[IC: Forward dated to Saturday 19 May]

[julienned]

[YEAH I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY YOU GUYS ARE IN HERE. it's a comatose teenager hooked up to a bunch of machines.

it's really boring.] 

Comments

[mind_over_metal]

*it's hard to navigate through the dense darkness that has grown over everything, like creeping vines entangling and choking the life from whatever they encounter and obstructing any path for moving forward. but if Charles is good at anything, it's at finding the good. it's somewhat akin to trying to make one's way through tar filled with broken glass, but he sets his sights on the nearest speck of brightness and dives for it*

[julienned]

[it's such an innocuous memory. A younger Julian, his hair short and his clothing being both very expensive and very preppy is sitting at a desk doing his homework. He knocks a pen off his desk and reaches out a hand to catch it in that futile gesture people do when catching pens.

Except this time the pen stops in mid-air.

Julian's expression as he stares at the pen is incredulous, with a healthy streak of fear ("I'm a mutant?" and a knowledge of what happens to mutants and how no-one likes them) but with an overwhelming fierce joy - he has a mutant power and it is awesome.]

[mind_over_metal]

*draws this memory out and then concentrates to highlight those feelings at the end of it: the wonder, the delight, the pride. it's not creating any illusion of reliving the memory or falsely inducing the emotions. rather, it's amplifying them to the make them audiblevisibleknowable over the deadening crush of the depression that has built up with each new betrayal and torture and loss. its existence alone, without commentary, is trying to be a reminder that yes, you once felt this way, you have the ability to feel this way, how you are now is not all there is.*

[julienned]

Wow. I was naive.

[mind_over_metal]

*oh, he's not done. so many things being muffled means that there's so many things to uncover. going for the next bright spot, almost systematically.*

[julienned]

[its really a very ordinary school day, though Charles would recognise Cessily, Victor, Santo and Julian. He looks over and waves Sofia over with a grin.]

[mind_over_metal]

*goes a little deeper into this one, following the trail to the brighter parts of those friendships, what's there when it's not all about loss*

[julienned]

[there's nothing really that stands out as being SIGNIFICANTLY AWESOME - before everything turned to crap Santo, Cessily, Victor and Julian were good friends who did dumb things and Julian stood up for them when anyone teased them about their mutation. Julian himself was a lot more idealistic back then, though he still retains the same values with his younger self: equal treatment for mutants, freedom to live how they choose, a healthy streak that mutants are superior (look you can't have everything okay Charles Xavier), and a fierce determination to make a difference and make things better for the other mutants. And also that his telekinesis is fucking awesome.

Sofia he has Feelings for; she's one of the few people who gets Julian even if she is sometimes rather baffled about his behaviour. They challenge one another, daring the other to be better, faster, stronger, a better leader ... but when Sofia was struggling with leadership, he offered her guidance.

It's positive because it's so normal - a bunch of teenagers being dumb.]

[mind_over_metal]

*lights this memory up strongly before moving on, reaching for somewhere bright that's further away from where he's been so far*

[julienned]

[do you know how fast Julian Keller can fly? He does. Because he tested it. and it was AWESOME.

FLIGHT IS GREAT OKAY.]

[mind_over_metal]

*this memory he lights up and just straight out replays, completely untouched*

[julienned]

Stop. Stop please. I get it. Just — just stop it!

[mind_over_metal]

*quickly takes stock of the level of how overwhelmed by himself Julian is right now -- and pushes against the construct of desolation that Julian had built for himself in his mindscape. he's not dismantling it himself, as parts of it are very much real and thoroughly entangled with everything that has been built up by Julian for protection and out of desperation and because there was only so much even he could take before damage was done, even though it's as much an obstruction as anything that might have been built by an aggressive hostile telepath. it's like lifting a heavy object so that another person is able to adjust something underneath. his mental voice is firm but gentle, as if it were an offered hand.*

This is you. That's all that this is.

Come back to us. Please.

[julienned]

I don't want to be here! I just don't know what to do! I can't keep fighting her and I can't stay here and I don't know what I can do!

[he looks away but it's pretty clear he's near to tears.]

Dammit...!

[mind_over_metal]

*materializes again as a walking projection of himself, though on a mental level, he's still lifting that weight, the strain palpable as a slight trembling of effort*

You have it, Hellion. In your rightful joy and pride for who you are. In your friends, who love you not just when you're the only ones left and have no one else, but on a day that's how normal days should be, when there's nothing of importance, nothing that would bring you together except for yourselves. In the amazing things that you can do. That you can have in your life. You've had them and you've seen them just now, you know that they're there. But they're not here. You need to win them back, restore them to their proper place.

Perhaps not right now. Maybe you're not ready. And I promise that, until the day that I am forcibly torn from your side, I won't leave you here. And probably not even then. I'm rather notoriously difficult to be rid of.

But I believe that you can. Not everything right now. But the first step. I know that you can do it. Reach for it.

[julienned]

[he takes a breath, and then takes the weight off Charles.]

Give that here. You're not made for that kind of weight. You've got me all wrong though. I'm not afraid. I'm not the one doing this. This isn't me! This is what someone has done to me, she's still out there and I can guarantee you that you won't believe me. I don't even know if you're real or whether I'm imagining you.

[mind_over_metal]

I could make you believe me. But...

*refuses to let him take it all back*

You don't have to carry it alone.

The ground that we're standing on right now. What is it? What's supporting you?

[julienned]

[he shrugs]

I don't know. I don't know how my powers work. They just do.

[mind_over_metal]

This isn't about your powers.

*crouches down, pressing a palm flat against the ground beneath them, eyes closing in concentration, as he reaches deeper, beyond what the ground appears to be, to what it actually is*

[julienned]

This is the lamest Care Bears episode ever.

[mind_over_metal]

That reference is beyond me, I'm afraid.

*continues to push mentally*

You're already helping me, even if you don't consciously know it. I can feel it. Come on. Come on.

[julienned]

[it's his friends! congrats, charles you have learned that the x-kids are codependent as hell.]

Like I said. Friendship and all that crap.

[mind_over_metal]

*well, that's nothing new. but it helps Charles to draw the bright spot of Julian's friends closer to this, where they are now, connecting the two*

You'd said your powers. This is something quite different.

*and if he'd been lifting from above before, now he's pushing from below, shoring up the support*

[julienned]

Stop. Before you finish there is something I need you to do.

[mind_over_metal]

What is it?