Logs:Their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another
| Their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another | |
|---|---|
cn: references to death, killing | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | warnings of the future (taking refuge)/split with chive. |
| Location
a shared mindspace, and beyond | |
April 2009. Xavier's School. It's been a chaos of a night, and the School's walls are thrumming with old traumas and new exhilarations, the just-liberated crop of rescuees making uneasy if temporary houseguests en route to finding some kind of landing place in the world. Some have managed to find their way to sleep. Many have not, and among those, a painfully wired quicksilver flash of mind has made its way from the empty new dorm room he's been settled in to a wavering uncertain oscillation in the guest wing. In Flicker's mind there is blood, spilled fresh on previously bland institutional halls; there are bodies crumpled bloodlessly there, too, hewn down by implacable psionic onslaught. Outside the door, he wavers. Almost knocks -- drops his hand -- almost knocks again. Replays his labmates' reluctance in his mind << cannot go back for that traitor he's the one killing us >> against a backdrop of guilty-protective-terrified-terrifying psionic presence invading their minds. His hand falls again to the pocket of slightly-too-big borrowed pajama pants and in another flutter-blink, he's in his own bed once more. Inside, one exhausted young telepath is not having any better luck with sleeping. Hive has steered well clear of the labmates he came in with. The dinner he took to this room many hours ago is untouched, as is the copy of The Once and Future King pilfered from the school's library. His head lifts at the visitor outside his door, and though his shadowed eyes do not stray from where they've fixed, blank, on the comforter, his mind reaches out -- hopeful, desperate, hungry -- stretching towards Flicker's brightlit presence. He hesitates for an uncertain moment just shy of contact. Just for a moment, but long enough; by the time his pleading grasp unfurls again there is only an empty hallway beyond. --- March 2010. Ithaca, NY. It's a shorter trip for Flicker than it would be for most, but it's not the distance that has Hive more than a little thrown at this visit. He didn't invite Flicker into his dorm -- they're out, now, far from his roommate, far from other students in general. At least the town is fucking gorgeous. It's been a while now since he's spoken, perched on the edge of a stone lip jutting out by a small rivulet that can't rightly be called a stream, staring down at the damp trickle seeping over the craggy rock. His knobbly fingers turn over and over and over the paper to-go coffee cup in his hands. "Me," he says, finally. "You can't be fucking serious. After --" His teeth clamp hard, grind hard. "You run this shit by the rest of them?" "It was a hard sell." There's a whole lot of understatement in this admission, and it's clear in Flicker's mind: Ryan's scoffing oh hell the fuck no, Jax's stark horror, his own uncertain trepidation about bringing it up. The weeks of discussion in between while they planned and strategized. "But what you can do --" He pushes down, hard, the fear that rises at this, the memories of that last day. "What I'm going to have to do. We could use the backup. And besides --" His smile is small, but genuine. "If the Professor's working with you, it'll be safer now, right?" --- July 2010. Xavier’s School. "How far away can I go? You'll still feel me from all the way out there?" Flicker is perched on the railing of the school's porch. His fingers grip tight at one of the support columns, sure though his balance seems to be. The tight clench of his mind isn't any intentional attempt at Resisting Intrusion, but he's certainly recoiling from the thought all the same. "Like once you're in you're just -- in. There's no --" No getting away, no outrunning this, no amount of speed that will make his mind his own again. He's looking steadily at the closed mansion door like maybe he's reconsidering this after all. Maybe he'll flee, maybe stay here, maybe duck out of this whole suicidal plan. He doesn't, of course. Somewhere in Ohio there's a lab full of people to save and besides -- jumping past that closed door might be suicidal. Hive's hand is curled tight around the chain of the porch swing, and though his seat is a solid and supported bench he looks more like he's about to lose his balance than Flicker does. Leaning heavily into one unsteady arm, shoulder tensed from the effort of keeping his weight up. "You asked for this." It comes out sharper, snippier, than intended. Hive's teeth grind, slow. Now gruff, instead of sharp: "... you want a fucking. Safe word." There's a slow grip bearing down against Flicker's mind -- not thrusting itself in, just yet, but the promise is there in the first firm pressure. With it comes a flutter of imagery: the open space in the hallway on the other side of the door, viewed at different angles from a student bounding down the stairs, from a custodian waiting with mop and bucket for the elevator. "Not trying to -- make you lose