ellectrical | (no subject)

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It's been more than an hour since the sunset, but Elle hasn't moved since she climbed onto one of the rocks near the lakeshore in the midafternoon.

Really. She has not moved. Other than blink, Elle hasn't moved her eyes, her hands, hasn't resettled on the rock's rough surface or follow the line of the tide. Curled up against the stone, she'd simply laid down, facing the water, too still to be even waiting for something.

Someone with a typical set of senses might not even notice her.

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Elle looks away, up to the fresh stars in the night sky. She's pretty sure someone told her they were all wrong, but she'd still never looked up long enough in her own world to know the difference.

"Things are getting complicated."

She lifts her hands and covers her eyes, though her voice stays so even.

"I don't want to be part of it."

"At home."

X only sounds a little uncertain.

It passes.

"It is something you can avoid?"

She'll certainly help Elle try, if she wants. They make a good team.

And an efficient one, too.

"I have been," she answers, finally moving up, using her hands to push herself into a sitting position.

"It might be a long time."

X hesitates, sliding a little closer to Elle.

Carefully.

"I am allowed to ask?"

Beat.

"For specifics."

"It didn't seem like such a pain."

Her voice is still free of any inflection."

"The way they all know. In your world."

"The transition happened before I was made."

Beat.

"And I think before the youngest X-men were born."

She falls silent for a second.

"I do not know how it was like on my world. Then."

If that -- helps at all.

X is not sure.

Elle watches her, pulling up her knees and folding her arms to lean her chin onto them.

"It's like a bomb."

Similes. She can hear the boom of the explosion, the ringing afterward. Scraps and pieces littered everywhere. What was there before could never really come back again. Piecing the two feelings was still something new to her.

"I never knew what they were all talking about - everyone else. Now all they're talking about is - people like me."

X stiffens, more than fractionally.

"They are trying to kill you?"

Beat.

"Or put you in camps."

Or --

"Or it is like registration?"

That ended so well on X's world.

(Not so much. At all.)

Elle, however, doesn't flinch, or stiffen. There's no immediate reaction at all to X's words.

It's not instinctive, but a thought-out motion when she lifts her hand, and reaches to very gently touch X's shoulder.

X leans into the touch for a half-second, then turns a little to better face Elle.

She stays silent.

Waiting.

Maybe what is coming is something very bad.

She --

She does not know.

She waits another moment, but -

"There's registration. I - ignored it."

There's no mischievous grin with it. It's just the truth.

"People are dying in some places. Sometimes it - looks random, but..."

Elle still doesn't really understand the politics of it. What people will and won't do, or acknowledge. But having participated in one for most of her life -

"... I think they're trying to hide it."

- she still knows how to recognize a cover-up.

X goes very still, gaze flicking from Elle, to the lake, to some in-between distance.

At least for a second.

"Retaliation is possible? To frighten the people who are killing -- "

She hesitates, looking for the right word.

" -- people like us? There may be too many of them. For it to be effective."

"I just ran away, X."

No more Company. No teams or initiatives or academies. Like her or not -

"I'm - not with anyone."

"You are with me," X says.

She should probably sound a little more hesitant.

"Even if we are not from the same world."

"I know."

Elle means it to be reassuring, but she's set herself too apart to get the tone right, leaving her voice flat. Perhaps in an effort to make up for it, her fingers move down X's arm to take her hand.

She's no better at trying to force inflection into her voice a second time, but she repeats it anyway. "I know."

"Okay."

X tries very hard not to sound uncertain, and she mostly succeeds.

She also twines her fingers with Elle's, though she keeps her grip loose.

Just in case Elle wants to get away.

She does not think everything is all right.

Then --

"There is something you want me to do?"

Elle stays still - her hand remains entwined in X's, but her eyes are cast down.

The truth is, she doesn't know what to say."

"I - can't take you back to my world."

Beat. "Not right now."

"Okay," X says, after a momentary pause.

"I will not try."

It's something like a promise.

But --

"Other people can be taken? If they are not like us."

She's quiet for another moment.

"I think - right now it's better if I'm not..."

"... noticeable."

Elle's fairly sure that's close to the word she's looking for.

X's attention sharpens.

"They know to be looking for you?"

Beat.

"Because of the Company."

It would be better if this were not the case, but X does not really believe in luck.

Edited 2012-04-11 01:52 (UTC)

"The Company didn't have my records."

Her father had taken care of that. Still, she pauses, and then gives a very small shrug.

"But it might still be hard to hide."

"Yes," X says, very carefully.

"It might be."

Beat.

"There are very many hit squads? Looking for people. Or it is government operatives in vans?"

Edited 2012-04-11 02:18 (UTC)

Elle blinks, expression unchanged.

"I think it's different, in different places. Some places might be safer."

"Okay."

X blinks in her turn.

"You know who will know which places are safe?"

"It's -"

But this time, she amends it.

"- out there, it's only me."