markedformore | (no subject)

Erik has been unable to go visit Charles since he first found out about the serum. He's angry to a point that he hasn't felt in some time. There have always been outside elements toying with them and Erik is used to that, having lived on the island for long enough to know what outside forces playing with your life is like, but this is different. This is Charles taking fate into his own hands and making a decision that Erik finds to be abysmally stupid.

He's angry and the best way he has of sourcing that rage with something useful is his powers. Shaw had taught him that rage was the trigger and Charles taught him that serenity was the power, but tonight, he's veering closer towards the first. Small objects won't do -- they're too small and his control has long surpassed them - and so Erik is in the park as he works to control the magnetism of the earth, closing his eyes and sending himself into a place of inner peace in which he thinks of how much he's furious with Charles' decision to give up his powers and begins his ascent.

He doesn't go far, not yet, but he allows himself to stay suspended like this, five feet off the earth, and lets the rage bleed out into this activity for now. Perhaps later, if this isn't enough, there will be more. For now, it is enough.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are times Carla Jean finds this place almost normal. It's always a far cry from what she knew before, both back in Texas and in the year or so she spent on the island, but the way life carries on doesn't actually seem to be that far outside of the ordinary. Then there are times like this, when walking through the park, she sees a friend of hers suspended in midair. This isn't the first time she's seen Erik do this — the day he arrived here was — but that doesn't make it any less bizarre.

From a little ways off, head tilted back so she can actually see him, she folds her arms over her chest. "What the hell are you doin' up there?" she asks. It's good-natured, though, her voice lacking the edge it might've had with someone else. Hell, she doesn't think she'd have blamed him if he were doing this just because he could.

"Meditation," is his even-keeled response as he begins the slow, controlled descent back to earth, keeping his mind calm as he does. "Control," he adds, craning his head to the side to study her. "And keeping myself from ripping apart certain, specific buildings in this city that contain certain friends whom I think are idiotic beyond reproach." After all, the citizens of this place don't need to feel Erik's wrath all over a mistake he believes Charles to be making.

Carla Jean's brow arches sharply, though one corner of her mouth twitches upward once he makes it to the ground. "Well, I guess that's one way to do it," she says. "Sounds like there's a story behind that." Meditation and control are one thing, but the rest seems to her like it's in response to something specific. She doesn't know if talking about it will do as much good as levitating five feet in the air like that, but she can't help being curious now anyway.

Erik sets both feet on the ground, feeling a connection now that he's landed as he regards her. "There is," he agrees, clearing his mind of the issues and the anger and the fury he feels at Charles, aware that it's highly because no one can drive him to such emotional peaks as Charles can. It's a talent of his. "Someone I know is exhibiting some of the stupidest behaviour I've ever witnessed. If I didn't calm my mind, I fear most of the buildings in the city would be permanently curved with my ire."

"It's a good thing you're tryin' to keep calm, then," Carla Jean says, not quite as fazed by that as she probably ought to be. She can't pretend that it hasn't been a little strange to adjust to, Erik capable of doing things like that in the first place as opposed to the way things were on the island, but it's because of what she's seen and heard about since then that she isn't too thrown. Still, that's a little stranger to hear than it was to come across him hovering in the air like that. "What's this person you know doin'?"

"Hiding away a part of himself," Erik replies, knowing that he will not abandon Charles' identity, but he feels utterly inclined to blast his idiotic decisions on the matter. "He bears a gift, the same as I do, but he would rather lock it away." And even though Charles has explained to him the reasons why, he cannot help but feel betrayed to his very bones. There are too few of them and Charles shows he does not want to be like them.

"Unlike you," Carla Jean adds, though it's clearly not necessary. If Erik were interested in locking anything away, she doubts he'd have been hovering five feet in the air in the middle of the goddamn park, and he wouldn't be so upset about whatever's going on with his friend. It's all still so new to her that she doesn't really know what to do with it, but she'll try anyway. "So what is it your friend can do? Can he move metal, too, or somethin' else?"

"No, Charles has his own set of abilities," Erik says, thinking of how dangerous they could be if given to the right hands. He thinks of how powerful they could be in their cause, but Charles believes that humanity wants to support them. Erik knows better. Humanity fears the outcasts and the different. Hasn't he seen it with his own eyes? "And no, I don't ever want to hide away again. Never again."

“Why’s it bother you so much that he does?” Carla Jean asks, an earnest question. As far as she can see, if someone wants to handle it differently, then that ought to be their right, but there might be something she’s missing. Erik seems pretty adamant about it, after all, and even with as new as she is to all of this, he’s a friend, and someone she would be inclined to believe. “I can’t imagine everyone would want to put on a show like that one back there.”

"Because he can be so much better than what he is and he can use his powers for our people, our kind," Erik says. "Do you know what someone like Charles can do for a cause? He's a handsome, intelligent, powerful young man. He's perfect for it." If only his values aligned better with Erik's.

"According to you," Carla Jean says. He's right, of course, about the first part; history proves just how true that is. This friend of Erik's, though, can't be perfect for anything he doesn't want to do, no matter how frustrating that might be. "I'm guessin' you've tried tellin' him why he should do it?"

"I've tried many times, but unfortunately while our friendship may be strong, we have a habit of not listening to one another's ideals," Erik notes wryly, as though he cannot help such a thing given their stubbornness. "It's something we've both learned to live with. He does things his way. I want things mine."

"So I guess either of you findin' a way to compromise is out of the question?" Carla Jean asks. She has a feeling that there'd probably be no simple, clean way to do so anyway, with a subject like this at hand, one she can still barely wrap her head around, but she's sure there would have to be some kind of solution if they'd both be a little less stubborn. "If the both of you just want things your own way, you're probably not gonna get anywhere except more frustrated."

"Yes, I think you've touched on why it's always a sore subject, our friendship," Erik admits, feeling that old burn in his mind, of frustration and his desperation to talk sense into Charles even though he knows that must be what Charles thinks of him, at the same time. "And yet, we keep trying."

“So there must be somethin’ worth tryin’ for,” Carla Jean says, shrugging. Still, that strikes her as all the more reason why they both ought to attempt to give at least a little. Falling into the same patterns over and over again isn’t going to do either of them any good, and is bound to only make things increasingly strained. “Which is somethin’.”