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“I don’t know what I’d do if Shaw had gotten to you, my sohn.” Erik said lifting a sleepy Pietro from his crib and cradled him in his arms. His bundle of starlight. Touching their foreheads together “Everything is alright. Vati’s here. Vati’s here. You will be ok.” Reassuring, “This never would have happened if I hadn’t failed in Miami.” Tears welling up, “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry.” Erik voice cracking.
Another hotel room. A safe house, they told him.
Smelt the old sex, lipstick in sherbet shades and pale peach pout lips kissed the mirror and messages on that written in it, before being whipped off in tears and smudged. The complementary gift of an expensive bottle of champagne laid out of on the bed of white sheet dressed accompanied by a dozen red roses, strawberries and a four-piece box of Leonidas chocolates.
Distant travelers visiting, of the many bodies who fucked and slept on that bed, before leaving the next day. International playboys who flew on a whim or the businessman celebrating a brokered deal with their mistresses from Pan Am and TWA, stewardess who were dressed like bond girls in pink and orange mini-skirts or modish Emilio Pucci pattern with the color palette of Lilly-Pulitzer on acid, or secretaries, bohemian artists, affairs with other’s wives. Spritzes of dried perfume boudoir French perfume gifts, a lost turquoise from a Tiffney crescent moon brooch nestled under the bed.
And their one-night stands. And fooling around. And those kept secret in their rendezvous and their convenience of their marriage. Wrapped in lavender and antirrhinum. Secrets of secrets.
A marriage of a thousand lies.
Erik could almost sense their afterimage.
The bed sheet crip and corners tucked in. And yet not there…
Erik could only look out to that distant city beyond the mist and rain pattering against the window. The man-made light illuminating the city—the harsh lights, spilling out into the river.
A town of ambitions. Change makers. Reality was bended; of dreams mended and the art of possible, where the masters of the universe sat in their thrones; of great men and not so chasers of yes men, who did as they were told not even thinking; wide eyed idealist met; and groups of minds in think tanks drew up policy. Deformation of ideologies and the grand dreams of utopia and their wholesale abandonment of emancipation. But it was of political fiction and contradictions, what was reported on by Cronkite—ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS.
But keeper of great secrets and doomsday machines and the architects that planned them. Coup plotters at social clubs over whisky and the games of poker with Cuban cigars; to remake the world. Celebrate as they did.
Bribes, scandals, corruption. Decants. Hypocrite. Ruthlessness. Blackmail. It mattered not.
What would mutant play in these games?
Pawns. Soldiers to be forgotten. It would never be enough.
Still, they asked to build more nuclear weapons to destroy the world how many times over?
Erik held his sohn closer, sniffing back watery snot.
For all their bluster that power evaporated in the face of the next step of human evolution.
Cradling Pietro’s head closer to his, until their foreheads kissed and brought steadily down his face. Pietro flapped his arm away from his scruffy stubble beard. “I’m sorry my sohn, that I’m scratchy, but it was a long flight from Moscow.” Pietro’s dark moon eyes lit up as he cooed lifted his little arms up wanting to hug, before plopping back into his father’s nesting arms. None of the stars could ever shine as brightly as the smile that his own sohn gave. His little comet steaking across the skies above.
Erik rocked his starlight as he moved about the room. Pietro was in his thoughts in every waking moment. Pietro was so unlike Anya. Pietro had to be held a certain way. Squirmy. Wiggly. In constant motion. Even when reading stories to him, his sohn couldn’t sit upright in his lap. Nor he say the first expression of ‘Va’ or ‘Da’ or ‘Ta’; of Vati or daddy or Tatti. Connect him to his upbringing and his wider community; to the one who held him so dearly. He had a reasonability to teach him his language of resistance and reviving it. Exhausted by the world; Pietro’s hands and legs out in surrender as he lay on his back. Overloaded.
Their looks rather it be the wives or the husbands.
