Thank you to everyone who has reviewed! Your comments make my otherwise dreary and uninteresting life worth living. (Okay, realistically speaking, I have other reasons to live, but hyperbole is the soul of gratitude.)
Duchess – (1) I really don't know much about the proper pronunciation of a Vietnamese name such as "Ngo Thi Lam." I can tell you that most languages, English included, have several nasal consonants, such as /n/ and /m/. /ng/ is the last consonant sound in the word 'song'. English and many European languages have the sound /ng/, but have a rule that it can only be placed at the end of syllables, never at the beginning, so pronouncing a word like 'Ngo' feels difficult and unnatural, but it really is no more difficult physically than pronouncing a word like 'Ma'. /Ng/ should not be said as /n/ and then /g/, but rather as the single sound /ng/. The rest of the consonants are pretty standard, I believe, but I have no idea how to properly produce the vowels. Luckily, she's dead and we don't have to deal with it anymore.
pbw – I have discovered that I really enjoy the saying the phrase 'whiny Scott slot.'
jngan1 – There are some similarities to that House plotline, though I hadn't thought about them until you brought it up. However, House's hallucinations went away when he went off of his preferred drug, whereas Charles' hallucinations didn't.
The Singing Duck – (1) Yes, Sean still feels strongly about Kennedy. I am never sure how to address the balance between the side characters and the main characters. It was much easier in AALW when I had the movie to cover the plot for me and the song to force some kind of pacing on me. (2) I don't know about writing 1st person Hank...I don't really have a feel for him. 1st person Charles would be very, very similar to most of the 3rd person text in the story anyways, because I usually give his perspective, and his internal voice is quite grammatical and organized. I don't think I can write 1st person Erik...I have been very sparing even with giving his perspective in 3rd person text because his thought patterns are so alien, it's easy to accidentally go OOC, to become maudlin, or to become incomprehensible to the reader. Beckett77's Ebb and Flow writes from Erik's perspective at times and does it well.
Charlotte – (1) I think most of the manor residents have noticed that Charles and Erik have a very intense relationship, it's just that not all of them have reached the conclusion that their relationship was romantic. Not everyone would reach that conclusion in modern times, and in the early 1960s, the chances were even lower. For one thing, most adults in that era believed homosexual behavior to be extremely rare, so they wouldn't tend to guess it. (2) Critical feedback is fine; that's how I grow as a writer. I do struggle a lot with pacing, with deciding what to omit, what to mention off-hand, and what to describe in detail. I do actually have the ending planned out in some detail, in the sense that I have several landmarks leading to a final destination, but do not necessarily have a firm idea of how long I will take to get to each place.
House Rule # 12 – Live waterfowl may not be brought into the mansion under any circumstances.
House Rule # 12 Corollary A – All birds that natively live in water are considered waterfowl. This does not change just because you have dried the bird off.
House Rule # 12 Corollary B – I really shouldn't have to clarify the definition of waterfowl.
House Rule # 12 Corollary C – You know what? No live birds of any kind.
House Rule # 12 Corollary D – Hank, we're not discussing whether dinosaurs count as birds for this purpose unless you actually obtain a dinosaur.
Erik had apparently put his shirt back on while Charles was sleeping. Last night was a one-time offer, it seemed, and Charles had missed it. Fuck.
On the plus side, the hallucinations were considerably quieter. Charles didn't see anyone who wasn't real, and he heard only indistinct laughter, so soft that he couldn't identify the voice. He propped himself up on his elbows and squinted at the clock. 7:12. He could feel all of the minds in the mansion. Most were sleeping, but Hank was calibrating a centrifuge and Scott was continuing in his efforts to alphabetize the library. Cain was still sleeping, but the girl, Pavel, seemed dreamy, half-awake. Charles didn't have enough of a baseline on her to know for certain how to interpret this – perhaps she was always this way?
Charles wanted to stay in bed longer. He also wanted to minimize the students' unsupervised exposure to Cain. He checked Cain's mind again. Stage IV sleep. It would be at least ninety minutes before he awoke. Charles lay back down.
As Erik awoke, he rolled onto his side and traced the contour of Charles' ear with a single finger.
"If I had known," said Charles, "that traveling would leave you with such...enthusiasm, I would send you on a lot more away missions."
"I'm not enthusiastic," murmured Erik sleepily. "Maybe I just wanted to see you naked."
"You've seen me naked." Charles was far less bashful about changing clothes than Erik was.
"But not recently." Erik's voice was warm and thick.
"You missed me." Teasing. Self-satisfied.
"Yes, without you for conversation, I was forced to write random moral platitudes on strips of paper and pull them out of a hat one at a time."
"I feel your pain, my friend. Without your demeanor cast over the house, I had to hire three disgruntled beat cops to drop by and glare at things in shifts."
"How exactly did Cain end up with bite marks on his face?"
"Oh, that. He was taunting a monkey. I let nature take its course."
"I'm glad for the girl, if for no other reason than I'm no longer the craziest person here."
Erik shook his head. "I don't think she's as crazy as she acts."
"You think it's a ruse?"
