then he is pushing up out of bed, and wincing at the chill of the wood flooring against his bare feet. "I will have to explain it sometime when it will not make me late."
Mystique frowns slightly. She turns to watch him again, this time pushing up to the brace of her elbows propped behind her.
Magneto is sore. His shoulders are stiff, and perhaps even more so once he's rolled them back and stretched a bit before moving to pace around the end of the bed for his dresser. The other clothes scattered about the floor and bed are left where they are.
After a moment's silence, Mystique pushes herself further upward and then swings her feet over the edge of the bed. Bare toes brush against the wood of the floor and hesitate a moment longer before she settles her full weight on them and rises. She has no dresser - her hunt is for the clothing discarded last night.
"What time do you have to go?" Erik inquires as he selects more casual gear than his usual fair; blue jeans, an old dress shirt, and a blazer left on top of the dresser.
"I am an attorney," Mystique replies with a twist of her lips. "My hours are-- flexible, I suppose. I try to be in the office by eight."
"Ah." Clothing tossed over his arm, he stoops to lift a plastic container of dog food from the dresser's side, and Achilles' bowl is refilled even though he is still asleep. "Eight for me as well, though I try to be there early."
Mystique straightens with underwear dangling absently from one hand. Her gaze, golden-warm, lights on Achilles for a moment before she remarks, "Lethe will be very cross with me."
"She is a cat," says Erik as he paces for the adjoining restroom. "Cats are supposed to kill their own food."
"Yes, well." Dry tones are measured carefully as Mystique adds a bra to her panties and reacquires the proper form to wear them. "I'll let her know that you think she should be self-sufficient in Manhattan."
"She doesn't like me anyway." Clothes tossed carelessly over the back of the toilet, Erik sets about beginning the tooth-brushing and razor preparation process.
"She doesn't particularly like anyone," Mystique replies. "Sometimes I suspect she only tolerates me."
Through foaming toothpaste, Erik says something that sounds vaguely like, "Charming animal."
"Mmm." The sound is noncommittal as Mystique tugs her shirt on over her head, once more dusky-skinned, and then she adds softly, "I'm quite fond of her."
Erik has nothing to say to that. He brushes his teeth; he spits; he lifts his electric razor, squints in the mirror, decides that he is not in dire need of a trim, and sets it down again.
Mystique takes a moment to straighten her clothing before she appears in the bathroom behind him, the better to stare in the mirror of his shoulder. The benefits of flexible height. She frowns. "I suppose I really will have to go home first."
"Or else explain to your co-workers why you are wearing the same clothes and smell like sex," says Erik to his reflection as he sets about washing his hands. His eyes flicker to the reflection of hers on a short delay.
Dark brows rise slightly as her eyes meet his. After a brief but pointed silence, she answers, "They would never ask. I hardly wear /these/ clothes to the office, Erik. I was rather more concerned with the blood, to be quite honest."
"Ah," says Erik after a moment, recalling the blood spattered shoes. "I suppose there is that."
"Do you have a toothbrush?" Mystique inquires.
"You can use mine."
"Sanitary," she murmurs.
"I know where your mouth has been." Not smug in the least, Erik levels his brows at her reflection and turns away to the shower.
Not before Mystique smiles abruptly, a slightly unnerving expression in the sudden warmth of it, and leans in to press an open-mouthed kiss against the back of his neck. She moves aside as he turns and bends for his toothbrush.
Magneto chuckles to himself, loses the boxers, and steps into the shower, where there is a woosh of air and a quiet curse when the water blasts freezing out of faucet.
"Careful," Mystique murmurs with low amusement, and then she dips her head to the sink for the mundane task of cleaning her teeth.
Morning after.