Work Text:
Charles wakes up due to his bladder and its new and exciting need for him to go to the bathroom every ten minutes.
Or at least, he assumes that’s what’s woken him at first. It takes him a bleary moment to register that actually he doesn’t need to go that badly, though the possibility of need is lingering on the periphery of his awareness, as it always is nowadays. And it takes him another sleep-dulled moment more to realise what it was that did wake him up.
It’s the soft murmur of Erik’s voice, itself scratchy with lack of sleep, coming from down near the middle of the bed where the covers have been pushed back.
Erik is curled in an ungainly huddle against Charles’ side, long limbs pulled awkwardly in and he’s whispering low; small half words and drawn out, drowsy sentences addressed to the uncovered skin of Charles’ belly and their unborn daughter within. And Charles can barely understand half of it because Erik is speaking in German.
Erik always speaks German to ‘the bump’, as everyone has been calling the baby. He’ll say ‘good morning’ to Charles and then stroke his stomach and give a warm ‘guten Morgen, meine Kleine’ to their baby. He will translate random words and phrases for Charles’ belly throughout breakfast and the rest of the day (‘Kaffee für mich aber keinen für deine Mama’ - - ‘Kupfer, Silber und Edelstahl’ - - ‘Jungen wie Alex sind der Grund, warum du nicht ausgehen wirst bis du dreißig bist…’)
When, during the sixth month of his pregnancy, Charles was so tired that he spent every spare minute napping on the sofa in the library he had more often than not woken up to the words ‘Es war einmal…’ and to the sight of Erik sitting on the floor by the sofa with an open story book in his hands, his deep voice rumbling through well-known tales made strange and foreign through the mirror of a different language, his tone gentling down to a wistful softness as he finished ‘...und sie lebten glücklich und zufrieden bis ans Ende ihrer Tage.’
But those are the… everyday things that Erik says to her. The open, day-lit things that anyone can listen to. Not even Charles often hears Erik like this though – opening his heart and pouring out secrets into the private night; a stream of hopes and dreams that he’s whispering to their daughter, their darling.
Charles can’t understand it all and he suddenly wants to desperately. Wants this to be shared between the three of them so he reaches a hand down and slides it into Erik’s hair, slips into his mind and feels the barest tremor that means Erik knows he’s there, that he doesn’t mind. And now Charles can understand and he can listen as Erik talks to the baby, as he –
Tells her that he thinks she will be special, ein Mutant like him and Charles, but that even if she’s not she will always be the most besondere thing in the world to them both and that they will never, never let anyone hurt her. Niemand auf der Welt.
He tells her that there are so many people who can’t wait to meet her, her Tante Raven and all her Onkel. Die ganze Familie von Mutanten. All the family of mutants.
Erik tells her that she will be named after his eigene Mutter – Edie Xavier Lehnsherr – and that she will be beautiful and that she will be loved. Oh, so schön und so sehr geliebt.
He tells her that it is time to go to sleep now, Engelchen, and that this is a prayer his Mutter would say with him as a boy.
– And the words are not in German anymore. Instead, Erik fumbles his right arm out from under him and covers his eyes, speaks a phrase in what Charles recognises as the hitching, syncopated sound of Hebrew. “Sh'ma Yis-ra-eil, A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu, A-do-nai E-chad.”
Then he uncovers his eyes again and presses his forehead down to Charles’ belly, whispers into it “Ba-ruch sheim k'vod mal-chu-to l'o-lam va-ed.”
Erik lifts himself up again and his voice rises. “V'a-hav-ta eit A-do-nai E-lo-he-cha, B'chawl l'va-v'cha, u-v'chawl naf-sh'cha, u-v'chawl m'o-de-cha. V'ha-yu ha-d'va-rim ha-ei-leh, A-sher a-no-chi m'tsa-v'cha ha-yom, al l'va-ve-cha…”
But Erik’s recitation begins to falter and fumble and when his voice dies away at the end and he looks up Charles feels his own breath stutter in his chest at the devastation in Erik’s eyes.
“Charles… Oh god, I don’t know how it ends… I can’t-” and Charles doesn’t wait to ask or receive permission – just reaches out hurriedly to touch his face and plunges into Erik’s mind and traces the litany back in his memory and pulls the golden nugget of recollection forward…
– and Erik’s voice bursts out strong and triumphant “V'shi-nan-tam l'-va-ne-cha, v'di-bar-ta bam, b'shiv-t'cha b'vei-te-cha, uv-lech-t'cha va-de-rech,u-v'shawch-b'cha uv-ku-me-cha. Uk-shar-tam l'ot al ya-de-cha, v'ha-yu l'to-ta-fot bein ei-ne-cha. Uch-tav-tam, al m'zu-zot bei-te-cha, u-vish-a-re-cha!”
The last note of it is still ringing in Charles’ ears when Erik surges up the bed to kiss him. Deep, desperate kisses that came close to bruising and are flavoured with salt from the tears running down Erik’s face, and his voice sounds broken as he says into Charles’ mind ‘I couldn’t remember, Charles. I can’t remember all of it and I want her to know. I want her to know her history; I want her to know the world she’s coming into.’
Charles kisses him back and strokes his face, gentling his urgency. He grasps one of Erik’s hands in his and moves them both down to cover his stomach, so they can feel the warm, shifting life inside and he murmurs “We’ll remember together. We’ll remember and you’ll teach me – the German and the Hebrew – and we’ll both pass it onto her. It won’t be forgotten, Erik. We’ll make sure she knows.”
And Erik kisses him once more and whispers “Ich liebe dich.” into his mouth and that, Charles needs no translation for.