bakerstreet | thursday pic prompt

thursday pic prompt

the picture prompt meme

i. COMMENT WITH CHARACTER
ii. OTHERS LEAVE A PICTURE (OR TWO OR THREE....)
iii. REPLY TO THEM WITH A SETTING BASED ON THE IMAGES.

THIS POST WILL BE IMAGE HEAVY.

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[I *wish* I could go for a whole month! I'm excited for my 15 days... it's a lot of money but this is my dream vacation. Going to do so many things I've always dreamed of being able to do there including to one of the oldest onsens out in the mountains! Also yesssss I would love an insiders opinion on the places to go in London instead of the typical touristy things.]

"I do not need to be asleep, only able to touch you. Your room would be fine, so you can lay down in the state you require." It seemed simple enough, but Charles was... excited. Honestly, this would be the sort of situation perhaps he would never get to experience again and while in reality, he was a little bit over his head in a manner he didn't understand. That unknown was exhilarating, in its own way. All of this was.

It would go as it went, and he would learn as it happened, in the end. Still, he gave a smile and a quick nod, quite pleased about the whole of this. Aurus' open willingness to this was a pleasant surprise, and the other's open mind and way of speaking had proven to be fascinating. It was rare, though he would not have said so to any, to find a mind on an equal level to his own. Erik had been, had given him a challenge, a partnership, that had not come since. Aurus, he was finding, was decidedly able to not only keep up but proved an equal in thought.

[i will HAPPILY become one of you XD]

A long moment of silence certainly wasn't the response he'd been expecting. Nonetheless, it made him wish he'd curbed his curiosity a little better and kept quiet on the matter. He opened his mouth as if he were going to tell Charles to not worry about it, but his tongue went dry and the words died in his throat. So much for that and trying to take it back was out of the question; it was a bit too late for that now.

Kurt pursed his lips together, teeth clenching behind them, the free hand resting in his lap curling into a loose fist. He silently watched his teacher, trying to decide if he'd stepped on any toes or not and the only time he relaxed again was when the man eventually responded. "I see," he uttered, eyebrows knitting together in contemplation. "The first group of X-Men, correct?" Raven had spoke of them on the warplane when they had gone to Cairo to retrieve Charles and battle En Sabah Nur.

Swallowing past the forming lump in his throat at that memory, he released his breath in a huff and nodded in agreement. "Approaching with caution is always a good idea, but ... never with fear, ja?"

At least, that's what he'd been telling himself after that battle.

[Yeah, our whole trip was crazy expensive too. It's 100% worth the cost though. We went to Yuenessun in Hakone for our onsen experience--it looks a little gimmicky on the surface but it was absolutely incredible. I'm sure wherever you go will be amazing, and you can see tons of stuff in 15 days! I will send you a PM at some point with loads of London tl;dr--there's too much to put here. Also, how did your yard sale go over the weekend?? I was thinking of you when it poured rain here on Saturday. I hope your weather luck was better!]

"Agreed."

It did all sound very simple on the surface, and really the mechanism wasn't complicated. Complicated was everything else--the magics, the metaphysics, the ideas and the feelings that the whole experience would undoubtedly invoke for them both. It was an unknown for Aurus as well, but arguably he was better prepared, if only because he was ready for whatever happened to deeply touch both of them.

He was also--and perhaps this was really a bit sneaky of him--very well aware that as far as quid pro quos went, he was now in quite an advantageous position. He meant to make good on the opportunity their path had opened for him, not to back Charles into a corner or pin him down, but simply to assert that they were going to stand on even ground as far as learning about each others lives went.

"And now I'd like to ask you something," he said. "I know you've said that you'd prefer not to be asked prying questions, so I hope you'll forgive me for this one: That--" he paused a moment to remember the word Charles had used earlier, "--photography of you standing by the blond haired woman. That's a likeness from a time when you could walk.

"Would you tell me what happened--how you came to lose the use of your legs?"

You're sweet. But you know I can't exactly run off with you or anyone when my customers need me here!

[Yeah. Whether she is taking it seriously or as a joke akin to the likes of Ling's proposal, well. Her heart has always belonged to Ed, for all that she is well aware her customers adore her and admire her skills. As close as she is to Jaune.]

