harborshore | mirror in the sky (prompts post)

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mirror in the sky (prompts post)

Because my WIPs are either full of brooding mutants or dramatic musicians.

Stolen from

torakowalski. ♥

Below are some fandom cliches taken from the tropes meme that went around a while ago. Pick one and give me a pairing (and some details if you want) and we'll see what I can come up with.

Preferred fandoms are: X-Men: First Class, Bandom (you lot know what I write), BTVS, DCU and Veronica Mars but I'm open to others as well. AU and genderfuck prompts are always more than welcome.

Each trope can only be picked once; pairings and fandoms can be re-used.

1. genderswap
2. bodyswap
3. drunk!fic
4. huddling for warmth
5. pretending to be married
6. secretly a virgin
7. amnesia
8. cross-dressing
9. forced to share a bed
10. truth or dare
11. historical AU
12. accidental-baby-acquisition
13. apocalypse fic
14. telepathy
15. High School / College AU

ETA: 3 left! Genderswap, historical AU, and HS/college AU.

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Ohhh, what if Erik and Charles suddenly and accidentally swapped bodies? :D?

There's a sharp, tearing sound that cuts right through the storm and Charles turns to look at Erik who followed him outside (they always follow each other, it's very odd) and then he passes out.

When he wakes up, his head is quiet. Not just shielded quiet or no-one-is-around quiet, it's completely void of any external thought. His telepathy is--his telepathy is gone.

And then he sees himself, sprawled in the grass, and finally looks down. He's in Erik's body. He nearly passes out again, but manages to crawl over to himself--is Erik in there, then? This is not like anything Charles has previously experienced, and he's very certain that he doesn't like it.

He touches his own shoulder. "Erik?"

Before he even has time to blink, he's flat on his back on the ground and staring into his own eyes, wild and blue and very, very confused.

"You," he says. "You're Charles." He says it like he's sure, and Charles can probably make an educated guess as to why someone waking up in his body would know the actual identity of someone wearing the wrong face.

Charles nods. "You're Erik, I take it."

"Fuck," Erik says, and the way he says it makes Charles quite sure that yes, this is Erik. (The reflexes are also a good indication.)

"Yes," he says in reply, because they certainly are fucked. "How's your head, dear friend?"

"It's--" Erik swallows. "How do you. How--I can hear everything, Charles."

"I know," he says, and winces. His telepathy was strong when it first awoke, but he can't imagine waking to the kind of abilities he has now.

"It's not fun, I can tell you that," Erik says, and then blinks when Charles projects you're answering my thoughts. "Goddammit, I'm sorry."

"Not to worry," Charles says. "You can't not, at the moment. It took me two years before I could be sure to keep out of the deeper layers of people's heads."

Erik swallows. "But you can, now?"

"Not always," Charles admits. "It's--it's quite strong, at this point, and maintaining shields takes effort."

Erik shakes his head. "How do you live like this?" he says, and it's an earnest question. He's still not moving from where he's lying on top of Charles.

"I, er. Carefully," Charles says. "I will always know too much, there's no way around that." It matters what he does with it, he always tells himself, but the ethics of it aren't easy.

"I know you try," Erik says, and Charles nods, because he's probably going to be having conversations half in and half out of their minds, until they fix this. They have to fix this.

--

They end up sending everyone away without telling them, though Charles pulls Raven aside and fills her in quickly, because he's trying to be better about keeping secrets from her and she'd figure out something was wrong even if he didn't say anything.

"Holy shit," is her reaction, and she hugs him. "You must hate this," she says.

"Is it that obvious?" He shifts. He's unaccustomed to being this much taller than her, it's very disconcerting.

"Only moderately so," she says, her mouth quirking in that way she does when she's poking fun at him a little. "Do you need me to stay to help you figure out what happened?"

"No," Charles says, though they do have to work on that at some point. "I think my first priority must be to help Erik with some shields."

"Oh, damn," she says, because of course she'd see the problem. She's been present for some of his worse moments, after all.

"Quite," he says.

"Okay, we'll get out of your hair. I'll come back later and check on you, okay?" she says, and Charles nods, before turning back to Erik.

Whose eyes are closed, most likely from the strain. "She really doesn't like herself," Erik says to the ceiling.

"I know," Charles says. "But that is fairly clear without reading her mind."

Erik blinks, looking straight at Charles. "You--you always do, though."

"No," Charles says. "I never read her mind, in point of fact. I do catch stray thoughts, it's virtually impossible not to, but she, I promised her. And so I don't." He thinks about the time he slipped when he was ill, and how Raven hadn't been quite able to look him in the face for weeks. He knows Erik will see all of that, too.

"Sorry," Erik says, closing his eyes again. "It does seem rather rude to chastise you for this when I can't help going too far myself."

