fridgetothefire | 009 ☣ Private Messages + Zero spam

009 ☣ Private Messages + Zero spam

[Private text to Lua, Ben, and Alex, with a voice version sent of the same message sent to Cass]

I have a decent stockpile of non-perishable food, bottled water, and an extensive first aid kit in my cabin, 5-13. It's in the cupboards under the window seat. You've all got access. Take it if you need it.

[Private text to Pietro]

Are you busy?

[Private voice to Erik]

If you're not dying, talk to me.

[Despite the demand, her voice is strained, shaky, raspy. She's not going to cry, but she's already been screaming tonight.]

[Zero Spam - arrival - OTA]

She sprawls onto the floor of her cell with a thud, off-balance from the sudden shift in velocity, her hair in a wild mess as though she were caught in a windstorm, her face shocked, her breath coming in shallow gasps. After a few moments of stunned stillness, she drags herself to a corner and curls into as small a space as she can. Keeping her eyes open, She focuses on a point on the far wall, counting her breaths as they slow, trying to figure out what on earth to do next.

[Zero spam - later - OTA]

She's pacing, with long, mathematically precise strides, a look of furious concentration on her face. She's standing rigidly upright, taking up more space than usual, exhausting the confines of her cell. Pained flinches twitch across her face but she doesn't let it break her stride. Sweat trickles down her face but she only brushes it out of her eyes, refusing to even strip off her overshirt. She can see the fire, feel it, hear the jeering. But her body isn't damaged, isn't small enough, doesn't fit into the horrors of memory. She moves and it responds. Step-step-turn, step-step-turn, step-step-turn.

[Zero spam - some other time - OTA]

She's shivering hard, but it's better than the heat. She's learned that practicing her drills to keep warm - anything strenuous enough to get her short of breath - will lead to visions of Castiel choking her again, struggling uselessly while her vision blurred black, caught in a limbo of dying and not quite getting there.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Charles had left Zero only briefly, really, because as much as he wanted to stay and keep helping, he had to sleep and eat at some point, or he'd completely snap. He knew that. And so he'd reluctantly left, gotten a few hours of uneasy rest, and felt a little more human, so when Pietro contacted him for help, he didn't hesitate in suiting back up and rushing back down to Zero.

Not that he would have hesitated even if he felt like a reanimated corpse, because even though he couldn't help but feel disgusted whenever he thought about what Anya had done, she was still just a kid who had already been through hell. She didn't deserve this, this wasn't going to help her, and if there was something he could do to help, however small or large, he'd do it.

So he comes back in and casts about for the cell she's in, rushing over and crouching in front of it, openly concerned.]

Anya? It's Charles. What can I do?

[She's shaking a little, less insensate than before her talk with Erik, but her time so far has been wearing on her. Sometimes her hand twitches toward her neck; she's all scratched there, like she was trying to pry off a grip that didn't exist.]

I don't know. I don't. It's all in my head, right. Telepath versus psychovisions. Don't want to be the battlefield. Who knows what happens.

[That's concerning, and he wonders if he can convince her to let him look at the scratches, maybe clean a few up if necessary with the medical supplies they'd stored in case of emergency, but considering Anya's about as friendly as a stray cat most of the time, he doubts she'll let him get that close to her.

So he just keeps talking to her, keeping his voice level, but still not bothering to filter the concern from her. He wants her to know that she's not alone down here, that she'll be alright, and he wishes he could do more than he already is.]

It is. And I promise you'll get out of here, people are trying to find a way to unlock the cells. Just focus on me, I won't go anywhere unless you want me to.

Can you kill people with your brain?

[It's curt but not cold, like she's flipping through possibilities, like she doesn't want to dwell. She kicks off her shoes and sits cross-legged, back to the wall, folds her hands in her lap and gazes at him. She feels minutely more in control, sitting primly that way, facing him. She flinches faintly away from something Charles can't see, brushing her cheek.]

[He doesn't know why she's asking, and it honestly kind of concerns him, wondering where she could be going with it.

But he doesn't want to lie to her, either, in some ways, and that ends up overwhelming his reluctance to say anything.]

Yes. I've never done it before, and I don't want to. [Holding Shaw down while Erik killed him had been bad enough, had been more than enough to convince him - even if he hadn't thought killing was morally wrong before - that he couldn't kill someone, couldn't be responsible for their deaths no matter who they were or what they did. There had to be another way.] But it's theoretically possible. Why?