[*CHEERS!*]

"The first group," he confirmed quietly. It hurt, still, to think on how proud they all had been, how ready they had been to make a difference in the world. They had tried, they had recruited... he thought of those young men and women who had died trying to do something they would be proud of. A sacrifice that shouldn't have had to be made. His eyes briefly focused on Kurt, studying his face. "How did you know of them?" Raven hadn't mentioned that little story when they were on the way to save his life, and that of the rest of the world's.

"Fear means doubt, it means a lack of understanding, it means reactions we wouldn't wish of ourselves. Caution, readiness, and trust in your fellow teammates... those are the things that will get you through the fight." He gave a brief, tight smile. "Something I hope the danger room is teaching you?" He kept his voice low on the question, but pushing a little towards a lighter thought.

[We're going up to the Takaragawa Osenkaku in Minakami! I'm beyond super stoked. Sadly, the yard sale didn't happen for exactly that reason. ;__; it poured. However, my SO is now moved in and I cooked her dinner, we made cupcakes for my birthday tomorrow, and watched a movie. Still a good day over all!]

Really, that was a question he hadn't been expecting but on reflection, he probably should have. Here it boiled down to three options - it was someone who had been there for the experience and knew the answer, someone who assumed he had been born with this disability, or someone who didn't know but believed in the social agreement not to ask about such a thing. Aurus was neither of the first two and technically not bound by the same socialital agreement of the culture. "Photograph," he corrected quietly. "The item itself is a photograph. Photography is the art of taking a photograph." Very much a teacher.

He leaned back, looking over to that picture of himself when he was young, less scarred physically and mentally by the world, and Raven was by his side with the world as his oyster. The old twin serpents of anger and frustration rose up in him at the memory, replaying in his mind as the distance memory of searing pain arched through him and the terrifying realization he couldn't feel his legs as he laid there on the damp sand of a Cuba beach, not even as Erik pulled the bullet from his spine. One the arm of his chair, his fingers tightened hard in unconscious response and it took effort to push it all back. It didn't work completely; his gaze stayed haunted.

"...an accident," he finally said, after a steadying breath that was anything but. "A stray bullet-- projectile." He wasn't sure if guns and bullets were even a thing in the world Aurus came from. "There was-" Nothing would ever make this easier, would it? Even years later. "It was an instant severing of key nerves. They regrew, after time, but the connection between mind and body was... gone." It was why Hank's drug had worked. Somehow, it brought back to life that connection in a way they could not replicate otherwise... but took his power from him. Giving with one hand, taking with the other. For a time, he had been more than happy to pay that price in the rage that came from his loss and what his powers had cost him and the others.

[Ahh that's an area we didn't go to at all. Closest we got was Nikko, where we stayed in the most amazing historic self-catering cottage out in a little farming village. Japan has some of the most beautiful mountains I have seen anywhere, so I'm sure going farther into them will only get more grand! Boo on rain, but happy birthday!! and also hurrah for getting the move sorted!]

As he listened, Aurus gave a small nod of understanding--they had guns in Tyria. Conceptually, he had no trouble knowing just what Charles meant.

The real meaning, though, was not in the gunshot or the severing of nerves. It was in the cruel irony: Charles had lost the connection between body and mind, while in its place, the connection between mind and mind--his and others'--flourished. Of course Aurus didn't know how literally true this irony was, that Charles had to make the choice between his legs and his powers. To him it seemed only to have the force of a metaphor, but it was a powerful metaphor.

It was also, in its way, exactly what he had been waiting for: a crack in the facade through which another side of Charles was revealed.

It mattered very much, Aurus felt, that neither of them were inviolable. For all their mutual confidence and composure, neither of them had been untouched by life. Charles, arguably, was more damaged. Not physically damaged, Aurus didn't think of him that way--but his emotional wounds were still more raw, whereas Aurus's had spent more time working over his own. Perhaps, he thought, that might mean the incipient connection between them could become a sort of balm. But no salve would ever help unless the wound was cleaned and exposed first.

Reaching out, he placed his hand over Charles' where it gripped the arm of his chair. It was a risk, he knew--the man might recoil, pull away from him, but he chose to do it anyway. "I'm sorry. Chance can be very cruel." He meant these words in earnest, and they were reflected in his eyes which looked at Charles not with pity but with empathy and that same timbre of warmth that they'd held before this tale was told. However haunted Charles might be, it was by specters of which Aurus was not daunted.