It was—him. That was the problem. That somehow it was all his fault that his son was this way. He must’ve done something. Besides, it was his place to care of a baby. Where was his wife. It was obscene for him to be with his own child without a wife.
He would make the world a better place for his sohn. Shaw’s shadow still loomed large over their lives. Where he needn’t—
A thundering boom. Erik lingered. —That sound couldn’t be more than three kilometers away. Shifting Pietro and held his small head in his hand against his chest making his sohn smaller so as not to be seen. It sounded like metal hitting the ground…could it not. Erik shuffled his way to the window. Whoosh! Pulling back the blackout curtain. Clicked off the table lamp. Waited in darkness. Erik closed his eyes and breathed out, letting out his held breath slowly trying in attempt to slow his heart. Shaw couldn’t find them? He had already attacked them. Was he going to finish the job and find where—Alex, Raven, Hank, Sean—were staying at? Or retaliating against the capture of his right-hand woman: Emma Frost.
Pietro beat his tiny fists against him, wiggling and squirming short soft whimpers, as his little face scrunched up and bled tears from his finally: the high pitch whaling that could put Sean to shame. “Shussshhh,” a finger against his lips. “Please Pietro you need to be quiet.” Dark moon eyes staring back at him, “Your Bobeshi is still with us…in you.” Erik pulled back slightly the currants, looking out for any signs of fighting on the streets or the distant bamf! Tailed with fire and clink of swords.
The only sliver of warm light from the bathroom, the door cracked slightly opened to allow steam to escape, captured one of Erik’s eyes, while the other looked out to the distance.
That light slowly breached and flooded the room as Charles came out of the bathroom followed closely by hot steam curling outward as he patted down wet hair with a towel, tossed it into the weaved dirty towel bin. Erik glanced over and the bathroom shut off the lights behind Charles. Charles jumped slightly, clearly confused “Why is the lights turned o—?” Placed two fingers on his temple.
The telepath was in a navy accented with white piping along the collar, cuffs, and following down the pearl button and right breast pocket. His cheeks flushed. But the intensity of which Charles drunk him in with his blue eyes; wanting to see his powers at their maximum; trying to find a candlelight in the shroud of darkness of his mind—where there was none.
“Erik, Darling—can you please stop and turn the lights back on? Please?”
The phone, the television, lamps, and all things rumbled and vibrated—the TV’s metal nob clicked rotating through channels catching glimpses of late night, soundbites the tale ends of jokes, weather, news, politics—so sudden ghostly outlines of images onto the next channel and distortion rounded wrapped images —before finally stopping of the rippling, black, white and gray fuzzing of a dead channel with no signal, fizzling.
“That’s a very beautiful song, Erik.” His long slider fingers cradled Erik’s head downward, scholar hand Erik noted soft, hands that had flipped through many books and papers, bestowed on his a kiss to his forehead. “Can you not see it?”
“What?” Erik asked. Charles glided them both over the bed and sat down. The TV flicked on to the weather, the bedside lamp gave their warming light along with the bathroom.
“And thank you.”
“What song?”
“That lullaby you were singing.”
“I don’t know where that came from…” Erik said.
“For I shall forever be yours.” The stars do not shine as brightly as his eyes as they were like water cleansing the havens above and below and nurturing the ground that swelled up and flourished green with grass soft as a bed for Pietro to sleep upon and not fuss. A hand laden down his face his fingers barely touching, in the whispers of feeling. Rubbed his thumb across his chapped lips, “Love, go take care of yourself.” Erik’s throat tightened as his fingers clinched Pietro’s gray PJs closer to him.
Charles held his arms opened.
“Pietro needs to be held to a certain—”
Charles slipped his hands in the space between his arms and lifted Pietro from his arms. Cradled him, supporting his little head. Pietro made not a fuss. Erik could only look upon Charles with absolute certitude: an equal in power of their gifts, an equal in their resolution for a better future for mutantkind, now an equal in partnership “How?”
