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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[Ahahaha should I not tell you how luxurious that all sounds to me at this point? Living in London means living in SMALL spaces. We're not even in central London--we're in the 'burbs to the south and our place is still a tiny one bedroom flat. Honestly, one of the draws of moving back to the states is that we'd get more space to live in.]

Had Aurus known what a movie was, he would have agreed that it was precisely the right sort of image. Just as many people could watch the same movie, other people could (Aurus had no doubt of the potential, at least in theory) learn the same sort of magic that he had in the Mists, and commune with these legendary heroes in the same way.

The fact that Charles so quickly grasped the spirit of the whole relation was simply reassurance of what Aurus was already suspecting: that the two of them would find easy enough concordance when Charles did touch his mind. This was important to him, and a large part of why he'd extended the offer to begin with. To him it was very clear that any touch went both ways--for Charles to touch his mind would be for him to touch Charles in some way as well. He wasn't entirely sure that this was something that Charles thought of so much though.

Aurus had the vague impression that the man tended to treat what he did as a one-way reach. Whether or not it usually was though, certainly the Dream would make for its own unique paradigm.

"Mallyx, you must understand, is the only one who is with me under duress. And..." he paused here, considering whether it felt safe to him to share this information and then deciding that, yes, the distance between worlds meant that he was breaking no confidences, "I did not collect him for my own benefit. I have him with me for my student--my former student. There's a history. It's not without its complications.

"As to Shiro--" again a momentary pause. The Canthan wasn't listening closely at the moment, but Aurus still felt that it was a matter of trust for him to choose his words with care. "In his life, he was an assassin of exceptional skill, a skill which the Emperor realized. Shiro was a loyal subject but...perhaps it's fair to say that he lacked wisdom. He was duped by a fortune teller--in retrospect, it seems, an agent of Abaddon, the deposed god who you will remember me speaking of last night.

"This fortune teller, over time, convinced Shiro of all manner of false counsel, including that the Emperor was plotting his death. Duped into believing he had been betrayed, he murdered the Emperor instead.

"For that, perhaps, history would have forgiven him. But of course the events did not end there. He slaughtered the soldiers who had once been his allies, and fought until a trio of champions cut him down in retribution. In vengeance and fury, he fed on the Emperor's soul and, with his dying breath, released the Jade Wind.

"It--" How to even describe this? "--devastated half the continent. It petrified the seas, the forests, every living thing in its path. He killed thousands.

"And he managed to return to life once after all of this was over too, some two hundred years later. ...I will just say that his acts did not redeem him then either."

Of course having told Charles all of this, which was all completely true (and fair disclosure), Aurus was left with the rather delicate task of trying to somehow convince him that Shiro was actually not a purely evil figure.

"For my part, I find it hard to fully blame a man for having been tricked by a god. Shiro's actions were horrific, but in a sense he was a victim too. I suppose we get along because I am more gentle in my judgement of him than the world at large has been. But he is suspicious and mistrustful--he has grown to trust me, but he expects trickery now. And he will expect that you are a trickster."

[I couldn't imagine living in such a tight space! I have a double and I long for a single so my house is all on its own. London sounds like such an incredible place to live, though. I'd love to go for a visit... not so much live there, I think. ^^;]

Little did Aurus know how much, how deeply he could understand that concept. It rang a little too close to home when he thought of Erik, a man who had suffered through a hell far greater than many, who had hurt and put many in danger, who lashed out at the world in his anger and rage... and how each time, to some degree, he had forgiven the other man. Even now, even after what had happened, there was a certain sense of forgiveness. Perhaps he was weak for it, but it was something he couldn't stop. Did Erik even trust him, now, or was it all gone? Hank would be upset to know there was still a part of him that understood those feelings in Erik, even the need to lash out, even if he didn't believe it was the right way.

