(no subject)

[complicatedliar]

Who: Anyone who wants to hang on the Iskaulit
Broadcast: nah
Action: Iskaulit mingle, darlings
When: All day every day (at least for the month)

[We're drifting, so it's a perfect time to make use of the many fine establishments on our common ship.]

Comments

Library

[passingthrough]

[It feels strange being out and about in this masculine body. People who would normally recognize her don't and yet she feels like everyone is staring too. She hasn't been this self conscious of what she looks like since she had a crush on Piotr as a girl much too young for him.

But she could be like this for a week or more (please be less!) so she should at least get some reading material if she's going to hide away. She can't casually send Winn to the Iskaulit for her. He's still dealing with PTSD from Sascha's attack there. So, here she is in the borrowed flesh and borrowed clothes. She manages to make Winn's wardrobe look different on her with the way she styles it.

She's browsing the stacks when she comes right up on Erik and her breath catches. It may look like just the surprise of running into someone when you thought you were alone, but of course it's more for her. So many feelings about this man and what he's done for better and for worse.]

...Hi.

[exothermia]

[Absorbed in his survey of a gardening book, Erik glances up with slight surprise when the man speaks to him. There's something familiar about his face, but Erik can't place it. Someone he spoke to once ten years ago, perhaps.]

Good morning.

[passingthrough]

[The lack of recognition surprises Kitty. But who is going to guess a guy is actually a girl you know who was yelling at you last time you spoke. Especially if he didn't see the extremely embarrassing accidental video yesterday. She's so glad he didn't see it and she's not sure if that's because it was something she'd never want any Erik to see or because it means she can blow this off and act like they didn't just run into him. She stands there too long saying nothing but looking like she might.]

Um...you read about gardening?

[exothermia]

[The silence stretches on a bit too long, and Erik's uncertain. He can't shake the feeling he should know who this is. He glances back to the book in his hand, about vegetable gardening.]

Sometimes. I don't really do it anymore. [Not since Poland. His finger taps uneasily against the spine of the book, and he decides to ask.] I'm sorry, but have we met before?

[passingthrough]

Yes. [So much for walking away. But somehow something as small as lying about that felt like too much. He served Apocalypse and she couldn't even tell him they hadn't met. It feels ridiculous.] I'm not really myself today.

[exothermia]

[Not really themselves? Erik's brow furrows and he pays more attention, tries to tally what's familiar and what's not. And it's only the fact that years ago he had experienced this same issue in reverse that makes it click. Kitty.

His grip tightens slightly on the book and something a little rigid overtakes his expression. He manages not to step back, even though he wants to. If he had known from the start, he wouldn't have answered. Would have moved off immediately. As it is, he doesn't know what to say in response.]

[passingthrough]

That looks like recognition. [She ducks her head.]

I heard Kurt hit you. [Her voice—while not her own—sounds mostly neutral. No gloating and no sympathy.]

[exothermia]

[After a protracted moment, Erik turns back to the shelves, returning the book to its place.]

What about it?

[passingthrough]

[She's quiet a moment because there's really nothing to say about it. There's no conversation there. She doesn't need to apologize on behalf of Kurt. She's not his keeper. It was just a punch. There's nothing she needs to know. She just didn't know what to say to him. She wasn't ready for this.

Was she ever going to be ready for this?]

I don't know. Nothing.

[exothermia]

[Erik lets his hand linger on the spine of the book, not willing to look anywhere else yet. He hadn't thought about what he would do if he ran into Kitty or Kurt again. 'When' he did, which he really should have expected. It's a small Fleet, and the number of mutants smaller still. Even so, he had approached it as a one-and-done conversation. He'd given them no reasons to speak to him again.]

I'm fine with it. [He taps his finger on the book, an agitated movement.] It's only a punch.

[passingthrough]

[She almost says that Charles didn't think so, but Erik can't speak for Charles anymore than she could speak for Kurt when he threw it at her.]