“Why would I ever be afraid?” Charles said, giving Pietro a little bounce, “Erik, there is nothing dark or monstrous in your mind; I fear it not and I will never fear it…And besides I like being your head.” Added, “Pietro thinks of you a lot.”
Erik rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. Made his way over the bath and shut the door behind him. The crashing roar of water hitting the bathtub with the occasional gush as a hand splashed water upwards and squeak of the faucet turning to adjust the temperature.
Charles settled in, nestling into a tower of pillows to prompt himself as he lay Pietro on his thighs. Taking the time to snatch another pillow and put it beside him. “You will you be as handsome as your father?” Charles gently held Pietro ankles and slowly brought them toward him and back toward Pietro, making sure not to go too far. Hummed: I'd Never Find Another You by Billy Fury. Tickling Pietro’s little feet, soaking up all the sensations, Pietro hadn’t learnt words but his mind was ever growing, connecting that this was indeed his body and theses limbs were indeed for interacting with the world: all totally new concepts for Pietro, but not quite grasped yet. Another mind open to him, not afraid of him or his powers. The world was still new to Pietro, his eyes full of stars and wonder to learn and grow. “I can’t wait to have two Lehnsherrs—” Charles voice trailed off.
A sharp quick rebuttal, “—He isn’t” Erik said. As he patted down his wet hair with a white hotel towel not caring for a shirt, was in a pair of loose pajama pants, before tossing the soaked towel back into the bathroom, hopefully aiming to get into the dirty towel basket. “Pietro isn’t—” Erik made his way to his suitcase, his back turned. “—Maximoff. He’s a Maximoff.” Laying out a blue turtleneck and dark charcoal pants on the desk chair. “It for his own good. Better if be his last name not be my own; if he was ever separated from me and Shaw took the chance…I just couldn't risk it.” Erik combed back his wet hair and made himself comfortable on the bed, the bed sank a little.
Erik reached out his hand, slowly closing the tips until a tear drop formed in the empty space between his palm and fingers and pulled back his arm toward him. The bridge that was his back.
Coming forth was a trio of mythical beasts.
“How did you?”
“With much patience.” Erik said.
At first the three solid metal cubes stayed as they were. Unmoved by his pleads. No matter how hard he tried to shape it. They wouldn’t budge. All Erik wanted was to do—was to make something for his child. To fill his little being with wonder and awe of just what his powers—outside of all the pain and anger it caused him—the loss that he felt; it was entirely his fault. And now Pietro was left with so little of those he couldn’t meet. Would his sohn ever forgive him for that?
A wall, unmovable. Forgotten. A part of himself. All that was left was the pain.
But yet…he wasn’t alone anymore; it was the beginning of a new phase in his life.
The first moment he held his sohn, newly born to the world taking in his first breaths freed from that dark prison, warm though it was, but still in need of growing from the world and by the one who held him, who changed him as they did each other. His flickering sliver starlight. Squeeeing, and opened those dark eyes at him. One of the many firsts.
The shapes just flowed from him, the cold steel warming and malleable that it was like quicksilver. Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz; the primordial master of the sea, land, and sky.
Erik swirled his hand. His eyes drew downward, pulling a string with them. The menagerie circled above Pietro’s head like a metal mobile. The Leviathan swam in waves of the invisible currents air, while the Behemoth stomped its legs of iron and charged up its tusks upward and the Ziz flapped its wings and drove its head forward. Brought them down almost touch his sohn, the joints jingling, slowly lifting them upwards again.
Pietro did not reach for them.
Rubbed his eyes.
Recalled the primordial beasts.
Charles leaned in kissed his temple, his lips lingering. “That was wonderful, darling.”
“It isn’t wonderful—"
“Lifting a sub would be easier.” Sniffing, Erik gently held Pietro’s little wrists pulled upward to a sit, and yet Pietro’s head stayed back. “It’s because of me.” Blinked back tears, “That’s he’s this way.”
“Erik—” Charles said.