"I think there's something wrong with her brain, sure. Those holes are real. But she's much more with it than she likes to seem."
Charles raised an eyebrow. He had seen no evidence of this. On the other hand, Erik wasn't exactly one to err on the side of optimism.
"When she talks to Cain in Vietnamese, her sentences are about the right length. She's not just babbling. It sounds like a normal back-and-forth. Sometimes she says things that are a bit too observant, too insightful. She warned us of a plainclothes border guard by talking about invisible uniforms. After she did that, I quoted Hamlet to her. You know, 'Though this be madness, yet there be method in it,'. She quoted Hamlet right back to me, called me a fishmonger."
"I'm not sure that's outside the realm of insanity, Erik."
"Juggernaut agrees. Says she's always acted crazy even before Stryker's people drilled holes in her head."
"Wait – Juggernaut? You gave him one of those ridiculous names, too?"
"He was intrigued by the notion of a post-human identity."
"I'm pretty sure he was intrigued by the notion of sounding like a new line of army tanks. I also sincerely doubt he can either spell or define the word Juggernaut."
"I asked him what he was and he said unstoppable. I suggested the name based on that."
"Unstoppable has always been his favorite word, ever since he graduated from shrieking 'you can't make me' – a transition which didn't occur until the tenth grade, mind you."
Erik chuckled.
"Returning to the original issue at hand," said Charles, reminding himself that he had agreed to remain neutral on issues of nomenclature, "why would Pavel fake insanity, even partially?"
"I think it's most likely she feigns madness for the same reason she assumed a male identity."
Charles furrowed his brow. "Why is that?"
"You're unconscionably naïve," said Erik, rolling his eyes. "It buys her a measure of safety. Cain told me that when she first went missing, the Red Hand went looking for her in all the nearby brothels. They probably get a good price for white girls."
Charles knew that such things happened, at least on an intellectual level, but he nonetheless felt shocked and disgusted.
Erik shrugged. "There's less of a market for boys, and even less of a market for the mad. Amongst other things, it's taken as a sign of syphilis."
"It's not a terribly effective ruse. Anyone can see she's female."
"It's not effective now, but it might have been effective a year ago. Also, when she found us, she was wearing oversized fatigues and I wasn't able to immediately guess her sex. It wasn't until we were returning, that Juggernaut thought the fatigues might attract attention, so we got her some normal clothes." He shrugged again as if to dismiss the pseudo-magnanimous gesture. "We had to trade off the last of the heroin anyway."
"Erik, I believe I have mentioned more than once that some of your stories would do well to conclude one sentence earlier."
"If I correctly interpreted your code, you believe that Stryker has a telepath." Charles paused. "Either that, or ties to the Catholic magisterium."
"Telepath," replied Erik absently. He was clipping his toenails without touching the clippers. This required some degree of concentration.
"By the way," said Charles, "I do not enjoy being represented by a bishop. I'm as areligious as you are."
Erik raised his right eyebrow. "I was out of options. If someone invents a new version of chess with a 'nosy cripple' piece, I'll update my code."
Charles pulled himself across the bed to smack Erik in the arm. "You're an asshole. And if we're being specific, I don't think there were any Jewish knights."
A laugh. "You were asking about the telepath?"
"Is it Emma Frost?"
"No clue. Juggernaut and I both saw...things that were clearly illusions. Someone must have been interfering with our minds, but we never saw who was doing it. There was nothing to point to Frost specifically."
"May I...see what happened?"
Erik nodded; he had expected this. He tried to relax as Charles' fingers went to his temple.
They are walking through the jungle. Juggernaut has taken point. He is wearing fitted metal armor; Erik must have made it for him. Clearly the weight is not slowing him down. Behind Cain is a human named Lygnos who is carrying at least a dozen guns and grenades and behind Lygnos is Erik. There are three metal discs, each an inch thick and the size of a dinner plate, hovering through the humid air, one in front of each man.
There are also enormous bugs. This may have been Charles' observation, not Erik's.
Erik mentally inventories Lygnos' weaponry. Lygnos is from Red Hand and Juggernaut trusts him. Erik has told Lygnos that in return for his assistance, they will help him get to Jakarta, Indonesia, but no farther. Erik's not bothering with bringing a human back to the States.
The directions are all wrong. It looks like they're going straight, but they're not. Erik can feel it.
"Juggernaut, check your compass."
"Ain't you got dead reckoning?"
Cain hovers a few inches above the ground and Erik says, "Don't argue with me. Check your compass."
"Compass says straight north, boss, just like you said to do." Cain returns to the ground with a thump.
Erik is about to say that something is not right here when a bullet appears from nowhere. He reacts and it clinks off of Lygnos' shield. "Light it up!" yells Erik, and Lygnos throws two concussive grenades in opposite directions. They can see now that they are in front of a thin, concrete building, surrounded by tents and barbed wire fences and armed men. The men open fire and the metal discs are whirling about the three intruders. Lygnos is hit. The guns are gradually falling to pieces via whatever concentration Erik can spare. The wire rips around the soldiers, pulling them back. They're injured, but alive. 'You're welcome, Charles,' thinks Erik.
