Logs:Bend Towards Justice

Bend Towards Justice
cn: discussions of the Holocaust
Dramatis Personae Erik, Jax
In Absentia Dusk, B, Ion, Tian-shin, Spencer	2022-03-06 Only humans bend, and only when forced to do so by men like you and I.
Location <???> Super Seekrit H.A.M.M.E.R. Mutant Prison
Lunchtime has come and gone, but in this comfortably large trailer it's still snack time. For Jackson, at least, who has made himself cosy on a couch with a large bowl of fresh fruit and a sketchpad. He's ignoring the television (currently muted with captions on, tuned to Jeopardy) in favor of slowly nibbling his way through some melon and strawberries. There's a half-completed drawing taking shape in a leisurely fashion under his pencil, a police car in flames and a trio of individuals -- one with giant bat wings, one tiny and gilled and sharpclawed, the last (with the biggest grin) nominally human-looking -- toasting marshmallows on the flames. Jackson himself is bright and colorful, his makeup and shaggy hair purple-blue-green ombre, his prison-issued clothing ornately embroidered with colorful plum blossoms, a tiny flower-winged fairy nestled in his black eyepatch. Behind the couch, an old man glances down at Jax’s drawing and hums approvingly. “How fun,” he remarks, voice gravelly with age and tinged with a muddled pan-European accent. “The marshmallows are an excellent touch.” The Master of Magnetism seems amused as he continues walking past, settling into a nearby armchair with a sketchbook of his own and a worn-out, exceptionally dog-geared copy of My Name is Asher Lev. Erik’s prison uniform is soft and pilled from use, sleeves cuffed at the elbows. His shock of white hair seems even more stark in comparison to Jax’s bright colours, his own single tattoo even more faded. He pulls a pair of drugstore plastic reading glasses from his pocket, rubs the lenses on the hem of the prison shirt before perching them carefully on the bridge of his nose. "There are not so many artists in here. Always nice to see another one." "Oh, thank you, s--," Jax is saying in a warm Southern drawl before he even looks up. When he does his words stutter to a halt, the ornamentation briefly fading from his person to leave him drabber, paler, dark-haired and un-makeup'd, several of the tattoos on his arms twisted and marred as if from old scarring. The colors return a half-second before his voice does, just a little brighter than before. "--sir," he finishes, still slightly wide-eyed. His head tilts slightly to one side, the motion all the more birdlike for the return of his colorful plumage. "Haven't -- had the chance to meet too many people here, yet. Do you also --" His eye drops briefly to his sketchbook, then back up to the older man. "Are you an artist?" Erik narrows his eyes at the disappearance and reappearance of Jax’s colours, but otherwise doesn’t seem to notice the stutter of recognition. “I should hope you will not be here long enough to meet more. But, there are a couple more.” He tucks the novel into the side of the armchair, shakes a few eraser shavings off the cover the yellow cover of his sketchpad. “Mm. Artist, I would say no. I sketch. It is something to pass the time, here.” He flips open the cover, then to a fresh page — from where Jax sits the first few upside down graphite drawings can been seen, mostly photorealistic portraits. “Did they let you draw much, the last time you were caged?” "I tell my kids if you make art, you're an artist. Ion know if there's like -- dinner threshhold you gotta cross." Jax has tipped slightly forward in his seat, eying Erik's drawings with open curiosity. "Gosh, I don't think nobody gets their shading down that good without a whole lotta work put in." His cheeks flush after this, his head bowing. "-- Not," he acknowledges, "that there's a plethora of options, here." His blush doesn't fade as he picks up his fruit bowl, moving it with a hand tipped in invitation to a table between them. "Oh, naw, the first place I was they didn't let us have much of anything. Not no sketchbook and not even a light to read by. I'd say this is an improvement, but a cage is a cage." His eye flicks briefly to Erik's arm and then back down, a faint tinge of pink briefly fluorescing around him. "Sorry, I don't -- need to tell you that. I just. Talk too much. S'great for teachin' high schoolers and bad for the rest of my --" Here he breaks off, a small wrinkle in his brows and a tightness in his shoulders. He's returned to shading the spiky hair of the little shark-girl in his drawing before he asks: "Do they actually move this place 'round much?" Erik hums, eyebrows raised, perhaps a slight twinkle in his eye. “One can improve at most things, given enough time.” He dips his head in silent thanks when he reaches for the offered fruit. “It is not wrong to acknowledge improvements in material conditions. I would prefer no cell, of course, but —“ With a shrug, Erik pops a raspberry into his mouth. “— A cell with clean clothes and full stomachs is nothing to curse.” He leans back, crossing one leg over the other and balancing his sketchbook on top. “Mm, maybe not much, though it seems more frequent as of late. It is not so bad. There are