[Our list right now is Tokyo, then up to the onsen, out to Osaka after that, I'm making the day trip down to Nara, then to Eko-in where we'll be staying over night in the temple. ^_^ So happy the move is over and she's even happier. And Thanks!]

Everything was made all that much worse by the situation that surrounded the injury - that it was Erik's callousness that had caused it, that Moira had been firing at him, that any of that had been happening... that part, no. He hadn't discussed with anyone at all. It hurt too deep, was the subject of nightmares. It had all led to his absolute willingness to keep taking that drug, more and more, without a care to the loss of his powers until Logan had come and forced him to realize what was going on his world. Quite the blow, in some ways, to get him to wake up out of his own spiral downwards into anger and self-pity.

Ironic, perhaps, that while Aurus didn't believe him physically damage, it would be many, many years before Charles didn't think the same of himself.

Aurus would feel it beneath his fingertips as Charles' muscles tensed further, that initial flinch away from the comforting touch, before he calmed the reaction and left his hand where it was, though he did loosen the grip he had on the armrest. His gaze tilted enough to meet Aurus' foreign eyes, recognizing the expression in them without even needing to reach out to the other's mind. He took a breath, managed to keep his voice level. "...It can be, but... what's done is done." It wasn't something to push onto someone else, to force them to deal with his demons. His was supposed to be the strength of this place, and to undermine it with things he could not control would leave him in that place he had been before.

I know. And that's why I'll stay right here too. Someone's gotta keep you on your feet.

[He laughs, reaching out to playfully tweak her big toe.]

[Ahh your route is totally different from ours--we skipped Osaka, went down to Shikoku, stayed in Matsuyama, took the ferry to Hiroshima and stayed on Miyajima for a few nights, then north along the coast to the Sea of Japan and did Kyoto on the way back. We did lots of train riding lol.]

The interpersonal elements at work in the events surrounding Charles' injury were something that Aurus could never possibly guess. Probably no one could, at least without having known all the people involved when it happened.

What he could sense in the momentary tensing of Charles' hand, however, seemed to compound an impression he'd already gotten about the interpersonal dynamics at play in the present: Hank might be a sort of right hand in the running of this school, but when it came to the more personal side of things, Charles bore the weight on his own shoulders alone. He wasn't used to talking about this issue or touching this pain in the presence of others.

Maybe, Aurus reasoned, it was the reality of this world that made the man treat himself like he had to be the emotional rock for those around him. It was hardly Aurus's place to say otherwise. But as he was an outsider to this world he could also confidently say that Charles didn't need to be an emotional rock for him.

"You'll forgive me saying, but 'what's done is done' cannot alone bring you peace or comfort in your skin." Leaning slightly forward in his chair, he let his hand continue to rest where it was, his fingertips on the contours of Charles wrist, his palm lightly covering the man's knuckles. It was a soft touch, and Aurus's skin was slightly cool on the surface, like a leaf in the shade, but his hand was big and it had the weight of living wood--not like a tree trunk, but like a thick braid of vines.

Maybe he should back off rather than press on this point, but though Charles had begun to flinch away, in the end he'd paused and let this touch of their hands continue. Perhaps he was only forcing himself out of politeness. It was hard to say--this could all be Aurus badly overstepping. But it was clear to him that if he didn't take the risk, Charles would retreat into himself rather than do so. If he caused offense, the sylvari figured he would simply apologize. "I may not know you very well yet, but I'll be so bold as to suggest that I might have something to offer you. If, that is, you'll be so bold as to accept."

[♥!]

At the time, he'd had so many questions to ask about the X-Men and what had happened to all of them, although such things were put aside with an upcoming battle. Dipping his head, Kurt twisted the fork through his ravioli, engrossed with the thoughts of the other mutants that had fought for them to live peacefully - many of whom had lost their lives because of it. He brought his attention back to Charles, vision half-obscured by the bangs hanging across the right side of his face. "Raven," he paused, wondering if that sounded too informal before correcting himself, "Miss Darkholme told us a bit about them on the ride to Cairo."

Fear was something he felt he would be working on pushing through for a long time, but more often than not, he knew that if he was alongside his teammates whenever trouble would arise, they would be able to get through anything they set their minds to. Like Charles had said: trust was definitely part of the team and from what he could tell, they were all doing well with that. He finally straightened back up, a slight lift in his own lips at the mention of training. "Ja! It's helped quite a bit, actually."