yourself. I'm trying to keep you found." --- May 2011. Xavier's School. The words on the screen have started to blend into meaninglessness, with the number of times Flicker has revised this speech. Is this even a coherent thought? Is this too maudlin? Not emotional enough? Will anyone remember at all, a month from now, what he said at graduation? Between mission training and mission training he's not sure he'll remember it. His knuckles dig at his eyes, attention drifting from the screen out to the rest of the rec room, to classmates mostly soon to be relegated to the world of Just Memories, too. When his hand drops again it's with a small start, a quick catch of breath. None of the rest of the room even seems to notice the ballooning telepathic presence (in them, around them); familiar now and at once so very alien. Billions of minds growing like a forest around them, like an entire world around them; through it his habitual rapid-restless vigilance is darting from one soul to another to another before giving up and just being. here. Still here, tethered-and-tethering through the (paralyzing) beautiful (terrifying) awesome expanse of them. here. Still here, the trees stretching beyond what his own mind can currently comprehend; fixating, instead, on the primogenitor at its center. Encompassing-and-encompassed-by. here. Still here -- until they aren't, the psionic wave withdrawing as quietly as it came and leaving Flicker alone once more (somewhere) (adrift), reflexively reaching toward the peace and warmth that just was them until his mind snaps back into itself with a shock. It takes a long time to refocus on his laptop, and longer still before he deletes the entirety of his speech to begin again. We were not placed on this earth to walk alone. --- June 2012. New Mexico/New York. After this many practices, after two successful raids, this has almost started to feel seamless. Almost. The glut of information taken in from so-many-minds, so-many-vantage-points all at once should be a tricky thing to process, used to be a tricky thing to process, but by now the lightningflash of Flicker's cognition takes these streams in and sorts them into a tidy clarity. Every inmate in their cell, every guard firing at them in the hallways, every doctor cowering in their office; the facility layout spread neat and open around them. In their mind, the paths are obvious, the next moves thought out five steps ahead. In their mind. No amount of clarity can smooth over the burn in his muscles, the flares of white-hot pain that wrench sick into his gut. One jump and another and another, and there's another labrat delivered safely to the van. One jump and another and another, dodging most of the bullets aimed his way. One jump and another and another, and he's leaving it to Hive to track their teammates, the earth-shaking rumble of Ryan's power, dark shadows licking out to pull a guard safely out of firing range, several others turning to flee in terror from hallucinations abruptly carved into their thoughts. One jump and another and another, still a blur to everyone around but they can feel the lag there, feel something rend and tear inside him, dodging -- some of the bullets aimed his way, anyway. One jump and another and another, the mental count of labrats still to rescue ticking down in their mind. One jump -- and a desperate plea as the next one falters. He can do this (they can do this.) The next bullet actually hits him -- the regular way, prosaic, bloody, tearing through his shoulder rather than materializing inside it. (and another, plea answered now as Hive reluctantly takes over where he cannot, mental compulsion dragging him by main force over the hurdles his failing muscles do not want to make.) (and another -- guard shunted back into the hallway, wide-eyed young labrat plucked up to drop by the van, too.) One jump. Just one cage left, and is he praying to Heavenly Father or to Hive to get him past that threshhold? (He's praying for forgiveness, already, for this blasphemy.) And another, sharp and jerky, the klaxon-blare of alarm in his ears not loud enough to drown out Hive's steady guidance in his mind. And another -- but the images are tearing, warping, shattering apart. A dozen neatly-sorted threads fray, unravelling all at once as a dozen different viewpoints (now too jumbled to process) watch the ghost-blur shape flicker out of the air, collapsing into a now very solid and bloody heap on the floor. --- August, 2012. Bangkok, Thailand. Getting private time away from a mission companion is its own kind of trial, but Flicker has gotten practiced by now -- had to get practiced, with intermittent blips across the world to train or to prep or to die. Right now he is thankfully doing none of those -- just tucked away on the tiny strip of porch outside this house, the sounds of laughter and conversation spilling out the window where his companion is inside playing cards with a small gaggle of Suphamongkhon children. Flicker is perched on the railing, watching the rain patter down between the crooked boughs of a young banyan tree in the distance. It takes a long time before he looks down at the phone forgotten in his hand, starting to tap out a message.