And there he is, there's Stryker, holding a small child in his arms. The boy – was it a boy? – the boy's head hangs limp. Stryker slaps the child across the face and they both disappear.
Erik secures the soldiers and tells them they will not be killed if they do not interfere. He follows Juggernaut into the wan concrete building. It is a laboratory and Erik can feel his heart beating faster, his pupils dilate, his stomach turn. And there is the woman. She is small, lying on a grimy cot. She may have been fierce at one time, but now there is drool running down her face and she whimpers, moans in pain. There is no recognition in her eyes. It is her head that is most awful. The skin is red and puffy, her hair has been shaved off. There are broad lacerations and pinpoint holes. She rolls her eyes into her head and coughs and gasps. Erik remembers Charles explaining to him how the brain controls heartbeat and respiration and he realizes that this woman's muscles do not know anymore how to breathe.
Cain is holding her hand and he looks back at Erik in confusion and pain. Charles has not seen such an expression on his brother's face since he was a very young boy. Cain whispers to the woman in Vietnamese even though it is clear she has no recognition of the words or the voice.
Erik remembers John Steinbeck. A man's got to shoot his own dog, he thinks. Erik nods and Cain breaks her neck.
And Juggernaut is punching his way through the soldiers and Erik realizes that Cain must have held back when he punching him in the face on the ship all those weeks ago, because now, in his rage, Juggernaut's blows are knocking jaws off of faces, heads off of necks.
And then behind them is a man, a soldier, and he stamps his foot and the earth is riven in two, the split ending just before the ground where Juggernaut stands. Erik knocks the man into the air, but another crevasse opens, this time just to the left of Cain and Erik comes to the absurd conclusion that perhaps this soldier cannot aim very well. The breaks in the ground are deep. Erik's disc stretches into a javelin and impales the man. As Erik lowers him to the earth, he can see holes drilled around his head as well.
"Um...h-hey, Abi-abigail. I was, I was w-wondering if you'd like to, um, j-j-join me for a p-p-picnic by the creek to-today?"
"Not in a million years, loser."
"Sean," said Charles cautiously, "I'm glad to see you back."
Sean was carrying a cardboard box perhaps twice the size of a shoebox. "Hey," he muttered indistinctly.
"What's in there?" asked Erik.
"It's mine," said Sean. "I bought it with my own money." And he shuffled off up the stairs.
Pavel was staring at Hank, who was trying his hardest to take her inspection with good humor.
"It's a mutation," he said finally, "just a change in my DNA."
Her eyes went wide. "Your DNA changes? Mine doesn't. I keep it in a bird."
"No, it- wait, what?"
"You're not a bird, are you?"
"No, I'm a person, just like you."
"But you made a bird. I was watching to see if you were a bird sometimes."
"You're talking about the Blackbird? That's a jet plane, not an actual bird."
"Are you sure? There seems to be a lot of debate over what is and is not a bird."
"That's about evolution and reptiles, not mechanical objects."
"The plain brain is a plane."
"Um, yes?"
"It's your brain," said Erik, "so it's your choice. I'll get you the medicine if you want, but I really think we should handle this differently."
"I'm open to suggestions as long as they can be implemented relatively quickly. As you can see, we've got a lot of other...concerns that need to be dealt with above and beyond whatever Stryker is up to."
"Why not just read Sean's mind?"
"I can't just drop ethical commitments when they're no longer convenient."
"I can tell you that whatever was in the box was mostly metal."
"Well, that narrows it down. Maybe he's decided to take up the theremin."
Erik returned to the topic of hallucinations. "Do you see or hear anyone right now?"
"Just laughter. Indistinct."
"Can you make them appear?"
"I don't know. I spend all my time trying to make them disappear." Charles suddenly felt exposed and embarrassed. He was used to being physically weak, yes, but mental weakness was uncharted terrain.
"I can't really say what you should do. But I know that if it were me, I would try to break another glass."
"Hey," yelled Alex.
The piano stopped playing.
"Don't take it hard, kid. Abby's just being a bitch-snake because the new crazy chick is hotter than she is."
"D-d-don't s-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, don't swear. Let's just say she's a witch and you're better off without her."
"Cain, Erik told me what was done to your friend," said Charles softly, solemnly. "I wanted to say first that I will do everything in my power to find the men responsible and bring them to justice. And also to say that I am truly, very sorry for your loss. There's someone I was very close to buried on the grounds. I know you couldn't bring the body, but perhaps some kind of memorial marker...a tree..."
"She hated trees. Fuckin' plants. She liked rocks." Cain growled without much force. "Maybe a gravestone," he said, "with her name on it, written the right way."
Charles nodded.
"Magneto said you got yer uh..." Cain gestured at the wheelchair, "when a submarine exploded. That's um...you know, it sounded kinda kickass."
"I suppose I never thought about it that way."
"I'm glad it was the sub that gimped you up," said Cain, "you know, that I didn't do it." Then he walked off before Charles could respond.
I'll Follow the Sun – The Beatles: Beatles for Sale (1964).
House Rule # 103 – It turns out that no, you are not allowed to bring dinosaurs into the house.