It's important to have contingency plans.

I don't - I don't know if resurrection is still working, it's a last resort now.

[She tried to find out but then she came here. She has no idea whether Junko is back, if what happened to her would even count in the same way as a normal death.]

Anya, you'll be alright. You don't need to think that way right now. I know it's difficult- [Because he can remember being held in a cell, hallucinating and wondering if he'd ever get out, if anything would ever be alright again, almost wondering if it would be better if the Vanquish just killed him.] But you'll be alright.

I'm locked in, and no warden can get me out. If whatever charge is being planned right now goes awry, that may not change. I don't want to suffer forever.

[The muscles in her right arm twitch again as she resists shoving away something that her mind knows isn't there.]

I could strangle myself with my shirt in a pinch, but I really hate suffocation. I just want to know my options, okay?

[There's something horribly methodical about the way she says it, thorough and dogged and not overwrought. This is how she's used to thinking. Her breathing slows a little, and her shoulders settle just a bit. This comforts her, knowing there's a way out, even if she can't bring herself to take it, not when it might be permanent.]

Edited 2013-03-31 02:36 (UTC)

Please don't. [He couldn't stop her if she tried, Zero blocked off his abilities just as effectively as Shaw's helmet, and he didn't think he could watch that.

He swallows, trying to look her in the eye as he said it, even though it's still difficult to talk about even on a good day, under the best circumstances, and these definitely are not them.]

I know what this is like. I know how hard it is [And that was definitely not his voice cracking at all, nope.] to go through this, but we will find a way to get you out. You're going to get through this, and it isn't worth dying for.

[She scowls.]

You don't know, if you think that. I'm listening to things - I used to hear them every day, Charles. For years. Oblivion would absolutely be preferable.

And that's when I don't think I'm on fire.

[He doesn't want to argue, and he doesn't want to talk about it, because remembering what happened makes him want to be sick or lock himself in his room, and that's not going to help anyone.]

Please don't.

I'm waiting, okay? I'll see how it plays out. I just don't. I don't like being trapped.

[And it's the last bit where her resigned detachment crumbles, where she sounds like what she is, young and scared.]

I know. I'm sorry. [He's thought, more than once, that maybe he shouldn't be down here, that maybe this all hits too close to home, but he'd ignored it, because just because he'd been kidnapped and tortured for four days, held prisoner with no hope of escape didn't mean he couldn't help people, didn't mean he couldn't try to do something to help the people stuck down here.

Right now, though, he feels like this was all a mistake, because he doesn't know how to help her, and he hates himself and maybe - a tiny, selfish part of him - hates Anya for it too, but mostly he hates her father and the fake Admiral, and he doesn't know what to do to make any of this better, and he wishes he did.] Let me get you some water.

[She swallows, then nods. She and Charles always seem to clash terribly, even when she doesn't want to, though today she can't really blame him for it. There is no good answer, not unless the warden items start working again.]

That would be. Yes, please.

[It really is like an uncomfortable step parent and child relationship, where neither really knows how to act around the other, and Charles finds it frustrating on a good day. Today is definitely not a good day.

He gets up and goes to retrieve a bottle of water and a blanket, just in case, passing both through the bars and sitting back down in front of the bars.]

Pietro called me.

[The temperature has hit a downswing, and she wraps the blanket around herself gratefully, gulping down a mouthful of water and then groaning as she puts together the pieces, realized how it must have ended with him. She'd seen her father, seen him so clearly.]

Oh, god. Can you - tell him I'm sorry?

Of course. [And he's sure she'll have plenty of opportunity to do it herself, when this is over. However long that takes.] He wasn't upset with you though, he was just worried.

[And it's good, that she has someone like that, although he wonders how much Pietro knows, and if he'd be acting the same way if he had the full story. He's certainly not going to be the one to tell him though.]

Right. Okay.

[She worries the edge of the blanket, pretends that it's the reassuring weight of her cape.]

I thought he was - well. He probably told you.

[He nods, not really surprised. Of course she'd see him, if the cell was making her hallucinate. He just hoped Pietro would be alright with that knowledge, considering he had a less than positive relationship with his father.]

Would it help to talk about something else?

Probably.

[She takes another sip.]

I'm not - I'm okay. Erik talked me down some before you arrived.

Good. [That was surprising to hear, in some ways, but certainly not in a bad way (he hoped).]

What would you like to talk about?