I have plenty keeping me on my feet. But you're right. At least amid all the customers and Ed and Al's visits, I have you to help keep me somewhat sane.

[Mostly during the whirlwind that is Ed and his usual need for getting his repairs done as fast as possible, of course.]

[They were both pretty lost and sometimes that just made the other one even more lost. But they never gave up, not on each other, and they came through it together and that, she thinks, says everything.

She's so very glad he's found himself. She's so very glad he's here with her.

And she really enjoys it when his fingers move through her hair too, sending tingles up the back of her neck and across her scalp. He could do that more and she wouldn't mind.

Except that's a little forward to say and so she just enjoys it while he does it and then follows him over to the table to settle down in one of the chairs. She gives her hair a little swish at his comment that makes it wave against the back of her chair.]

Only if I wash it and go stand outside afterward. I don't think I'm going to do that tonight. [It does bring back a memory though and she adds a little softly.] I like your hair short. The pony tail was cute but... I like the way it is now.

[We're hitting up Osaka because we have a friend who lives there, actually! Your trip sounds absolutely amazing... ug I wish I had all the time in the world to see the entire country! Also, if I haven't said it enough, I love this thread. ^_^]

Sometimes, to his own discredit, Charles underestimated Hank. In so many ways, Hank had been his rock after the Cuba incident and it could be quite literally that Hank was the reason he was alive. The school had been shut down upon his return mostly thanks to Hank, who in turn basically became his caretaker. He wouldn't have bothered going out to get groceries or eaten or cared, in any way, if it wasn't for his friend. His sorrow and loss and pity had been too much to bear at the time, and he had sunk beneath those dark waves. Hank had kept them both going, still working on the serum that had eventually given each of them their own measure of sanity (though in reality, perhaps not the best for Charles), still being a lifeline into the world.

With that behind them, with the knowledge of the future, he knew he had to be the backbone to this school if he truly wanted it to exist. The students needed someone strong, reliable, calm. How could he be anything less?

Charles' expression went from that smoldering sadness within to a rapid confusion, studying Aurus' face and trying to divine from what he saw alone what Aurus could have meant by that. "Peace and comfort... are far from a guarantee from anything in life," he pointed out, a part of him wanting nothing more than to with draw his words from before. This was a subject he wanted away from, both for his own selfish reasons as much as not wanting to burden it upon Aurus.

Beneath Aurus' fingertips was his opposite - the boney but wide wrist, the warmth of vein and artery and blood - but it didn't pull away any further. Not out of politeness, but more out of confusion and a lack of fear even as Aurus leaned forward. "What are you suggesting?" he asked quietly, not sure what Aurus could be thinking. After all, so very many of the things Aurus had spoken of thus far had been quite alien (including drugs, less alien) and he had little idea of what moved behind those strange eyes. It took a great deal of effort not to reach out in that moment, to find out for himself like he might have with Hank or Raven, but something kept him within.

[We were very lucky on time--I'd just finished my PhD and my partner was just about to start his MA so we had this gap between things (plus an old friend who had to be home in Tokyo for a month and encouraged us lol). We could happily have stayed longer everywhere though. We just didn't want to leave. Also, this thread is absolutely giving me life right now, omg <3]

Though Aurus truly wouldn't have minded if Charles searched his thoughts for an answer, it would also have pleased him very much to know that he did not, that he chose to accept and maintain the boundaries out of a mutual respect that was growing between them and not out of any blunt demand.

Of course he couldn't know this for certain, but he trusted Charles, and he trusted his gut feeling that there was no duplicity here.

In a way, Aurus felt, what he was suggesting was already underway. It was there in that moment when the sadness in Charles's eyes shifted. You didn't have to replace sadness with joy for a difference to be made, after all. A difference was made regardless.

Besides, in Aurus's opinion, uncertainly was one of the most useful and productive postures a person could be in. To be at ease in uncertainty was to be alive in a world of wide open possibilities. It was the sort of thing he liked.

He ran a fingertip over the contours of Charles' wrist, following the lines to the outside, the heel of his hand, the edge of his palm and slowly down his little finger, hooking his own hand smoothly under Charles' so that the pads of their fingers rested against each other. It was a chaste touch, technically. But it would be hard to escape the erotic potentials it implied.

"I find it feels so clumsy to put words to these sorts of things." He smiled, knowing that Charles would take from this garden of hints precisely as much as he was willing to take, and not wanting to press him towards more.