He hasn't actually sent any message, still deliberating, when the phone buzzes in his hand.
--- September 2013. Bangkok, Thailand. Flicker is all packed up, the tiny nook of a bedroom he's been sharing with his mission companion immaculately tidied. His mission president will be here shortly to take him to the airport, but for now he is just seated on a bench outside the apartment building, small roll-on suitcase at his feet and a copy of The Book of Mormon in his hands. The loud clang of his mind is not quieted by reading the familiar verses, but it's soothing all the same, a grounding litany over his background melange of Trying Not To Spiral while considering the family he is leaving behind here and the one he is returning to in the States. Twining itself gently around that chaotic background noise comes a soft rustle, a familiar weight pressing up against Flicker's dysregulated mind. Hive drops down to sit beside the younger man, in bold saffron robe a bright-bright contrast to Flicker's button-down and slacks. His eyes drop to the suitcase. Narrow there with a small scowl. He slouches down more heavily, shoulder butting up against Flicker's. It's reflexive, by now, the offer of support; psionic touch pushing down without pushing in. With his mind pressed so close the jangle from Flicker's mind only grows louder, stress about the return to the States and about college, about the raid team, about the X-Men, a heavy-pitted ache of homesickness, a sharp fear of leaving here -- he's trying to quiet it, with middling success. His thumb brushes lightly against the pages of the book, a yearning in his thoughts as he relaxes into the psionic weight. << Aren't you supposed to be giving up attachments? >> What he feels about that, just now, is abundantly clear. His mind is grasping with inexpert hunger towards Hive's (<< (stay with me) >> << (please) >> << (be here) >>), only pliable surrender to be found where Hive's mental roots seek purchase. << Thought you motherfuckers were supposed to learn shit about our culture before coming here. >> Hive is leaning more heavily against Flicker's side. There's a hesitation, here -- but only a brief one, before those roots sink in deeper. Plant themselves firmly. For all his stolid presence there's no less ferocity beneath it -- the comfort of the other man's presence, the sense of belonging, a strong certainty of home. What mental barriers there have been, had been, come tumbling down in a heady bliss, mingling thoughts-desires-selves. << I'm cultivating joy. >> --- June 2014. Village Lofts Apt. 403 - East Village. It's not much of a home, yet; hardly even much of an apartment. A couple scavenged milk crates in the small space that might eventually be a living room, a couple suitcases, not yet unpacked. Though there's no furniture here to put things away into, Flicker is doing his best to unpack his meagre belongings into one side of their closet, hanging clothes with a fastidious care. The door bangs open, abrupt. Hive is still dressed from a day out on the water -- has even pilfered himself a doggy bag of Fancy Billionaire Yacht Snacks that he's setting down on the kitchen counter before heading for their bedroom. He drops down (onto Flicker's mattress, not his own), turning an intent look up to his roommate. "-- You're like. Fucking. Theologically required to be a Boy Scout, right?" Clearly a rhetorical question, because he's forging straight on ahead to: "How do we go camping?" --- October 2014. Between Virginia and New York.. The drive back to New York isn't so very long, but the weight around them makes the miles stretch. Flicker hasn't spoken since Joshua resurrected him -- just tucked into the crowded back bench seat in this van, curled up against Dusk's side. His thoughts are a heavy muddle -- exhaustion and pain. A repetitive mental debriefing of what they did right, what they did wrong. A wordless worry, for all their team, all the new labrats, but most acutely for the telepath riding shotgun in his mind. << You couldn't have known -- >> His reassurance rises a moment before Hive's guilty stress begins cycling again. << Where did those traitors even come from? They weren't -- >> Despite himself he's thinking back to Penfield, to Hive's much-scarred head, to the crushing psionic weight tearing through the lab. That image goes very firmly in one box; the kitted-out guards with