seatbelts.” Erik’s voice curls up at the last, perhaps amused at the absurdity of it. His gaze drops to the shark-girl on Jax’s page. “Your children — You are a teacher? Not a father?" He pauses, then continues, just a touch apologetic, "I do believe you know more about me that I of you.” "Both. Three kids an' a whole passel'a students. Feels like a lotta people I'm lettin' down lately." Jax's blush is starting to fade as he draws. "Seatbelts. Gosh, reassurin' to know they're concerned for our safety. There a lot of other people in here?" He shakes hair out of his eye as he looks up, studying Erik for a moment. "You got folks waitin' for you on the outside? Most all I know 'bout you is from the news and community hearsay and I expect they both get -- a thing or two wrong." A faint curl of amusement lightens his voice. "Unless you did make the ground open up and swallow a whole block full'a Purifiers an' their bikes too?" He shrugs. “It is a small group, it seems. But perhaps they only let me meet a select few.” The second question gives Erik a little more pause — he doesn’t say anything until Jax mentions the Purifiers, where he actually chuckles. “Alas. Even with full use of my abilities, creating chasms in concrete was never my gift.” Erik smiles, amused. “Whoever did do that should be quite proud of himself. It was dazzlingly efficient.” The pencil in Erik’s right hand moves across the page lightly, the old man only glancing down occasionally as he begins the outline. “How have you let your children down? They are still breathing, no?" "Half the Lower East Side thinks you done that an' if I ever get out I ain't gonna disabuse 'em." Jax has forgotten his drawing, now, just spinning his pencil rapidly through his fingers. "S'pose that's true. Think they'd breathe a little easier with a parent around, is all. Not sure if..." His teeth scrape lightly against his lower lip through this hesitation. "Are they -- even pretendin' like they're gonna ever give you a trial?" Erik’s gaze floats to Jax’s eyepatch for a moment, then dips back down to the sketchpad. “And the other half?” he asks with a slight teasing lilt. The pencil moves in quick, practiced strokes against the paper. “Hah. They gave up on that pretence some time ago — forgotten about me the way they forget so many other unfortunates. Any trial of Magneto would be a sham, anyway.” He looks up again, pressing the eraser end of the pencil to his lips. “I don’t say this to make you lose hope. Some people here have seen the inside of a court room. Have you a good lawyer?” "Oh, the other half is bigots want us out the neighborhood who could use a good bein'-swallowed-by-the-earth." Jax wiggles at a lip ring with the tip of his tongue. His gaze slowly drops back to his sketchbook, though he doesn't start drawing again. "I got a good lawyer," he allows, hesitantly. "Ain't ever had a lot of faith in the legal system to do what's right when it comes to -- jus' about anything." He reaches forward to pluck a strawberry from his bowl, slumping back against the sofa cushions to nibble on it. His eye has lifted again, idly tracing the confines of the trailer. "They let you have any visitors? S'about limited to the lawyer for me." “Should I ever see him again, I’ll inform Avalanche of the need for an encore,” Erik says mildly. “I hold no faith in this or any other government, but having a good lawyer does make it more irritating for them to hold you. I brought regrettably few of those into the Brotherhood. A mistake to learn from.” Erik’s focus returns to the sketchpad. “Most of my visitors I did not know before. There is an assortment of little men who would like to figure out what makes me tick.” The pencil moves across the pad again, this time more controlled in one part of the page. “An old friend, from time to time. Though, I imagine that allowance is because I have no lawyer.” "No lawyer," Jax echoes, slowly like he's tucking this fact away somewhere. When he looks back to Erik it's with a startled widening of his eyes. "Those visitors sound real tedious but also --" His brows wrinkle inward, and the spinning of his pencil halts as his fingers close tight around it. "Is it really such a stumper to think there's a whole lot worth doin' to stop genocide?" “Apparently.” Erik’s tone is dry but calm, tension only showing in the tightening of his jaw. He tucks the pencil behind his ear and leans back, crossing his arms, the number on his left disappearing from view. “Of course, they have to believe it is a genocide, first.” Erik’s thumb rubs over the hidden number. “When we were ‘liberated’ —“ there is notable disgust placed on the word, “— the Allies housed us by nation, not by people. The same people who had, weeks before, been marching us to our deaths, filling the gas chambers, looting our homes, now stole our rations and beat us under the watchful eyes of our saviours. Tell me, does that sound like a species that is capable of both recognizing and stopping genocide as it happens?” Jax listens quietly, his fingers growing tighter in their clamp on his pencil. "M'sorrry. Don't -- really have a great track record on that front, no, sir." He chews on his lip ring, brows pinching as he considers his