"Would you stop that?" Erik said, the exasperation in his voice not quite enough to cover over the laughing undertone it held. "You're the one who was put so out of sorts by my levitating an olive jar, and here you are nearly setting the hotel on fire."

Jordan shot him a look, an arched eyebrow and a pursed mouth that were somehow unmistakably her own, despite appearing on features that had yet to become familiar. She also ignored his request, and continued to pass a ball of flame back and forth between her hands with little flicks of her fingers. The fire was self-contained, but every now and then a little tongue of orange would fizzle up into the air, hissing as it dissipated. He hardly noticed them; his eyes were fixed on the fiery sphere and the corona of flame that clung to Jordan's palms as she tossed it back and forth. Incredible. He could barely contain his excitement.

He hadn't believed it at first— neither phenomenon, and Erik couldn't decide which was more preposterous: that passing through one of the hotel doors could grant mutant powers to someone who hadn't been born to them, or that going through another could send a person back out with a completely different body than the one they'd gone in with.

Well— not completely different. Jordan still had neat, dark hair and bright blue eyes, pale skin and a wry, soft mouth. But they looked very different on her usual body than they did on the trim, smartly dressed man currently sitting beside Erik, playing catch with a handful of fire. "Don't be such a killjoy," she admonished, but she was laughing too, and it was still Jordan's laugh, even if it was an octave or two lower than normal. "I'm not going to set anything on fire."

"You say that now," Erik teased. "But when the arboretum goes up in flames, don't think for a second I'll stick around to share the blame."

Date: 2014-10-22 05:37 pm (UTC)
incurablydishonest: (m: unimpressed)
From: [personal profile] incurablydishonest
Jordan's instinctive frown registered only as a firm press of her lips. Despite their undeniable similarities and considerable length of time in each other's company, she still found it impossible to entirely forgive Erik's vulgar outbursts of emotion on the rare occasions they cropped up. Whether she could sympathize seemed quite irrelevant when secondhand embarrassment and irritation was twisting her gut.

"Calm down," came the abrupt, beleaguered directive from Charles. "No one is using you for target practice, Erik." Jordan was watching him with careful curiosity, his fingers trembling before he clamped them back over his glass. "I'm only wondering whether I ought to be flattered," he quietly added, flicking a glance Jordan's way.

"Darling," Jordan began, lighting a hand upon Erik's arm, and then halted, as Charles was now staring at her in open astonishment.

Date: 2014-12-01 09:03 pm (UTC)
hopeagain: (what new fuckery is this)
From: [personal profile] hopeagain
“I was never used to your temper, Erik,” Charles replied. “I would have thought you would have remembered that." While he wasn’t precisely calm, a slight hum of anxiety still lingering in the delicate bones of his fingers, the edge had gone from his voice nevertheless, replaced by resignation. No, he hadn’t forgotten, not any of it.

“Forgive my rude introduction, Miss Baker,” he continued, swinging Jordan a look more like his old self, charming and self-effacing, if a bit forced. “It’s a pleasure to meet you…”

Head tilting, his eyes narrowed as he trailed off.

I promise you, he told her, it’s no good trying to push me, love, although I do applaud your initiative.

The only response Jordan gave was the slightest bored lift of one thin shoulder as she sipped at her martini.

Charles didn’t have the heart to examine her motives or even look much deeper than her surfacemost thoughts, too afraid of what he might discover, but she’d thrown the gauntlet down first, and he couldn’t really be blamed if he caught onto things like her love of a well-tended golf green rolling away into the morning mist, or the way he reminded her of Nick, or her complicated feelings for Gatsby–

Blinking, Charles shot a look to Erik. Did you know that she’s Fitzgerald’s Jordan Baker?
Edited Date: 2014-12-01 09:04 pm (UTC)

Date: 2015-02-19 12:01 pm (UTC)
hopeagain: (thoughtful)
From: [personal profile] hopeagain
Any other day, and Charles might have immediately put an end to it. Whether he legitimately wanted Erik to join him, and whether some part of Erik legitimately wanted to be there ought to have been soundly immaterial, as should have Jordan's undoubted good intentions for them both. Any other day and he would have snapped her flimsy influence in a blink and issued a stern warning on the moral implications of mind control, even when it was well-meaning.

But it wasn't any other day, and he was on his second scotch, and he knew, with the certainty of one who knows someone better than they know themselves, that nudged by Jordan or otherwise, Erik's impulse was coming from somewhere.

There may also have been, in the back of his mind, the acute awareness that he'd utterly failed at getting this far alone.

"Please," he said, motioning to the chairs with all the affect of a generous host despite how stiff the word felt in his mouth.

Date: 2015-04-29 09:56 pm (UTC)
hopeagain: (pretending i didn't hear you)
From: [personal profile] hopeagain
To Charles' credit, his wince was minute, just a slight squint of his eyes and twinge at the corner of his mouth as if he were briefly struggling with his already-strained facade. It was akin to torure, the flash of Erik's dizzying nostalgia followed so quickly by the reminder of his own reality. The question hadn't intended to be barbed, but it stung all the same.

"The school's doing well enough," he allowed, which was true when placed against the larger context of the absolute debacle the president's assassination had been, but an outright lie under any other circumstance. "I'm afraid that you'll find the world as a whole much changed in these last years. You're better off here, I'd say, with the way things have been going."

He tipped his glass Erik's way and then took another gulp. It had been awhile since he'd been properly drunk; today seemed more and more like the opportune time for it.