Raven Darkholme | Mystique (
permutates) wrote2013-10-20 11:29 am
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Entry tags:
video . 9th transformation
[ private to anya, earlier ]
I heard that you were Magneto's daughter.
I guess I think you should know that I know.
[ public, later ]
[ The camera shows the teaching annexe, swings past a few doors and settles on a stretch of wall where - well, there's a door. And beyond is a place where something should probably be. Should definitely be, for anyone who knows the location of the ice rink. Instead, there's a block of blank concrete, behind the open door. ]
The rink is gone.
[ She's heard the voices, over the speakers. She sounds shaky. ]
What's happening?
I heard that you were Magneto's daughter.
I guess I think you should know that I know.
[ public, later ]
[ The camera shows the teaching annexe, swings past a few doors and settles on a stretch of wall where - well, there's a door. And beyond is a place where something should probably be. Should definitely be, for anyone who knows the location of the ice rink. Instead, there's a block of blank concrete, behind the open door. ]
The rink is gone.
[ She's heard the voices, over the speakers. She sounds shaky. ]
What's happening?
private
[Because he knows he's different, in good ways and bad. But he still wishes it hadn't come at such a cost.]
But honestly, I don't want you to be anything you don't want to be. I don't. You deserve to be your own person, and you don't have to try and mold yourself to be something you're not. You're my sister, and I'm always going to love you. You don't have to worry about being good enough for me, or anyone. I'd just appreciate... more understanding.
private
Charles. I don't want to try to undo what it's done. If it hadn't - what if we never got another chance?
[ What if they'd just - parted ways forever? ]
You've told me things that hurt. But you've also said things I've wanted to hear for so long.
private
I told you about the Vanquish. The Barge had crashed, and these... creatures grabbed me, threw me into the back of a truck and dragged me into a facility where they used me as a lab rat for drug testing. Hallucinogens, neurotoxins, I honestly don't even know what else. They beat us, tortured us, they refused to give us food or water, and I didn't have my telepathy, I couldn't walk- [His voice breaks, and he puts his hands to the bridge of his nose, taking a breath.] I was there for four days, and I had no idea if I'd ever get out again. I saw them drag one of my friends up by her broken arm to take her away for more torture - I had no idea where they were taking her or if I'd ever see her alive again.
[He has to stop for a moment, voice cracking again, and he takes a slow breath, trying to gather himself enough to just get through this.] Erik found out that I'd been taken, and he risked everything to come find me. Just so that I wouldn't have to go through it alone, because he knew he couldn't get me out. He volunteered himself to go through some of the torture just so I wouldn't have to, because- because he didn't think I'd survive going through more sessions.
[He swallows thickly, blinking rapidly, trying not to draw up the memories.]
The Admiral said that anyone who wasn't back on board by the time repairs were completed would be abandoned there. Erik was willing to risk living through hell again just because I'd been taken, and he might have died there just because I couldn't escape myself. I've never been able to forgive myself for that.
[Never, and he still has nightmares about it, where he's forced to relive watching them lead Erik away while he screams uselessly from the floor, unable to follow or stop them, unable to do anything as Morgana was literally ripped away from his grasp. It's never going to go away, he can never go back to a time where he doesn't remember what it was like to be beaten, starved and tortured.
Another breath, and another long pause before he continues, looking somewhere vaguely off screen instead of at Raven.]
It made me realize how vulnerable I was. Once we got back, I was so depressed, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. I couldn't sleep, I could barely eat and I was terrified all the time about what might happen next time we were trapped somewhere. I learned how to protect myself, but it got worse after we stopped at the Overlook. I felt Erik die-
[And that's his limit, he can't talk about the rest of it, not right now, maybe not ever.
He takes a long, shuddering breath, and rubs his hands over his eyes. They're a little wet, and he's embarrassed and frustrated with himself, because he should be better than this. It's been a year, and he hates that it still has this much sway over him, that he's never going to be able to forget about it, or move on to the point of where it's just a distant, unpleasant memory. Those images are always going to be fresh and awful and lurking just beneath the surface, and he hates it.
It's a long while before he can start talking again.]
Things are better. I know that. It's a good thing I know how to fight and how to be prepared for a crisis, and that I know my telepathy isn't always going to get me out of a dangerous situation, and beyond that I've matured and realized what an idiot I was to treat you the way I did, even if I didn't realize what I was doing at the time. But don't... tell me that I'm better off because I went through all of that. Don't. You have no idea what it's like to have to live with this.
private
She doesn't cry this time. Maybe she's cried herself out on this Barge. Maybe she's remaking herself into something that doesn't need tears. But it's resolve that rises inside her, not grief. ]
Show me.
[ Her voice is small on the first word and stronger on the second, out of balance. Her throat is dry. Heart pounding. She repeats: ] Come here and show me.
Pain shared is pain halved, right?
[ She means it. She means telepathy. ]
private
I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to see that.
private
But I'm not. I won't.
private
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[And there is a knock on your door!]
private
Okay. Now you can say what you were saying.
Or read my mind, if you want to. [ The last is a tentative but real offer. ]
private
He's missed this. A lot. And while there's a part of him that's wondering if this is just her attempt at making him happy, of convincing him that she wants to be the friend she thinks he wants her to be, he can't help it. He actually sort of wants to lean on her.]