"I suppose that I'm suggesting we allow tonight to lead us and see where we might find ourselves in its wake."

[That IS lucky! It's a perfect set up! It took... a lot of years and some luck to finally end up in a job that gave me enough vacation + enough money to be able to actually travel. I'm so damn happy to be in it. XD Also I apologize for Charles. He's... got a lot to get over. *pats him*]

The sheer amount of thoughts that crossed Charles' mind in that moment was both comical and staggering. They ranged from a cool, calm, collected 'it seems my first intuition was correct' to a near panicked non-thought of recoil that came from somewhere deep inside that came and went so quickly that it left him frozen in place. There was no mistaking what Aurus was suggesting at that point, not with that more explict suggestion hanging in the air between them. He let out a slow breath, feeling it rattle in his throat, before he swallowed it down, eyes still locked to Aurus'.

"...Aurus..." Raven would have thought it hysterical to see Charles on the receiving end of flirtations when he was so blindsided by it. He took a few moments, eyes slipping closed, before he spoke again. "I think... you are asking for things..." No. Where had his silvertongue gone? Why did it desert him now of all times? Then, with a tightening in his throat, his head turned to the side. "You don't understand what you're asking for."

He had most certainly not had any sort of relations since the accident. What he did know was that he still functioned, but it was... clumsy. Without the use of his legs, even with himself alone it became rough, clumsy, and frustrating. He could imagine the disaster it would be with another involved. Why would someone want such an experience? That roll of negative emotion threatened him all over again, but he swallowed the bitter pill until it sat rolling in his stomach. "Not that I'm not honored, truly." He was being honest with that, but he believed he knew how it would end.

[One thing I will say for England (at least right now--who knows what will happen in the next few years), there's actually really good assurances for workers that they'll get paid annual holiday time. It's like 23 days a year of paid annual leave, so if you bank it up you can take one loooong holiday! The US system is much more brutal. Also, poor Charles. Not to worry though, Aurus is very patient.]

Not for a moment did Aurus consider accepting that answer at face value. To let go at that point, it seemed to him, would be a very cruel act indeed. So he didn't let go, instead closing his grip steadily on Charles' fingers. "Look at me." It was an earnest request but certainly not a demand.

"I'm not naive, Charles. And I do know how human bodies work--I know a few things about how human minds tend to work when it comes to the topic of sex, too. You tend to all have tunnel vision on the mechanisms of reproduction even when you're not trying to make babies." Clearly, judging by his tone, Aurus considered this focus to be a bit silly and misguided.

"Being a sexually sterile race gives one a rather different perspective. So, let me speak bluntly: the fact of you coming to my room tonight for purposes of visiting the Dream notwithstanding, on the subject of inviting you into my bed, I have been, and still remain, undecided. I hadn't phrased my offer as such because I really wasn't sure what I thought you'd make of the idea.

"That isn't to say that you've misunderstood me, though. You've understood me perfectly. You've only construed my meaning in its narrowest and most restrictive terms, for it's only in those terms where anatomical questions take the foreground to begin with."

Here he released his hold of Charles' hand, but only to reach out, to touch the back of his elbow and then, leaning forward a little more, to brush his fingers down the man's jaw.

It mattered very much to him that Charles had not declined on the basis of a lack of attraction or interest, but rather on a perception of limits and inadequacies. That made all the difference in the world. It was why he persisted even in the face of an initial refusal, now looking searchingly into the man's eyes with an expression that tried to draw out something less defeated, something more hopeful: "Please do not tell me, with everything that you can do and everything that you know, that you're still laboring under the misconception that your cock is your most important or most powerful erotic organ."

[I have 12 days this year, 13 next year... goes up by 1 each year. We don't have sick time, though, which is awesome. If you're sick, stay home or go home, don't get everyone else sick. Doesn't come out of our vacation time. Also, I am pretty sure the last bit of your post killed me. Ded. I know it's serious but I just ended up laughing really hard because I wasn't expecting it, so you win the thread. XD]

It took a moment, two, but Charles' eyes did open and look to Aurus' face. He wasn't ashamed of that offer or of the act itself, but it all came from himself. If it had been years before, he would have given a cool smirk and taken the suggestion on easily enough, happily flirted right back. He had no personal experience with males when it came to the physical, but there was so much more when it came to the mental. In so many ways, Aurus was very much right, and the logical part of Charles knew it to be true. It was what had brought two men like Erik and Charles together - that deeper connection, the intellect, the same emotional level of understanding, and commitment to their cause. In this case, he could feel the beginnings of this with Aurus. It bypassed most normal means of 'attraction' and became something in of itself. Really, even physically, there was that age old curiosity of wanting to see more of something unknown and new.