"...there is... more to people than what lies on their surface. Judgement comes through experience, taught or lived, and unfortunately, there are teachers who can be very poor at best. Thus, unless they live through it and understand, judgement can often be faulty. Equally, one cannot dismiss the judgement of someone who has lived through the aftermath of another's actions. Their feelings are just as true. Often, one can only rely on their own judgement unless there is a deep enough trust to trust that of another. In this case, if you judge him a victim as well as acknowledge the depths of what he did, then I will trust your judgement of him. If he approaches me, I will defer to your method of how it should be handled to keep things peaceful. I've no desire to disrupt the balance you've found with your Legends."

He spread a hand, leaning back. There was little more he could offer, there, but hoped Aurus understood what he meant.

[I do love London. It's a fabulous city. The first time I came here it felt like home right away. I highly recommend it for a visit. The whole vibe of the place is wonderful.]

Sitting back in his own chair, Aurus gave Charles another one of his appraising looks--it was a smile, but the sort of smile that held just a bit of mirth behind it. Gentle mirth, but also somewhat pointed.

"You are the diplomat aren't you--that was all very tactfully put. Very carefully hypothetical too." It wasn't lost on Aurus for a moment that Charles had distanced himself from taking up any specific position in this field of 'ones' and 'theys.'

"One might almost imagine that a man who holds such views on the import of measured and restrained judgements has had some personal experience that he's keen to abstract the wisdom from without having to admit his own place in the matter." He was teasing Charles a here, true, but warmly, affectionately. And in his way he was also subtly telling him something--another in a line of hints he'd begun to drop, but which Charles, either from deliberate avoidance or because it had gotten a bit muddled in the moments of flirtation--seemed not quite to have noticed yet.

What he was trying to alert him to was this: he did not mean to accept an arrangement where he allowed Charles unfettered access and intimacy while Charles held himself at a careful emotional distance, risking nothing. Ironically, while Charles was trying to avoid revealing things, he was beginning to show Aurus more and more clearly what the contours of his walls and the shape of his emotional guardedness were.

And as a result, Aurus was starting see that Charles was not, in fact, as masterfully composed and wholly at ease with himself as he at first gave the appearance of being.

[It's on my list of places to visit before 2020. Next year will be my very first trip out of the country and I'm going to Japan for 15 days. I'm unbelievably excited about it!!]

Give Charles a few more decades, Aurus. He would actually be quite skilled at doing exactly that. Charles, by this point in his life, believed his ability to shield his from 'leaking' would get him through this encounter unscatched or perhaps the better word would be... unviewed, regardless of how good he might have been or not by this point. He could not keep it up successfully while using Cerebro, however he had become stronger and stronger when he actually would touch the mind of another. Perhaps the sheer difference in their actually existence should have given him the clue he would not be quite so lucky in this particular circumstance.

Still, there was no such thing as a completely riskless venture into the mind of another. What he could not know was that Aurus might be able to reach back. He had run into so very few who had the ability to return the touch and they still took him by surprise each time.

Charles' smirk was small but wry, watching Aurus closely. "Experience is the most powerful teacher." A yes, in his own way. In turn, there was no small part of Charles that had no doubt experience had been one very powerful teacher for Aurus, for this was the sort of man who spoke volumes of it. Not very old, by his own words, but he had seen a great deal and who knew what the Legends in his mind had imparted to him.

[Oh Japan is wonderful! We were there for a month in 2014 and we absolutely loved it! Whereabouts are you going? Have you got it all planned already? Also, when you get to thinking about your London trip, I can make lots of suggestions for nice neighborhoods to stay in, things to do, etc.]

Once again there was a pause of assessment, and then presently:

"All right then," Aurus spoke as though he accepted this rather oblique and still evasive answer as sufficient purely at face value. (He did not.)

At some point, he thought, the other shoe was going to drop for Charles on this whole matter, and he dearly hoped that when it did it would be too late for him to backpedal his way out of the thing to save himself the risk.