Man would always fear what it did not understand; in that fear try to assert dominance to reflect themselves and those others not like them—what was different—a reordering of the public good in their imagine: the arrogant presumption. Anyone who didn’t fit in that world view—was cast out, left to the margins, in the shadows—it was a great pretend to see that they were always there; but not taught, not spoken about—tales, rumors, folklore. Who taught fear; always be afraid of someone. Monstrousness was their humanity.
As a bringer of light, wisdom and understanding. Pietro was unrevealing, and yet to revealed: he’d not understood him. Was Pietro simply unable to ask? What gift a son bring to his father? Pietro was his gift. Pietro was his light. Pietro was his Neshama.
He wouldn’t lose Pietro, but this…
“Listen to me.” Placed a hand on the other’s cheek and turned Erik’s head toward him, “We will find out together and we’ll tackle it together. We will learn together. We will figure this out. But you didn’t cause this, and you mustn’t blame yourself.”
The small moments of revealing, learning those kindling sparks.
Erik brought Pietro into his arms before placing him on the pillow between that Charles had so thoughtfully laid out between them.
So, he could have the future.
Blinked in the darkness of his closed eyes. “Do you think—” Crested with tears, his breath catching.
“Pietro will manifest your powers? It is possible.” Charles caressed and combed back his bangs, his fingernails massaging his scalp. As his hand came down again, sliding oh so gracefully, rubbed his thumb across Erik’s chapped lips, “Or something entirely different.” Shrugging, His eyes drifted toward the away. “There is still much we do not understand about the nature of mutation. It’s said that the father is the one, who passes down the gene.” Charles was like a fist full of poppies in full sun.
Erik came away from Charles’s touch.
Grasping a force—genetic power, mutation, the power of change—that the mind wielding could not truly comprehend—an awe-inspiring force. A deep yearning to touch what they could not have and releasing calamity.
Taken from their moment, Pietro grumped his lungs on the edge of bursting with a great sorrow of a missing friend no longer at his side to protect him, who frightened away pitch black nightmares, ru’aḥ tezazit, dangers that lurk in the night. It was a most vulnerable time; sleep was a transitional time; his sohn’s soul was in his keep. As with the day and with the night, he would have no fear as He is with me.
“Dibbles.” Both said to each other.
Erik rushed back over to grab, a quilted turtle made from many fabric squires ranging from turquoise, green, blues, and brown and purple on the shell; some tie-dying in effect with starburst aqua; teal stripped flannel; large paisley flowers swirled with metallic quicksilver and rich in color of sapphire and cobalt; lime poke-dots; though Mr. Dibbles’s belly had been faded after many hugs and snuggles.
Kedosh in all things, in every interaction, every object, and person, and place; even in the smallest and daily activities. Such mundanity was not just something to be scoffed at, but staying in the moment of which that is holy reflection in the celebration of life. The moments shared with others of family and community. At the heights of joy and troughs of the darkest lows; the transcendent, but not withdrawn from it; not to go through the motions without thoughts.
Alive, yes. But living for his sohn, Erik knew he was not…until a connection instantaneous as if a hidden flask of oil was sparked into flaming again in the coldest of darkness.
Pietro kept within his last name; a name Erik couldn’t bare call himself anymore: that boy died.
Erik helped Pietro grasp onto Mr. Dibbles; his thumb reverently rubbed over his knuckle as he pulled his hand away. Pietro was his only thought in the world.
Erik wrestles himself rather or not, he should re-cite the entire bedtime Shema again if Pietro woke up again; or every time that he woke up and had to put back to bed, or just the first line or a couple of verses to fulfill obligation. Or if he just going through putting enough mitzvah into the prayer, just speeding through it, saying the words; so, he could go back to his things regarding Shaw; not fulfilling his duty to teach his son the Torah, by reading Parsha, the weekly section.
