Hello everyone,
Happy New Year! I hope you all have a good 2016 ahead of you.
I watched X-men: First Class recently and have been reading some of Elizabeth Wein's work, hence this happened. I'm glad I was able to write it, have been so busy and worn out (in a good way, in a 'chasing my dreams' sort of way) so I haven't been able to summon up a lot of excess energy for writing. I hope to continue this, I have some ideas of where it might go, but we'll see.
Warning for language.
Enjoy!
War Stories:
Part 1
The platoon's telepath is standing in the rain.
It's been raining for days. Not hard enough to be pouring, but not soft enough to be drizzling. Just this endless grey rain, like it will never stop. It's worn away all of the soldiers until each of them is an exposed nerve. They are a handful of live-wires, waiting for something to set them off.
Erik and the soldiers are huddled beneath the only shelter available in their section of the trench, the remnant walls and overhanging roof of a supplies storage area; as empty now as their hungry insides. Essentially, as far as shelters go, it is a pretty poor excuse for one; just a few wooden planks driven into the mud. But between the dripping, imperfect relief from the rain it provides and the few wooden crates remaining that they can sit on, climbing out of the mud like evolving creatures, it is a luxury.
Curled inside, desperate, tired foxes borrowing away from the hounds, is a mutant platoon. More a bunch of kids then soldiers, in Erik's opinion, but it is not an opinion he voices.
The two angry boys, Alex and Sean.
Hank, who flinches.
Angel, who is imperious and scared.
And Moira, the only non-mutant and commanding officer of this platoon.
Because, of course, they'd never put a mutant in charge.
It's hard to tell who is asleep and who is just trying to get to sleep. Doesn't really matter though, doesn't change that they are all stuck in this hellhole together.
Erik, the only one who doesn't have his head pressed into his crossed arms, or braced back against the muddy wall, silently watches Charles.
The telepath is a few meters away but Erik can still hear the tink tink tink of fat raindrops on his metal helmet. Charles standard issue army-green uniform is dripping with water. Unlike all of the other soldiers in the platoon, and possibly all of the other soldiers in the whole wretched world, Charles doesn't seem to mind the rain. His head is tipped up a bit and he is letting it run across his face. It has cleaned the dirt and sweat and blood away, he must be the only person without the unholy mixture creased into the corners of his eyes for a hundred miles.
Charles's eyes are open, bright with the white cloud-light. Erik wonders if the water is pooling down the side of his brow, or if he simply does not mind it running into his eyes.
One hand rises, Erik can feel the buckles move as well as see them, and Charles presses a cigarette between his teeth. He takes a long drag, the sort that caverns out the lungs, and the tip of the cigarette glows red. A tiny branding iron against a landscape of mud and rain clouds.
Lowering it again, maybe keeping it sheltered from the rain in the shadow of his sleeve, he exhales. The smoke comes out thin, hissing between his teeth, but Erik doesn't here the sound it makes.
Something angry happens to the silence in the shelter. Abruptly the quiet, the strangely peaceful quiet, is interrupted by a snarling voice.
"Hey Charlie."
Erik looks away from Charles.
It's Alex who spoke. 'Charlie' is what people call Charles when they intend to be unpleasant.
Alex the boy who is more bomb then boy; sucking energy in and then blasting it out, like a star burning and collapsing and remaking himself. He is across from Erik, perched on a crate that once upon a time held grenades. Discarded pins from some past time of sudden violence lie on the ground around him.
Charles, who was taking another breath from his cigarette when Alex called out his faux-name, looks down, blinking. His irises are the colour of rainwater, his lashes all smeared together.
"Yes, Alex?" Charles says, with dignity.
"It's that fucking weather maker again, isn't it?" Alex demands.
The equally miserable sods crouched in trenches just like this one on the other side of the battlefield have a mutant soldier who can change the weather. An unusual mutation that in peacetime can be as dangerous as it is helpful, for abnormal weather comes at a cost. Many a hopeful farmer who has asked for rain has received it, only for that rain to be followed by a period three times longer of backbreaking drought.
Nobody seems to be worried about that now. Someday in the future, this land is going to crack for want of water. Nothing will be able to grow here, nothing will be able to live.
For now, though…
Alex swears as he tries to swipe the mud from his hair. His hand is just as dirty as his head, so the compulsive gesture is pointless.
Everything is mud.
In the shadow at the back of the storage area Erik can see that Moira has looked up. She is mostly in shadow, only the loose shape of a human, but her eyes are reflecting light from somewhere.
"Yes it is," Charles replies calmly; it's the sort of calm you want to put the muzzle of a gun against.
Alex grinds out another string of profanity that has Charles turning to look back up at the sky. Moira says nothing and nobody else either lifts their head or wakes up, too used to death and horror to be moved by this smaller thing.
Alex's anger isn't over yet.
"Can't you fucking do anything about it?" He snaps.
Of course Charles can't do anything about it, and they all know it. But Alex's cheeks are angled by malnourishment, and he has always been one to burn with restless bitterness for the world and his lot in it.
He's like Erik that way, burning with vision and malcontent. Only Erik's anger is disciplined. It drives him, it doesn't rule him.
As ever, Charles responds patiently.
"I'm sorry Alex, but the mutant creating this weather is shielded by a telepath, just like I am shielding you. I can no more reach her then other telepath's can reach you."
Telepaths suit the era they live in, the era of Mutually Assured Destruction; a stalemate over oblivion.
Everybody knows that Charles is a very powerful telepathy, though nobody knows how powerful. However strong he is, it seems that he is not equal to a few hundred meters and however many hostile telepaths were on the other side.
All he can do is suffer in rain and the mud and this trench with the rest of them and try to out-wait the war.
Sometimes, Erik wonders what is the point of him.
"You fucking mindreader, you can't do a goddamned thing. Why are you even here?" Alex hurls at Charles's feet like a challenge, evidently sharing Erik's sentiments.
"Alex," Moira says from the shadows, voice quelling. Alex throws her a look, face half defiant, half buckling under. Erik can see the boy is already falling back into himself. He was running on fumes and vapour and already his burst of anger has almost worn him out.
"Sorry Moira," Alex says, sullen and repentant.
He's not sorry for what he said to Charles, he's just sorry for doing it where Moira could hear and call him on it.
She says nothing more, resting her head back onto her arms to try and snatch a moments sleep, a moment of being anywhere that isn't here.
Erik sighs and knocks his head back against the muddy wall. He is still wearing his helmet, which the dirt pushes against. It smells like a grave.
He might try to sleep for a little while as well. They never know when orders will come, carried by some kid with a super-speed mutation that doesn't enable them to survive gunshot wounds.
Erik closes his eyes.
From outside the shelter, in a voice that's not so different to the soft sound of the patter of rain, Charles replies,
"I'm here to keep you all alive."