That wasn't a malicious sort of hope. It was actually quite well-meaning. The trouble was, that the more Charles evaded, the more he made Aurus's interest in him grow. It was not a matter of conquest or anything so blunt as that, but there was something alluring about forging a connection in the face of high odds. (What were Aurus's relationships with every Legend that he'd collected if not connections forged against high odds, after all? How many people not only struck out to find the spirit of the most venerated being in their culture, but found him, studied under his tutelage, and then convinced him to accompany them through life as friend and companion as much as spiritual advisor or tutor?)

"We can try tonight, if you're amenable. Of course I will need to be asleep or at least something close--a sort of trance-state. And though I understand you wish not to use any enhancements yourself, I will be taking something to facilitate my own openness to the Dream. Something to make sure that the channel is stretched wide, as it were.

"Would you prefer to attempt it in my bedroom or yours--or do you have some other place where we can be comfortable and undisturbed?"

[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.

[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?"

[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.

[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."

[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."

[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?"

[*nodnod* You couldn't have said it better. I couldn't imagine someone like Charles taking easily to the idea, in particular when you see the beginning of DoFP with Logan finding him or even more so, when he's on the plane with Erik. Someone who was such a tom cat before everything happened, giving up Moira, and losing Erik and his ability to walk all in a short time... I just think would have left him curling in on himself when it comes to that sort of subject, protecting himself within and projecting that calm, stable rock he saw his future self to be. Logan and his own-self got him out of it, but he's always been the one in charge, the big brother, the protector... who protects the protector? Also... going off the timelines I can find for exact years...]

Touch, in that moment, might have felt like pity. It might have gotten a backlash, another snap. In his chair, Charles was coiled tight, defensive in unconscious ways to protect himself from the internal pain he had been unable to escape. While Hank had tried, oh and he had tried to help Charles, there was a major difference between Hank and Aurus - Aurus was still trying even when it hurt. Hank had been willing to pull back, not trying to further the pain, but perhaps Aurus' distance from the matter and even the person at its core made him more willing to do the part that would still hurt Charles. Pull the bandage from the wound and tear the scabbing away to expose the skin to healing air and salve.

The silence stretched as Charles gave no reply. He did not so much as move, other than to breathe and blink, staring over the top of his hand with an unbreaking gaze. Just when it seemed like he would not answer, when he would ignore those questions until Aurus gave in first, his voice came in a broken sound, "...ten years." Two words that answered all of those questions with as minimal information as possible, yet it told everything.

Why? Why was he even so much as telling Aurus this information? Hank alone knew the full truth, Raven, wherever she had gone, undoubtedly would have guessed correctly, but that might have been all. Of all of the lives he had touched, helped save, changed forever, those might have been the lone two with any true idea of how his life had been. Aurus didn't know. Yet... for all that he had kept it to himself, he spoke it aloud. Despite himself, really. Despite his anger and the unfair anger towards the one who was pulling those words from him.

Edited 2016-10-05 22:01 (UTC)

[Yeah, it makes sense--from Charles perspective I think a lot of these things might have seemed momentarily inevitable at first...and then they just got more and more entrenched. He's kind of made himself an emotional island, and Erik is just too caught up in his own pain to ever really focus on what the aftermath of Cuba has meant for Charles. And also, lol, wow X-men movie verse, that's not a convoluted timeline at all.]

Aurus really didn't think he needed to say that ten years was quite long enough for something like this to go on without question. He was quite confident that the sentiment was already in the air. If he said it, it would only serve to hammer it home, and this was not a time for hammers.

So what he said instead was, "Well, it's not that I don't appreciate asceticism..." and then he just left the rest alone.

For a moment he was quiet, then he stepped over to the window. He stood slightly to the side, not blocking Charles view and surveyed the scenery for a moment before suggesting or, more to the point, requesting: "Show me around the grounds. It's a beautiful day--we should be out in the sun."

It was a way of changing the subject, not a resolution of any question, which it seemed to him could not happen in this moment at any rate. It was, he felt, appropriate to leave this proverbial keg open to air, let it settle and breathe and return to it in time. If he was reading the matter right, he had given Charles something to think on--something, probably, that would occupy his thoughts and refuse to fully leave him be until it came to a head one way or the next. To be fair, it might very well distract and occupy him incessantly, given how he seemed, from what Aurus knew so far, too cerebral a person to just ignore the thing now that it had been dragged out so starkly and lain at his feet.