Within Charles, though, that not-so-old anger crept into his voice, a certain bitterness slipping in. In time, he would be a master of controlling such a thing, but for now he was still a young man. "No," he said tightly, lips thinning, "however, there is connection. You do not understand what you are asking of me. There's a great deal I'm no longer... capable of." It hurt. It hurt on a level he couldn't quite express even to himself to utter those words aloud that he knew (believed). "There is that connection of mind and body that would come and in the end, be... lacking." The word was almost spat, shone in his eyes. It wasn't meant to be cruel, but perhaps a touch edged, cutting away the touch on his jaw and the kindness in Aurus' eyes because all of this was pulling open on the unhealed wound.

[Not having sick time come out of vacation time is a huge boon in a US job! That's awesome! (Here it's just a legal matter--they can't take sick days out of your vacation time. You're simply legally entitled to be sick without penalty.) And hahaha! It didn't even occur to me that it would be unexpected--maybe I'm too used to Aurus and what a weirdo he is lol!]

Aurus let his hand fall away and he sat back in his chair with a small sigh. Not a defeated sigh though. He could accept Charles' anger, his bitterness--he didn't even take those personally. He appreciated that he was opening wounds, treading on insecurities, and it didn't matter how lightly he tried to step when the terrain was so sensitive. That didn't mean he was going to be easily backed off now that he'd opened this door though.

"I don't believe that," he said frankly. "And I don't believe that I would judge you anywhere near as harshly as you judge yourself. There may well be differences in what your body now can do--I won't say otherwise, but I will not concede it as a matter of 'lack.'

"I won't concede that you are forever barred from erotic pleasure due to a stray bullet either, if only because it seems to me that someone should insist that you're wrong on that point.

"For sylvari, sex is a way of expressing joy and affection and living pleasure, and I don't think that a day goes by when someone doesn't invent a new way to have it. So if you're going to try and convince me that that chair you're in means the doors are all closed to you, I'm afraid you're going to have a very hard uphill battle."

[It is! I love it so much. And honestly, that should be how it is for the whole of the US. My old company would give us three sick days a year. THREE. That was it. Charles is just in deep in his own sadface.]

"It isn't that simple!" Charles said with far more of a snap than he truly meant to. He looked hard towards Aurus, his eyes narrowed, the set of his mouth tight. "You make it sound like merely an inconvience, something to be dismissed in order to achieve something else. What I am and am not forever barred from isn't the point, but you have no idea of what it is, what it feels like-"

His voice clipped off as he turned his head away again, a hand coming up to run through his hair in a gesture that attempted to settle his nerves while it pushed aside strands of hair out of place. There was that feeling of anger that came with Aurus even suggesting such a thing when he had no idea what it was to live like this. To have lost something so personal, sometimes that it felt like the loss of half of his own body. Still there and yet infinitely far away.

He guided his chair back, turning it and rolling to the nearby window, eyes focusing on the lush greenery outside while his hand came up, covering his mouth. Becoming cross like that with someone he barely knew was not his way. ...At least not for some time, now. He could remember snapping so easily at Hank for a while.

[Srsly. These are the things that really worry my partner and I if we do move over to the states. They're also the things that make me willing to put up with a lot of less-than-ideal stuff in the UK. And oh Charles, I feel so bad for him. Poor guy.]

It might have seemed strange how accepting Aurus seemed to be of Charles' anger, just letting it calmly break on him like a wave on the shore, as though he didn't take being snapped at personally at all. He was sorry, on the one hand, for causing this sort of emotional turmoil, but on the other hand, he wasn't sorry in the least. He might be receiving Charles' anger in this moment, but he didn't feel that he was really the target of it.

The more they spoke, the more keenly Aurus felt the weight of all the unresolved hurt and rage that Charles kept bottled inside. It rested around the man's shoulders like a mantle, disguised beneath his composure and deportment. If Aurus had known the situation more intimately--known who Erik was and the past that he'd lived through--he might have pointed out to Charles how ironically like him he'd become in his response to pain and loss. But of course he didn't know.

