i need a resurrection

[violenthearted]

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr and Ned
WHAT: I CAN'T STOP WANTING TO CALL THIS "Total Power Exchange" but really they're just going to show off their respective mutations to one another
WHEN: Day 72, evening
WHERE: The edge of a convenient patch of woods
NOTES: Warnings for small dead animals :(

Prior to recent events, Erik would have elected to send Ned a commanding single sentence in order to meet his purposes for the evening; he's an arrogant jerk efficient that way. Judging, however, were he in Ned's shoes (and frankly he doesn't often feel as though he can fit in those of anyone else, let alone walk a mile in them), he would meet cryptic summons with a well-placed epithet if not a pre-emptive attack, he appears on the man's doorstep instead.

Of course, in this case it's with no prior arrangement, so while in some respects this option is the more courteous, in others ...Erik will never really trouble himself to meet societal standards of politeness even when he's adopting the baseline of civility. He looks faintly irritated by something, as he almost always does; in this case it's no more than the usual and unfortunate state of his tailoring--he tells himself should he be appropriated again by scientists in the sky, if they're going to poke and prod they could at least have the decency to afterwards provide a shirt that fits.

So this is the image that will greet Ned when he answers the door, Erik's tall, dark and disgruntled self, still looking a little pale, dark circles more prominent than usual, but visibly on the mend. For once, in what is probably the exception that proves the rule, Erik does not intend to instantly draw him into a conversation that weighs approximately as much as an elephant wearing an anvil.

Comments

[violenthearted]

Erik raises his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest and looking perfectly at ease with nothing real to lean on. "You've survived."

That's enough, to him. He doesn't know the places Ned's mutation has taken him, and unless he sees specific conversational directions for them won't ask. It's the same kind of strength he sees in River, or Raven, or any of the small family he'd had a chance with in the world he and Charles left behind. Mutants are people whose mere existence means they bear up under a weight the humans who surround them can never understand. Ned has, he can see, been marked by that weight; it's nearly visible sometimes, in the hunch of his shoulders and his easy retreat into reticence. Where Erik wears his height and breadth in a way that eats space, Ned pulls in on himself, compacts what he has left to keep it holding him up. The kind of toll it takes is terrible, but sometimes that's the cost of continuing to move in a world which delights in othering what it can't understand, where the semiotic dichotomy of 'us' and 'them' is the simple fix. Acceptance is harder. Charles believes humans to be capable of it, but Erik--he didn't even believe that when he thought he was human. Ned is right in his perception; it's not mutants who should have to change, it's the world.

"At great price, I think." That's quiet, made with Erik's usual intense eye contact, but he doesn't hold Ned's gaze or demand confirmation. Mercy and pity are in short supply with Erik, but he can be gentle when he wants to be.

After that there's a moment where Ned might feel obligated to fill the silence, since that's often what he does - Erik has noticed - but then he looks back, considering. "I can't change the way you see yourself. That's your power to take, if you want it. But I have picked up a trick or two over the years."

Let him gently understate. "Knowing you can defend yourself as needed--it helps." He shrugs, a faint trace of bitter smile on his mouth. "It's either that or hope the world becomes an easier place to live in, and if you're looking for that you'd be better off asking Charles."

[nedofpies]

What has been the price of his survival, Ned wonders. There are all kinds of costs. Costs for others - the lives of the people and the animals and even the plants that he'd killed over the years - and costs for himself. All those measures, for all those years, keeping himself anonymous, keeping himself going, even at the bleakest times. Erik makes all that sound noble, instead of pathetic. As if there were something real and tangible he was struggling against, something valid and comprehensible and recognized.

He can't meet Erik's eyes for more than a few seconds, but Ned acknowledges his words with an almost imperceptible shrug. It's easier than nodding, easier than an explicit indication of his agreement.

Then Erik is making his offer - obliquely, but unmistakably. At another point in his life, Ned would have refused outright, without even considering. He has already hurt too many people; he doesn't need to learn how to do it in a new way. Sure, he'd spent most of his early years at boarding school getting his ass kicked, but that had stopped once he was suddenly a foot taller than all the other boys.

Since he's arrived here, though, he's been in more than one situation when, as Erik puts it, 'a trick or two' might have been useful. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea, to learn. Not that he ever intended to use the skills he might pick up. He trusts Erik when he says that just knowing he knows them would be helpful. It also occurs to him that it would be good to know how to fight, now that he has people he'd be willing to fight for, if they couldn't fight for themselves. Friends. Loved ones.

"Thanks. Um, I'll... let me think about it?"