Yeah. [She didn't think he'd be carrying a grudge about it and she finds she's also relieved he's not for some reason. Could be she still cares what he thinks. Of course she does.]

This is awkward. [Just saying the thing she's thinking. And she knows it would be awkward if she was in he regular body too, but she's sure this makes it worse somehow. Just an extra layer of feeling vulnerable.]

[exothermia]

[It certainly is. For so many reasons. Erik shuts his eyes and lets out a breath. There are any number of things he could say, ranging from "I'll go" to "What were you expecting?" Things have ... settled, somewhat, since his first turbulent days back in the Fleet. Hindsight has whispered to him that maybe he shouldn't have launched straight into his confession to Kitty and Kurt so soon after arriving. He knows, though, that he would never have let them be oblivious to this. No matter how much better it might have been.

Finally he looks at her, familiar yet not in that male body. He goes with the truth, as he usually does.]

I can't make it less so.

[passingthrough]

I know.

[Stay. Go. Speak. Why are choices hard?]

How... How have you been?

[exothermia]

[Good question. He thinks he's better than he was. That doesn't speak to how well he is, because he knows he's not well. There's an underlying sense that he isn't.]

All right. [There's a lot more he could say, but he won't.]

[passingthrough]

...Good. Good. [It felt stronger the second time.]

How long had it been since he died before you were all back?

[exothermia]

About... two months. [That was how long it had taken to return, to rebuild the mansion, for the school to get back into some semblance of normality. For Erik to leave once again.]

[passingthrough]

What did you do in those months? [Wondering how that time defined him. If he could have been working with sick orphans all the better really. Something to hold on to and make this easier.]

[exothermia]

[He looks over at Kitty finally, wondering at the line of inquiry.]

I helped rebuild the mansion - the school. It had been destroyed.

[passingthrough]

[Does she get any points for not asking if he helped destroy it in the first place.]

Good. Were you going to stay after it was repaired?

[exothermia]

[That honour goes to Alex Summers in a fit of bad timing. He falls silent at the question, looking away again. There's so much more to the answer than he's comfortable giving.]

No... I left.

[passingthrough]

...You shouldn't be alone.

[exothermia]

[He has to wonder. So often he's thought the opposite, that being alone would at least spare other people the collateral damage of being around him. It's a feeling he tries to quash, because he knows at heart that he's not alone. Raven and Charles had shown him that, though it took him a while to see. In another way... he already was alone. And that was one of the reasons he had left the school.

He looks at Kitty out of the corner of his eye, and his reply is quiet but unyielding.]

There were things I needed to do on my own.

[passingthrough]

They wanted you to stay. [They didn't say that to her, but the way they are all on the same ship now feels like it's true. The way they defend him to her says they're protective and forgiving. More so than she's ready to be so she uses what she thinks is their voice instead of her own.

Besides, he was alone when he chose Apocalypse, right? It just makes good strategic sense.]

[exothermia]

[His jaw tightens slightly, and he can feel nerves skitter along his skin. What she's saying is the truth. "I don't suppose I can convince you to stay?" Charles had said, eyes too bright, but Erik's decision had already been made. To go back to Poland one more time, to get the space he needed (wanted?) to sort himself out. He hadn't asked any of them if they wanted him to stay. None of them had outright said it. It wasn't the way things were between any of them (not anymore).]

It's like I said. And leaving doesn't mean I can't return. [That last is almost too personal, for how things stand between them, but it's not some great secret. He had already come back twice, when it had always seemed he'd never go back.]

[passingthrough]

No, it just makes it harder.

But you're here now. [And leaving isn't an option. Hiding is about as close as it comes. The place is too small. Too easy to bump into people. You can't really be gone here. Space isn't the place for needing your space.

It seems cruel though. You're practically forced to work out your issues here and then what? Just to be sent home and have all that erased, compounding your memories with choices you might have never made if you could have been the person you became here? Only to get forced to go through it again?]