driftfleet | (no subject)

[ it's what he did it for. ]

For what?

[ he keeps holding her close, and strokes her hair soothingly. whatever it is, it's nothing she needs to apologize for, but he figures it'll carry more weight if he knows what he's telling her not to worry about. ]

Probably scaring you. I'm okay. [Doesn't she seem super okay? She does seem calmer and better than she did though. Winn time is helping.]

Hey, I still have you beat at worst scare with my middle of the night save me from being eaten call.

[ he presses another soft kiss, this time to her forehead, and brushes back her hair. ]

You wanna tell me what made you so...okay? [ in today's presentation, okay means the exact opposite. ]

Good point. [She's not keeping score though. The last thing he says gets a soft smile, but it fades quickly enough.] I talked to Erik.

...Did Hank tell you what was happening back there? What they remembered? [She assumes he didn't or Winn would have already told her.]

[ he'll take that short lived soft smile, ok. ]

No, [ he shakes his head ] he said he needed a little while to work through it on his own, I didn't push.

[ and in a way, listening to kitty now feels like a betrayal of hank, but hank will understand, he hopes. he needs to be there for kitty, and kitty needs to talk about it. besides, he did say he was going to tell him eventually, so it's not like it was going to be a secret from him, right? ]

[That's good because all the spoilers are coming. But she knows nothing about Hank's experience with it other than Erik's assurances that none of them had died.]

Apocalypse.

Apocalypse happened.

[ for a second - everything stops. his breath catches in his throat, that just closes up around it, his heart skips a beat, his brain stops processing. and then - it all comes back on in overdrive, his heart racing, his head racing, he tries to control his breath - let it out in small, quiet, shuddering puffs as to not disturb her, not to alert her to how badly he's freaking out right now.

because as bad as hearing that word is for him, it's nothing compared to what it means to her.

he holds her tighter. ]

That's not... It's not the bad part. [Well, it is. It's terrible and she feels for them. She never wanted to be right about what Leto saw in Hank's future. And it probably impacts her more than she even realizes, but it was overshadowed. She tenses up just to manage getting the words out.]

Erik was one of his horsemen. He worked for him. [So much hurt and betrayal and anger for a man who...who isn't and never was the one who took her in and made her an X-Man.]

What?

[ he can't help it, he pulls a little back so he could look her in the eyes - what she's saying, it just makes no sense. yeah, he's never met erik, or even heard that much about this version of him but...it seemed pretty clear he's one of the good guys. when hank came over to talk to him, he didn't flinch at the sound of erik's name, he didn't warn winn to stay away from him...loyalty to a friend would only go so far, wouldn't it? and winn's a friend too, hank wouldn't let him blindly walk into danger, would he?

it makes no sense. ]

Why? [ he should be offering comfort right now but honestly he can't think of a single thing to say or do that would be at all comforting at the moment. all he can think of to do is to try to make sense of it all - because it makes none at the moment. ]

[She meets his eyes, but she can't explain this to him. She can't even explain it to herself.]

Does it matter? [Asks the girl who demanded to know why when faced with the same revelation. But in the end even finding out something as tragic as his wife and daughter just having died wasn't enough to sway her. She lost people too. She never became the thing she hated. She would do anything for love, but she won't do that. No, she won't do that...]

[ he pauses for a beat - yes, yes it does. he can't reconcile the man who's so important to so many good and brave people with the servant of a monster. but right now, the only thing that matters is kitty. ]

Not now.

[ he holds her close again. there are so many things he needs to know now, but he can't ask - not kitty, and definitely not hank who has asked for time. and it feels like all the fears and concerns are going to eat him up alive but he's just going to have to let them. ]

["Not now" is a great answer because she does care and she will care, but she isn't ready to let go of the hurt yet. She needs to feel it before she can let it go. Not that she's thinking about the process of healing and accepting. Right now she's just overwhelmed and reacting. She's just glad she's not doing it alone.]

We can stay here tonight, right?

Of course.

[ without a moment's hesitation. he'll do anything to make her feel even the tiniest bit better. staying on her ship, that's something he would do for her even if things were as normal as they ever get for them. ]

[She's wanted it for awhile, but didn't ask because she knew he'd say yes even if he wasn't ready for it.]

I told you he's the leader of the X-Men in my world, right? Erik.

Yeah, married to your world's Rogue, cutest baby boy, right?

[ he tries to think back to everything she's told him, but it's been a while since they spoke of the x-men of her world, and she's told him of so many different versions of everyone it's sometimes hard to keep up. ]

That's right. [She snuggles against him.] He was the one who made the final call that I could stay with them. Be on the team. [Softly.] The one who wanted to stand against Apocalypse more than anyone.

This doesn't say anything about him. Look at Hank, how different he is. They're different people.

[ he shifts so he could hold her comfortably. ]

Your Erik didn't do this.

My Erik is dead. And Rogue. And their cutest baby boy. [Not in her time, but in Kurt's.] This is the Erik I have now. [And he meant something to her. He still does but it all tastes like ashes.]

Hey - look at me.

[ he waits until she does. ]

Your Erik was his own man, this Erik can't replace him, couldn't if he was the most noble mutant to ever live. But if this Erik is someone you believe in, then the reason matters, it matters a lot. I know you don't want to lose him - you've had to do too much of that to force yourself when it may not be absolutely necessary. There's gotta be a reason why Hank, Charles, and Raven aren't kicking him out, right? [ they lived it. if hank is different and erik is different, maybe apocalypse is, too. maybe he somehow wasn't as terrible as he was in kitty's world, maybe he had powers he didn't possess in her world that influenced erik. ]

[Winn, are you actually the voice in the back of her mind? You are saying all the same things. She's just not ready to hear them yet. She holds his gaze and lets him speak.]

If I stop being angry at him, I... [Her voice catches and her eyes say the rest. She's going to cry. She's going to be profoundly sad and she doesn't want to go back there.]

[ yeah, don't you know? that's how he got her to fall in love with him, he just slipped into the back of her mind and kept repeating that winn guy is cute. ]

It's okay -

[ he pulls her back into his arms, holding her comfortingly and kissing the top of her head. ]

I got you. You can let it out. [ the crash is going to happen anyway, the only thing she'll get out of postponing it is an added guilt for being angry at someone when she doesn't feel it's 100% warranted. he knows how she operates, he operates the same way. ]

[She shakes her head against him—after the kiss of course. Her hands curl tightly into his shirt. She's fighting against herself, not ready to let go, but afraid of holding on because everything he's said and thought was right on.]

Why? Why is it always like this? [Disappointment. Compromise. Betrayal. Death.]

I don't know.

[ all he's got is the truth, but kitty usually wants it so he gives it to her. maybe knowing she's not alone in feeling this way will somehow help. ]

I don't know. [ he repeats it. ] It shouldn't be. But all we can control is what we make of it.

[She nuzzles in against his neck. It's still an act of affection, but not so playful or full of desire this time when she does it. It's just about connection and intimacy.]

I didn't want Apocalypse for them. [Any of them. Any other worlds.]

I know.

[ who would? it was bad enough he existed in kitty's world, they would all live happier life if he restricted himself to just that one. the thought of parallels of him existing is horrifying. the thought that maybe one day kara would have to face him to save national city -

no, going down that road isn't going to help kitty, or him, or anyone. he's here for kitty right now and whatever he's feeling, he swallows down. ]

But they're alive. They made it.