He gave the man a moment at the window before he spoke again, still seated where he was. Now, he felt, was not the time to press the physical. In this moment, his tactic should be different.

"You're right--I don't know what it feels like. I lost my arm once. My student cut it off while we were sparring. It took nearly three months for it to grow back, but it did grow back. It's not the same.

"It is not my intention to trivialize what you have to live with. But I have no doubts at all that the physical limitations aren't absolute. I think you know that too, even without me telling you. So I can only believe that there is something else--a pain that frightens you too much, something that happened to you beyond the injury itself. Injuries, after all, do tend to become magnets for all sorts of meanings.

"I don't ask for you to tell me about it. I don't think we know each other well enough for that yet. But if, in time, you decide to speak of it with me, I assure you that I will listen."

[I don't blame you, honestly. @_@ I've never gotten to play out Charles and sex when he was in his chair, so this is actually really interesting for me to try. I hope it's something like authentic.]

Really, the snapping wasn't personal. It was anger at the situation, anger about his own feelings of helplessness, anger at why it had to happen at all. Maybe the anger was at one man, a selfish, childish thought when he knew Erik had meant nothing of the sort. He had knelt there beside him, looking as terrified as he felt--

In another situation, it would have absolutely fascinated Charles to know more about the regrowth that Aurus was capable of and curious to find out more about it (though he would never range into that psychotic manner of needing to know first hand). In another situation. When he wasn't trying to push down again everything that wasn't just threatening to well up but was in a manner that almost disgusted him to feel again. He wanted to believe himself better than the seething pit he had been years before, even if perhaps it wasn't true all the way through.

He licked his lips, a sign of his nerves, as he stared blankly out the window. Everything outside was as it should be - tranquil, peaceful, sunshine, and calm. Everything he didn't feel in that moment and should.

"...It goes beyond the injury. Imagine if you could never speak to the Legends again, or Dream again, or travel the Mists again. A part of you is gone." Hoping that might explain it all for him in a few words, something he didn't know how fully to explain. "...that's all there is."

[He groans and then chuckles at that comment. He was so embarrassing when he was young. What made him think that ponytail was a good idea, let alone the terrible mullet when his hair was loose at that length?]

That ponytail was terrible. Mom thought it looked great, though.

[He smiles a bit wistfully. Reminiscing about the past is hard, when so much of it is connected to pain, but he can't throw it out either, and more to the point, he needs to remember, to keep something of it in this world.]

[So many of their memories have sharp edges, waiting to be unexpectedly brushed up against in the confines of their minds. But... not all of them. Some of their memories are sweet and silly and safe. Tifa thinks its important to remember those sometimes.

And so she giggles at his groan, eyes curving, pleased. She waits until the server that appears right about then takes their order but as soon as the man's gone again she leans forward and touches one of the long strands of Cloud's hair that hands in front of his blue blue eyes.]

It was cute. You were cute. But I think the ponytail was definitely a little boy thing.

[I love how this is all going and how real it does seem! Sex and disability is one of those cultural taboos that so rarely gets touched, and Charles' resistance to the idea is just very human--it's not simply his own hang up, but something reinforced by a world that by no means validates a man in a wheelchair as a sexual being. I'm trying to think of movies that deal with the subject and the only one I can think of is Born on the Fourth of July. It's just such an invisible topic that almost no one talks about. (Also omfg this week is kicking my ass something fierce. I don't even.)]

"I don't think any of those would really compare," Aurus returned honestly, pushing himself up from his chair. "There's something singular and irreducible about paralysis. The part of you that's gone also isn't: you see it there every day. I think that must be harder."

Taking a few steps across the room, he paused a half stride behind Charles' chair, just to his side--like he was standing at his shoulder, though perhaps the height different between them didn't make it seem so.

"You have no real reason to trust me. Certainly not with a matter like this. I know that. I still think that you should trust me though." He paused. He wanted to reach out and lay a hand on Charles' arm, or touch his hair. In his mind, he could see himself kneeling beside the chair, bringing the two of them nearly level. He could see the ways that they might touch, all the things those touches might convey. But his hands stayed by his sides.

"How long has it been since the accident? How many years since you've let yourself be touched--I don't just mean sexually, but intimately. And have you not taken a lover in all that time?"

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