wedonot | SEVENTY FOUR ✖ TEXT

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SEVENTY FOUR ✖ TEXT

Just so everyone's aware, I'll be making myself available for anyone who feels that they're in need of counseling in light of what happened.

On a similar note, especially in light of Mark's disappearance, if anyone is interested in volunteering as a counselor to those who might need it, I'd be happy to discuss how to make that work.

[Unless you're a cannibalistic serial killer, in which case you will need to find somewhere else to hang out. :|]

[Filtered to various Friends & Family]

I apologize for not being in touch sooner. I'm alright, and I'd appreciate hearing from you when you've got opportunity.

[Private to Anya]

I hear some congratulations are in order.

[Private to Alex]

Can I come see you?

[ooc: Charles is unaffected by the flood, but if you'd like to be all cuddly and fond with him, I am def up for it. :]b If you think you should be on the filter, you are, and if anyone wants to backdate anything for post-MirrorBarge fallout, I am down!]

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[It catches him off guard, and it takes him a moment to return it, if only for that reason. He also doesn't really understand why it might be hitting her this hard - they haven't talked much about her mother, but he's touched and surprised and has immediately felt like he needs to comfort her, too when he hears how emotional she's getting.

So he puts his arms around her and rubs her back, fighting past the tightness in his chest and focusing on just breathing. He's tired of feeling broken and helpless and he definitely doesn't want to cry, so he breathes and focuses on calm.]

Thank you.

[She's listening, and she does understand, and it's just good to hear that someone other than Erik understands. That it wasn't a terrible mistake to open up to her.]

I'll be alright.

[She laughs softly, a little jagged, because she knows exactly what he's doing, but she doesn't know how to pull back from hurting for him without looking like she's pulling back from caring, too.]

This isn't even supposed to be about me. I'm going to be fine.

[She doesn't let go, though, just stands cheek to cheek with him, almost exactly of a height, and squeezes a little tighter. She feels oddly, unnecessarily, instinctively comforted by the hand on her back, and something burbles up inside her, raw feeling as much as much as thought, fierce and absolute: I wish you were my real family. The you is broad, Charles and Erik and Alex and Jean a little too, but she has Erik one way or another already; Charles is the centerpoint of the desire. It would matter less, maybe, how often they don't quite get on, if they had that other bond to hold through instead of just Erik and tea. She never really saw eye to eye with Magda either, not even when she was a precocious and stubborn three-year-old. But they were part of each other anyway, flesh and blood.]

[He's not sure if he was supposed to hear that, but after a moment's hesitation, he's responding to it anyway.]

I hope this isn't too presumptuous, but as far as I'm concerned, you are a part of my real family. [Along with Erik and Raven and Alex and Jean, not to mention Sean and Hank back home, even Darwin and Moira.]

I've never put too much stake in blood being thicker than water. [Because it's just been so painfully untrue for him. It wasn't even that his mother and stepfather had genuinely hated him or anything, they just didn't care, and the fact that he had people who did meant so much more to him.]

[It grates on her, but not because she thinks it's presumptuous. She's just mad at the whole cultural order of it, that whatever they are is defined and elevated by referring to the people who failed them so spectacularly, whom Anya failed in turn. Quietly, she mutters,]

People always get that backward. It's - in the original saying, it's about the blood shed by comrades in battle, how it's more important than the water of the womb.

We're blood, you and me. It's real. It's right.

[She laughs a little, soft and rough and rueful.]

I just wish we'd been stuck with each other from the beginning, you know?

[However terribly they've gotten along, on occasion, at least they've both always cared.]

[It's not a new concept - he's wished he could have met Raven years earlier, that he hadn't had to wait until he was thirty to meet Erik, the person who was quite literally the other half of his soul, who'd spent so long being lonely and angry and scared.

And thanks to the Barge, he can remember what it was like to know each other as children, to stay up late at night and plot all the things they could do now that they knew they weren't alone, and that's without even mentioning the other lives they've led together. And then he can remember holding Alex in the hospital just after he'd been born, witnessing his first words, his first steps, being there to tell him that it was okay, there wasn't anything wrong with him for being different, reading him stories before bed and making him lunch. He can remember talking to Anya, telling her about how he was bad at knitting and how he'd met Erik, and listening to her - a normal, more or less happy kid who got to make pancakes with her dad who loved her, regardless of who or what she was.

It's not the first time he's wished that things could have been different, that they could have been there for Alex and Anya and each other from the start.

So, he gets it. He wouldn't trade the people he knows now for different versions, ones that got to live lives where they were all together from the beginning, but. It's hard not to wish that parts of it were real.]

I do.

[She leans back a bit, not enough to pull out of the hug entirely, just enough to look him in the eyes, her hands gripping his arms lightly, just below the elbows. She sniffs, gets her breathing steady and under control, manages a shaky smile.]

We should. Do things. Besides tea.

Everyone needs things that they can just. Do for themselves, you know? I suppose you're still pants at knitting.

[His smile in response is probably best described as sheepish, but certainly not dismissive.]

I haven't exactly had much chance to practice, in recent years.

You'd have found time, if you really liked it. So maybe something else.

I'm open to suggestions.

What did you used to do for fun? Before the barge, and...everything.

[She waves a hand vaguely.]

Do you want the honest answer? [Your stepmom was a drunk fratboy. B(]

Always.

[Omg mom you cad, spill.]

Before I met Moira and Erik, most of my free time was spent either doing whatever Raven wanted to do as long as I was coming up for air from my latest project, or getting embarrassingly drunk and fooling around with my female classmates.

[And he does look more embarrassed than proud of all this. Because you know. He has grown up a bit since then.]

[She snickers a little, mostly because of his embarrassment, but it smoothes out into a contemplative expression.]

You ever play bar games? Darts, pool, that kind of thing? I know Dean organizes some. You don't have to be a party animal all the time to indulge with people a little.

I suppose not. It just hasn't interested me as much as it used to. [Which... is actually true about a lot of things. Meeting Erik kind of shocked him into actual maturity pretty quickly, and then winding up the paralyzed guardian of three kids sort of sealed the deal.]

But I guess I could give it another go.

Alright. You and me, pool room. We could go right now if you want.

[To get him out of his head a little more after the kerfuffle, if he wants to keep being distracted; they can make plans for later if he'd rather flop with his slanket and some tea for a bit.

Anya herself loves pool, though she doesn't play it all that often. People think it's a matter of physical skill, but it's 90% cerebral, all geometry and measured forces.]

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SEVENTY FOUR ✖ TEXT

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