[She makes a face for a moment, because she's certain he'll say no, but it's what she wants to talk about, and she's starting to shiver, and she's been fresh out of subtlety since she almost got dragged into the void after Junko, and ended up here instead. She pulls the blanket tighter.]

Will someone please tell me what happened to him? He's different but I don't know why, I don't know how the pieces fit together and it's like, it feels like quicksand. I don't know how to trust it. Alex won't tell me because it's too personal, I am ninety-eight percent certain that I could have gotten him to tell me today because he would have, if I said it made things better but, but it obviously hurt him to say anything about his past at all and I couldn't go through with asking it so can you just - I want to understand him, okay, just a little, just, enough to rely on and know how to avoid the landmines, could you tell me that much?

[It's an outburst born of frustration, but she isn't angry at anyone, not about this. Just struggling and lost.]

[Charles hesitates, licking his lips, because this is all so personal, and he's not sure if Erik would want him to say anything, but it's also entirely possible that Erik would want to tell her and just not be able to. It wasn't something he talked about with anyone. Charles only knew because he'd seen it largely by accident, and it wasn't like they discussed it much after the fact.

So he lets out a breath and just starts talking, almost mechanically.]

His mutation manifested when he was first separated from his parents at Auschwitz. He bent the metal gates as the guards pulled him away from them. A man - Erik knew him as Klaus Schmidt at Auschwitz, but he went by Sebastian Shaw later - who had seen the incident happen brought him into his office and tried to have him replicate what he'd done to the gates by telling him to move a small coin. He couldn't, and so Shaw brought in his mother and told Erik that if he couldn't move the coin on the count of three, he'd shoot his mother. Erik still couldn't move the coin in time.

[And the borrowed memories were so clear, it almost felt like he could hear Shaw counting - ein, zwei - and the gun shot, the body hitting the floor, as if he'd been there himself.]

Shaw spent the next year torturing him, trying to figure out how far Erik's abilities could be pushed by any means necessary. When he wasn't being hurt by Shaw, he was forced into working as a sonderkommando at the camp. Shaw abandoned him as the Red Army advanced, and Erik was selected with a group of others to dig their own grave and be shot before the Russians could liberate the camp. He was able to stop the bullet, but had to dig himself out of the mass grave it pushed him into after lying under the bodies of the others and pretending to be dead for hours. [And that made him want to be sick as he said it out loud, that people could be that heartless, that so many people had just been wiped off the face of the earth like they didn't matter, and again, the memories made it seem like he'd been there, biting his tongue bloody to keep from screaming or crying even though there are bodies on top of you.

He forces himself to talk past the sudden nausea, not really looking at Anya as he continues.]

He spent most of his life after the camp was liberated hunting down and killing the people responsible, and trying to find Shaw to make him pay for what he did to his mother. Last year, he met me, and we stopped Shaw from starting nuclear war.

[She listens, solemn and quiet but not shocked. After Charles finishes she lets the silence spool out a little, letting herself process the horrors in the words, offer them some small due of vigil. And for all the horror - it does stitch together different things she's learned, brings Erik into clearer relief. When she speaks, it's soft, with the sort of incisive, sympathetic insight she so rarely allows herself about her own family.]

Oh. I think - my parents rarely talked about it. But I know Mama was the only one that survived, that he knew. And I don't think he was singled out. He didn't know what he could do until - until I was a child.

[But Charles knows that story already.]

I think part of him hated himself a lot, after he realized, for not knowing sooner, not stopping what happened. Sometimes I wonder if that's part of why he treated us the way he did. If humans weren't worth saving, was it easier to live with, that he hadn't?

Maybe. I've heard far less rational justifications for discriminatory behavior. [It's certainly possible, although he still sort of hopes he never has the chance to ask the man in person all the same.

He could leave it at that, but for some reason, he keeps talking, thoughtful and sad, still not really looking at Anya.]

For Erik - for my Erik - I think it was just too hard to forgive the American and Soviet navies when they fired on us. He told me he knew they would, that I was naive for thinking they wouldn't, and I just think he couldn't handle the idea of watching the people he cared about get hurt again, or be hurt himself now that he had the power to do something about it. He couldn't do that when he was at Auschwitz, but he could in Cuba.

But he didn't hate Moira, and he doesn't hate you, or his parents or Magda. I think he's just afraid of what people's fear and prejudice makes them capable of, and thinks it's better to hit back first before they have a chance to hurt you at all.

009 ☣ Private Messages + Zero spam

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