"It's not your fault," Charles says, and he's glad he's good at sorting through his thoughts, because he, right, better steer clear of that. He blinks, imagining a sheet of opaque glass sliding down around himself, and even if he's in another body, it's still his mind, and he can see the strain around Erik's eyes easing.

"What did you--"

"Shields," Charles says, frowning in concentration. "It appears I can still do that."

Of course, that's when he brings every single wall decoration that involves metal in some way (one old sword, three daggers, the hatstand and five shelves) down. Ooops.

Edited 2011-07-08 14:13 (UTC)

Erik looks rather smug. Bastard.

"You don't have to look so pleased," Charles says, piling the daggers in a corner.

"It's nice to not be the only one who can't control himself," Erik says, and he sounds like he's making a joke, but of course being out of control would be particularly unpleasant for Erik. Of course.

"This must be hard for you," Charles says, because he does try to say what he's thinking when it's reasonably safe to do so, in order to be more fair to people. Also because Raven yells at him when he doesn't. Little sisters are so inconvenient sometimes.

Erik laughs, short and sharp. "You could say that."

They clean up in quiet.

Later, when Charles has made them both tea and knocked over the tea tin (metal, he forgot) and accidentally floated the kettle into the wall, Erik clears his throat.

"You always know too much," he says, returning to their earlier conversation. "So you--you use that. When you need to."

Charles considers the question. "Yes," he says after a while. In our meetings with the CIA, I did. When you and I met for the first time, I did."

"The satellite," Erik says, and Charles nods.

"But you knew about that," he says, which perhaps doesn't seem like a distinction that matters, but it's a crucial one for him.

"I did," Erik says. "I worry about things you do without me noticing," he admits then, and Charles' fingers clench around his teacup.

"I wouldn't," he says, and then stops. "It would be easy, I won't deny that, but I--don't think I would remain myself, if I did, and you wouldn't be you."

"And is that such an important distinction to make?" Erik is pale. "I haven't always liked being myself, you know."

Charles knows Erik doesn't mean it the way it sounds, knows exactly what the tenor of Erik fretting about Charles' powers sounds like, but he can't keep his reaction out of his face (or his thoughts). "It's the most important thing," he says. "You are--I wish you hadn't lived through all the things that have hurt you so badly, dear friend, but I wouldn't change who you are."

Erik makes a helpless noise and reaches out for Charles and Charles can feel his mind reaching out as well. He scrambles out of his seat and backs away.

"I can't," he says. "Dear, dear friend, I can't."

"Why the hell not?" Erik says. "It's not more wrong than our mutations."

"No, no," Charles has read enough minds to know that desire and love cannot be seen as wrong (even though they are anathema to society at large--oh, how frustrating fear is), but he has a very specific concern right now. "Not when I don't know you're not just getting it from me." Filtering is hard, especially at first, which made for a quite confusing puberty.

Erik blinks. "You must not have read my mind very closely, then, back when you could," he says, and his voice is so, so kind. Charles blinks again and Erik is right in front of him, curving a hand around his cheek. "Tell me what I'm thinking," he says, and kisses him.

Edited 2011-07-08 14:38 (UTC)

EEEEE, yay! I love Erik trying to work out how to deal with Charles' powers and getting a better understanding of Charles in the process. Also, kissing! (Now they won't have to get beach-divorced, right? Right?) ♥

(NO BEACH DIVORCE HERE, no.) I almost went for hilarity, because it could really be incredibly funny, but then, well. It's them! Of course they'd end up having long and involved conversations, and it was such a good vehicle for Erik getting a handle on what Charles actually will and won't do--and that bit about the CIA and how Charles uses it demonstrated that he's a bit more ruthless than Erik thought. Which he can also tell, because he's half in Charles' head through this whole thing. :DDDD

Ahhhh, the only thing better than bodyswap is bodyswap with SUPERPOWERS THEY CAN'T CONTROL. Faaaaaaaavorite. And, hee, of course they have a sensible talk about it. ♥YOU♥

Bodyswap is no fun unless it comes with horrible confusion and unsteadiness and emotional revelations and and--oh yeah, superpowers they can't control. That. And hee, of course they do! Erik just needed to develop telepathy so that it would be a FAIR sensible talk.

"It's the most important thing," he says. "You are--I wish you hadn't lived through all the things that have hurt you so badly, dear friend, but I wouldn't change who you are."

FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELINGS.

FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELINGS. They have all of them. ALL OF THEM. ♥

Oh, this is lovely!

Thank you! ♥ Gosh, they're a compelling pair, aren't they?

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mirror in the sky (prompts post)

no subject

PART 1.

PART 2 (HOW DOES THIS END? IDK OH GOD) (ALSO THIS IS SOME SORT OF MID-MOVIE THING)

PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)

Re: PART 3. (HA I FOUND A FINISHING POINT. BECAUSE THIS COULD HAVE GOTTEN INCREDIBLY LONG...)