Do you want me to?
private
She is silent at his question, and then she nods, leaning her head sideways back on him.
Her mind is different than it used to be. Once, it was volatile as a volcano, but it was bursts of desperate happiness, enthusiasm, held in check by fear. Now, it has boundaries, slim and permeable and tough like a membrane. But she lets him inside.
The surface of her thoughts is a sort of controlled chaos, like a school of fish scattering in different directions, twitched this way and that by currents, but coming together in long and sweeping movements. She is feeling a lot of things, fear and distrust, confidence and anger, and love. She hates herself, hates her mutation, loves her mutation, is starting to believe she is really beautiful. (Her skin softly rustles to blue against his.)
I want to communicate, is the thought that she lets drift to dominance. Not truly words, but an idea, of opening to something that words have, thus far, proved painfully inadequate to satisfy. She wants to hear him, and she tugs, gently, at his mental touch. ]
private
Alright, he thinks, and he lets the tentative connection get a little stronger, although it's more like he's resting his hand on the surface of a pond, not quite breaching it or diving in. But there's contact, and it's firm and present, even if he's still respecting her boundaries. I don't know where to start.]
private
She closes her eyes, and she pulls up, within her, and old spool like a movie reel. Memories crowded together and wound tight. Christmases; birthdays; the cold touch of snow. Dangling her legs through the columns of the bannister and watching people move from above. Curling up in a big, soft bed; running in bare feet over soft grass. Charles isn't directly in any of these memories, there's not a glimpse of his face, but he is there, just the same. There is an overwhelming feeling of his presence, loving and protecting and beloved. Brother. Charles, Charles, Charles, like the soft smells of apple and cinnamon that spread through an empty house when a pie is baking. ]
private
He shifts carefully, not trying to pull away, but reorient himself so he can put his head on her shoulder, curling into her and trying not to just break down and sob. It's because he's relieved more than anything else, and he doesn't have it in him right now to be embarrassed about looking for comfort from his little sister.]
Re: private
Welling up with the rest - there's ugliness, too. Resentment and anger. Simmering, seething anger at the rest of humankind. But Raven faces it without flinching. She acknowledges this is a part of herself. She is ugly things, too.
It doesn't mean she doesn't love him. And it doesn't mean she doesn't want to comfort him now. Because she does. It doesn't even mean she loves him any less. Her feelings confuse and disorient her, and the root of it is all of that terrible, terrible anger. Anger she's always been afraid of. Not like Erik, who used it. She hid it. She always hides.
This is her. This is all her, and she aches to be loved for it, in spite of it, because of it. Like being loved might take it all away.
Her hand strokes through his hair.
Inside her, there's still that child.
You aren't... afraid of me?
He didn't just help her bury it. Help her hide. He helped her heal. She wouldn't be who she is without him. But she would still be someone. And that was something that she had to know.
And now she tries to tell him, without the words: that the Barge gave her a chance for this. That it hurt him, but maybe it could fix them. And maybe, with that, she could help fix him back. She's starting to believe in this, and it feels strange and foreign and uncomfortable, and gentle and calm, too. She wants to help. She wants to love him again. ]
private
He hates this place because it's done so much damage to him and the people he loves, but it gave him a second chance with Erik and now with Raven, something he'd never thought was possible back home, and he's confused and angry and grateful all at once.
She didn't hate him. She didn't think he'd only tried to hurt her, that even now, he wanted her to be something that she wasn't, and he projects that he loves her, even when she's angry and confused, that it's alright to be both of those things. Anger is just another emotion, and it's perfectly fine to feel it in response to injustice, or fear or hurt. He just doesn't want her to let it destroy her, but he'll always, always love her, and he wants to make sure she knows that.
Erik might be the other half of his soul, and they might both have a larger sense of the word "family" than they did before they met him and the others, but Raven was still his sister, the person he'd grown up with and cherished and been frustrated by and fiercely loved. That was a bond that would always be special and unique and utterly irreplaceable, and he wants nothing more than to find some middle ground again. He missed her.]
private
A soft shift, and what she's wearing - "wearing", since she's been forming her clothes herself half the time these days - changes to soft cotton, better for soaking up tears. She's getting good at this. Really, really good. And she's proud of it, too.
Proud of him, comes the thought connected with that. For graduating inmates, for staying by Erik's side. He's so good. And she doesn't think the Barge changed that - for all that he is different now, he is still good. ]
oh this has been spam for a while whoops
Eventually, he manages a sort of stuffy sniff and scrubs his hand over his eyes, trying to pull himself together.
He still isn't pulling away from her, though.]
I'm sorry. Thank you, for sharing that with me.
[And although she's given him permission to be honest and open with his powers with her, there's still a wall that's gone up, keeping the dark memories safely tucked away from where she can see them. "Talking" is easier than just filtering everything across.] I am glad that we've been given this chance, Raven. I just wish it could have happened another way. I'm afraid of what's coming, and I don't want you hurt the same way we have been.
[There's a flicker of something - a memory - but he nudges it aside quickly. This has to be different.]
no subject
At least here she doesn't have to pretend, and that's what she settles on, in her mind-answer. She doesn't have to pretend, and that is of immense value to her.
She brushes her hair back from his forehead. We'll be okay, she thinks, and she says, out loud: ]
You need a haircut.
[ Getting a little shaggy there, Charles. ]