quixotism | [fanfic] [x-men:first class] [sabra la tau] Distanced Ourselves

Xavier gives the apartment away.

He doesn't know who, he doesn't even bother selling it. He threw up a sign ("Your wood-working skills are as awful as ever"), left it unlocked and walked away. The table, the parchment, whatever that remained, remained ("Waste"). Still, Xavier didn't have the heart to even look back. If someone else wants their house, their beds, their table and scraps, they're all the more welcome to them.

And, Xavier hopes, that someone will choke on them.

Noric would have been upset. Xavier wasn't upset.

Emain saw him off. He doesn't know how she finds him, how she knew to begin with, how her mind is so carefully shielded from him, that he found himself stiffening when she approaches. She said sorry, sorry, sorry, like it changes anything. He told her goodbye, bringing out his old, practiced smile, doesn't say anything else.

She frowned at him, at his back as he left. Another thing Xavier wasn't upset about.

The Earth rumbled quietly in the night. Xavier looked up and felt himself shake.

Xavier met plenty of people, huddled in groups, trying to comfort themselves. He felt all their emotions, like a distinct tang on his tongue, but he never spoke to them. Sometimes, they traveled together, but he followed the rumbling of the Earth and they followed their lives.

He eats less and less, every day. Every action and inaction gave him some respite. The best way to make the dead suffer is to scorn them.

Someone told him, go back, go back to your Lepus. They'll protect you.

Xavier said, calmly, I'll be damned if I let anyone protect me again.

He chokes on his food, remembering that exchange. A sign? He tossed it away, letting it burn in his fire.

Xavier held onto his book, wrapping his arms around it tightly. ("You and your books")

The daylight seeps out of the sky. He almost starts crying.

When the Earth came to take him, Xavier stopped feeling anything at all.