unfamiliar uniforms and unfamiliar powers are being just as firmly slotted into a box of Something Else. << Mercenaries, >> Hive is answering this reflexively. Not quite fast enough to stop his anxious spiral, but he's trying. He hasn't separated himself from these new threats, in his mind, all just some unhappy blend of kapo whose boundaries he can't quite feel out. << Steady paycheck could buy them a lot of collaborators. >> His continued apprehension manifests in a stronger protective hold. << Might be the first, >> he's adding, << but they won't be the last. I couldn't keep you safe in there. I can't -- >> Flicker cuts this off, too. Not in words, but in the drowning-fierce surge of love and trust that rise up to smother this guilt. << You can learn. >> --- January 2015. Lower East Side. The clamor of the panic button alarm has only barely been silenced. Flicker's essay has been abandoned half-written on his laptop; he's got a proper shirt and pants on scant seconds later. He's set his phone on the floor for just a moment, eying his messages while he laces his boots. He's still flicking through them as he gets back to his feet, thoughts racing through his mind of missing student and Liberty Island, of Professor in danger, of world leaders, of evacuation needed. He's starting to blur into motion -- -- and arrested just as sharply with a painful-sharp jerk of mental tether, a loud flare of alarm inextricably intertwined with the thought of a grounding psionic warmth and Xavier smiling at the helm of a comfortingly familiar ship. No finesse in Hive's reach, this time, just a rough shove of force that thrusts Flicker briefly out of his own body. Cuts his next jump short and reroutes in the next moment, pushing them not towards Liberty Island but racing north of the city. The protest has barely even started forming, there on the tip of Flicker's thoughts << (being summoned) >> << (need to help) >> -- then that, too, is shoved back down. << Your fucking heroes can save the world. >> Hive's hard grip on Flicker's motion only starts to ease once he's a little more confident they're still heading toward Salem. << He needs us. >> --- February 2015. Village Lofts Apt. 403 - East Village. Hive drops himself down heavily onto the couch, when he gets in, slushy-damp still clinging to his worn old sweatshirt and the hems of his jeans. He curls onto his side, arm wrapping around Flicker's knees as he rests his head in the other man's lap. The faint tremor in his shoulders isn't just from the cold, but that's almost definitely not helping matters. As his mind curls around Flicker's, presses down into it, it brings a tempest of worry, anger, grief along with it. The chaotic churn inside them -- colored heavily with thoughts of Charles, with stolen memories of Erik, with rage -- does not sift itself into any coherent words. Flicker does not look up from where Mother Giselle is singing "The Dawn Will Come" on screen. He does shift, automatic, to make more comfortable room for Hive on his lap; does reach up with one hand to drag a blanket off the back of the sofa and drape it over Hive's shoulders. He's determinedly not thinking about Magneto, not about Liberty Island, not about Charles or the uncomfortable gaps in knowledge among his teammates. He rests his controller briefly on Hive's back as he reaches for the cup of lukewarm cocoa on the milk-crate-and-plywood-board coffee table. << I'm not going anywhere. >> --- August 2017. Creative Little Garden, East Village. Flicker is no stranger to Pushing Himself in training, but even for him this level of determination is extreme. There's an exhaustion, here, a pain, outstripping the demands of usual practice. Possibly he should have been taking a break long ago, should have been getting food, should have been heading home to rest. Instead there's a yet-heavier-weight elastic band hooked between his residual limb and the end of the iron bench, teeth gritted down hard against the chafing sensitivity beneath its compression sleeve as he pulls back on the elastic as far as his truncated range of motion will allow. Lets the tension go slack, tries again. Somewhere in the back of his mind he is thinking over the piles of information he's received from Dr. Toure, from a slew of physical therapists -- a timeline for recovery, a timeline for therapy, a timeline for having a new limb fitted. Somewhere