next words. "I don't think even folks who been through somethin' so horrible always --" His head shakes slowly. "I been studying for a while now to prepare for the mikveh an' it's been a bit -- of a challenge seein' people who full well understand the horrors of the Shoah excuse an' justify Registration or what they been doin' to us in the labs. Guess it gets a sight harder to recognize genocide if you don't recognize us as people first." At ‘mikveh’ Erik’s eyebrows raise high up on his forehead, the first note of surprise he’s shown all conversation. He opens his mouth, closes it while he looks again over all Jax's visible tattoos. “Well. That is not a surprise. Most of those who were there are gone now, and the ones invoking their memories only want ‘never again’ for themselves. These modern institutions are full of Jewish people, who do not remember what it was to be just a Jew.” There is venom spat on the last syllable. Erik’s grip on his own arm gets tighter. “They are too comfortable, too human. I cannot imagine why you would want to join them.” Jax's blush returns, fainter than before. "My son is Jewish. I adopted him after we got him out his lab. He -- really believes in all the parts 'bout pursuing justice an' repairing the world an' I guess so do I." His gaze drops -- first to Erik's tight grip on his arm and then to his own sketchpad. "Just maybe a little more hands-on about it than suits most people's tastes. Universe ain't gonna bend itself towards no kinda justice." Erik frowns. “God has already failed him once, it seems to me. Besides, one need not to be a Jew to try and improve things. We have no monopoly on such values.” His grip on his arm loosens, just a touch. “In my experience, the universe does not bend at all, neither by its own volition or by the efforts of us within it. Only humans bend, and only when forced to do so by men like you and I.” "People failed him. I just try to do what I can to make up for it." Jax looks up swiftly at this last statement, his brows lifting in a surprise that soon melts away in favor of a deepening of the red in his cheeks. "Men like... oh. Hadn't never really thought of myself like..." He lifts one shoulder in a small shrug, his gaze returning to wandering the walls of the trailer. "Felt like you had plans, you know? Don't know as I ever thought much bigger picture'n the next cage that needed breaking." The corner of Erik’s mouth twitches up. “Plans,” he echoes, amused. “It sounds to me that you had big plans of your own, even if you do not recognize them. The world is already painting us with the same brush, Mr. Holland. The comparison should not shock you.” The tension in Erik’s body eases enough for the man to return to his drawing, to joke; “Though I may be a little hurt if it offends you.” "Offends me?" The laugh that this startles out of Jackson is quick and bright. "Oh, gosh, sir, I been restraining myself from fluttering like a teen pop singer just put out their first single only to have Diana Ross tell me I got promise." His expression now is just thoughtful when he looks back to Erik. "I got no illusions what the world thinks 'bout me. Or you. Our methods might not quite be aligned but I think it'll take a diversity of tactics to see liberation." His head shakes as he turns back to his drawing. "Lord knows I'd rather have the confidence of folks working towards freedom than those with their boots on our necks." Erik’s smile is thin and wry as he puts the final touches on his piece. “Diana Ross. Now that is a comparison I was not expecting.” He pulls at the top of the page, carefully separating the page from the perforated edges. “I think you are right. For our people, there is too much at risk to put all our hopes in the hands of a couple of old men.” He lays the sketch out on the table between them — a graphite-grey portrait Jackson from the neck up, a little rough on the edges and not completely shaded, caught in a moment of worrying at his lip ring with his tongue. There’s no signature, but a small stylized M is monogramed into the eyepatch. “But if it means something to you, then know you have my admiration, Mr. Holland.” "Oh," Jackson breathes out, leaning forward to reach for the drawing. He stops shy of picking it up, looking to Erik as if for permission before he does. "Thank you." His foot bounces, slightly fidgety; just below the cuff of his pants a clunky electronic monitor is just barely visible around his ankle. "I know it's hard to keep faith in places like these but I do believe you'll be fightin' out there again some day." Erik nods when Jax looks to him. “Tomorrow is never promised, Mr. Holland, and faith is a fool’s errand. I am armed with the knowledge that our people still need champions, and so to that end I will keep my mind sharp and wait for opportunity to present itself.” He pushes out of the armchair, leaving the sketchbook and novel behind, and shuffles in true old-man fashion to little kitchenette. “In the meanwhile, you should enjoy what small comforts we are afforded in these containers. The old fascists did not have nearly as delightful a tea selection.” He sounds absolutely grandfatherly when he glances back next to ask, “Earl Grey? Or mint?”