Was it possible that he would just make Charles resent and dislike him for what he'd done? Of course Aurus knew it was a risk. One never got anywhere without taking some risks though. Besides he trusted Charles as much as he already found that he cared for him, and he did not think that was how this would end.

[I think it comes back to a lack of equals thing. Charles builds himself up and without an equal, he can't express it out, work it out, and by the time someone comes along who could be, he's so used to holding it in that it doesn't come out easily.]

The problem, at least a problem on Charles' part, was that Aurus was right. It was set deep into his mind and it wasn't going to go away easily, even with a change of subject, as much as he might want it to. He looked up towards Aurus, studying him in silence and weighing his request, before he gave a small nod. Really, every part of him wanted to smear those thoughts into the dirt, the offer that was made, forget it ever was spoken and go back to the comfortable numb it had become. What right did Aurus have to force it back into the light, to make it hurt all over again? The thoughts of what he had lost, emotionally even more so than physically, still dug deep, like barbed wire around his heart. A millstone that weighed a little more with every year, even as he tried to strengthen himself to carry it.

"...as you wish," he said after a long pause, knowing that it was on purpose to some degree. "I imagine we could fit that in before you're supposed to meet Hank." It wasn't quite a smile that he gave, but he did set the wheelchair to roll backwards, turning it carefully not to hit Aurus in the process.

Really, his face showed that his mind was anywhere near this conversation or subject as they moved outside, the halls quiet with students mostly in class. Some were outside, though, as they came out. The grounds were beautiful, almost English-countryside in the way they were kept. Open, yet the grounds felt alone compared to the world outside of it. A private place of peace, a sanctuary in a growing world. "...my family owned this estate for several generations," he commented after a time. "My parents passed when Raven and I were still young." The words didn't come exactly with a sadness. A warm family home hadn't exactly been the childhood he remembered. Distant. A bit cold. Too posh for what his heart wanted, but he had Raven to make it bearable.

[It's good for both of them that Aurus is so damn stubborn then lol. Also ooh what adventures did you have this weekend?? Boo on being sick. Hopefully that part will pass soon, but yay for a weekend filled with the good kind of craziness!]

It did honestly sting a bit to have Charles answer him that way--with that coolness, that subtle undercurrent of animosity, as though his company was almost a burden, a bothersome distraction from the usual routine of the school day. Aurus understood it, yes. He could very well imagine the resentment that Charles might feel at having him, a stranger, come into his home and rip back the veil on his most carefully guarded pains. He could only hope--no, not hope, trust that the resentment wouldn't be what calcified.

That was what he reminded himself as he and Charles left the office: trust and respect went hand in hand. Aurus might firmly believe that Charles was wrong to deny himself physical intimacy, but that belief did not for a moment alter his respect. Respecting the man mean trusting the sort of person he was and how this would play out in the end. That's all there was to it.

For now perhaps the fresh air and the sun would provide a bit of comfort and ease. Aurus did feel that they helped a little. They seemed to help thaw the conversation a bit at least.

"It's a beautiful place--very human. It reminds me a little of Queensdale and the lands outside Divinity's Reach. Though where I come from it would only be the very richest and most influential of noble families that would have something like this," he gave Charles a sidelong smile, a sort of question implicit in the remark.

"Raven is your sister?" He did not ask if she was here now, feeling that he'd asked enough sensitive questions for the time being and sensing a bitter-sweetness even in the way Charles spoke of his his family home. There were, it seemed, no few ghosts that haunted Charles, and Aurus didn't know enough yet to gauge whether Raven was one of them.

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Then I hit go before I wanted to >.<

no worries <3

This weekend was NUTS! I'm sick, exhausted, but it was absolutely beyond fun!

Welcome back though!