in the front of his mind he is Definitely Thinking of this like homework -- just knuckle down and work harder and your project will be done way ahead of its due date. Will it be soon enough to fit a raid on Jenner in before the end of the summer? Already he's put the team behind schedule. Hive has a thermos of soup in hand as he wanders, slow, through the garden. He sits himself down on the fountain, scowling at Flicker and his over-work. "Gonna fuck yourself if you push it too hard." There's something else on the tip of his tongue, but he chews at his lip instead of saying it. He holds the thermos out to Flicker, insistent. "Jenner's not going anywhere." His voice is clipped -- tighter than usual. "You can't keep -- we can't keep --" For all the gruff anger in his voice, when he looks at Flicker there's only naked fear there. "{I'm not just going to sit here and watch you fucking kill yourself.}" Flicker's jaw has tightened, harder. His breath strains through his teeth, the stinging drip of sweat in his eyes briefly obscuring Hive from view. He drops his shoulders with a hard sigh and reaches for a swig from his water bottle, rather than the food Hive offers. "{Nobody's making you. I'm not just going to sit by and leave people abandoned in there.}" There's a curt edge of Hive's own irascibility in here that bleeds away as he actually looks at the the other man. "I'll be fine." His expression softens, head bowing before he takes the thermos. "-- I have you watching me." --- October 2020. Everywhere, New York. The dark has expanded, vast and terrible as it mows through hundreds (thousands) (millions) of minds around it. There should be life, here -- should be vibrant foliage and rich soil, should be a soft sigh of breeze carrying the fresh green scent of new leaves. Should be a rustle of birdwing flitting bright and colorful through the canopy. Should be a lot of things. As far and wide around as can be felt, what there is is bones parched and brittle jagging up from the earth where roots once were. Dust-dry soil stinging in a harsh wind. A sharp-clawed grasp reaching out, again and again in desperate search for one warm familiar seed in this forest of grief. Something bright and strange is picking its way through the desolation toward the heart of the forest that was. The immensity that should have been Hive presses down on Charles, dark and smothering, but he steels himself and lowers his shields. His mindscape unfolds along angles and seams that could not exist in physical space, the labyrinth of his memory rebuilding itself amongst the skeletal trees even as the tower that contains his self disintegrates into a blaze of light that he pours into the wounded, dying land. For a moment he's drowning in the darkness of unspeakable, unthinkable grief, drowning in his own heartbreak for the absence of the quicksilver mind that should be darting amongst the branches of the silent forest, the young man he, too, had loved and guided and failed. Then, somewhere in the darkness, not in his own perfect Sankrit pronunciation but one touched by both Japanese and English: << Gyatei gyatei haragyatei harasoogyatei boji sohaka, gyatei gyatei haragyatei... >> Charles finds his light again, finds it as though he'd been guided to it by the fierce protective foots of a banyan forest or the shimmering of a million jewels among its branches. He shores himself up and shines fierce and determined, gathering into himself what's left of the shattered forest, of his beloved students. At the door to Geekhaus, hardly aware of having brought himself there, he lets himself in with the husk of Hive's body, then gently guides it back to the couch where it's been slumped since the last of his minders came by. He unpacks the tote in his lap onto the coffee table. He pours two tall glasses of iced coffee and with trembling hands sprinkles the spices he'd hastily ground up, drizzles the condensed milk he'd always thought too poor in quality when trying to treat an impoverished friend. He can feel Cerebro distantly and tries not to be alarmed that a ghost half not a mind at all feels more present than what's left of Hive. He places the Thai coffee in the young man's long-fingered hands and bids him drink. When he starts speaking the words pour in Pali, "Mata yatha niyam puttam ayusa ekaputtam anurakkhe evampi sabbabhutesu manasam bhavaye aparimanam..." | |