At another time, when he’d sung the, too loudly, Pietro had woken up again and started to cry ear-splitting loud. Or the time, that Pietro just didn’t want to fall asleep, slept for ten minutes woke up in a huff, before drifting off asleep again, then again in the next ten minutes, screaming this time, tuckered out slept again for an old thirty minutes; woke up again, demanded to be rocked by his Dadneto and not wanting to be far from him. If Erik put his sohn down, the minute he did Pietro would screech until he was held again in his father’s arms. That night, Erik had crashed on the bed, his bones turned to stone and hardened like wrote iron, his voice taken as his throat stung and prinked.
Charles chuckled.
I never want you out of my head.
You and Pietro will never be alone again. I promise you that.
“May I ask what your plans are after Shaw?”
“I want to live.” Erik said, “I have a duty to live, not just survive. I have to…gifting him a better future.” A resolution. An end to his war. Shrugging his shoulders. Erik admitted he didn’t really know what he’d do. And he hadn’t given much thought before: Taking care of Pietro, training—running, weapons handling, calisthenics—of his mind and body, and tracking down intel on Shaw’s location with rumors, connections to his associates; never thinking about tomorrow. No stillness, but always on the move. “Perhaps, I’ll stay around until Hanukkah or Passover.”
No longer just himself and Pietro alone against the world. But now, surrounded by a family that found each other. Erik wanted to show them all that he cared and loved. Food was his way of showing it, when words were too difficult; food was his soul that he shared, connecting him to his past and to a new future.
Poached salmon, still crackling latkes fresh off the cast iron flaked with black specks from the pan, the soufganiyot plumped with jellied fruits and preserves and dusted with sugar. Roasted goose eggs stuffed with apples. P’tcha, jellied calves’ feet, an Ashkenazic delicacy, when they couldn’t afford more expensive cuts of meat; it was an amber hue with pulled meat suspended in its translucent; as the calve feet boiled for many wonderful hours as the flavor from the bones, garlic, onions, and herbs, filled their entire home that reminded them all that this was home.
Beef brisket, braising in its own liquids until tender or leg of lamb with rosemary and shallots, rubbed with herbs and garlic. Plaiting of the challah bread. Rolls of cinnamon sugar, leathered with oil swirled—no—double helixed together, intertwined with that the milk-butter bread and cinnamon sugar goo laying on top of one another—So! decadent was it, was almost cake like. The bread was simply known as: Babka. Would make cinnamon rolls jealous with its many swirls.
Taking the time at a pottery wheel, keeping the clay centered with Pietro on his lap their hands together forming, Pietro’s first sedar plate together with little ramekin dishes pressing his sohn’s hands and feet into each of them.
“I…I haven’t celebrated in a long time; I’d like to for Pietro’s sake. I want to live for my sohn and perhaps something more…” Erik said.
“I’ve got a place, its small…in Westchester. Quant. It has a nursery. Fields of wildflowers. Very old trees surrounded by lavender.” Charles yawned.
“Sounds lovely, Charles.” Erik rested his head on the telepath’s chest. “Don’t leave me.” Erik pleaded “—Never leave me!” He was found by those infinite blue eyes, “Every time I think of you, I cannot stop thinking of you.”
“We can build something together, bigger than the two of us and it needs you, Erik.”
“Think what we could do together, Charles.”
“Not just for us, but our future; Pietro’s future.”
“Charles…” Erik asked.
Charles turned to him, “Yes?”
“Peace is a byproduct of victory against those who do not want peace.” Erik said.
“We must fight until they are defeated.”
For in all of him he believed.
Where no shame lived. A little rebellion in this bed made for husband and wife.
Erik was afraid to fall asleep.
Unbutton the helm of his outer layer, opening it enough to brush it aside over Charles’s shoulder to reveal that delicate collar bone. His lips pursue following the line of his jaw, tasting the rising stubble, Erik was such a tease. Teething, nips of bites, catching flesh, not quite done; licked the taught skin caught in his shark teeth, and teased him with a flick of the tip of his tongue, slowly and kissed it back down again.
Lips hovered; the warmth of his breath accelerated Charles’s pulse. Up and down, Erik’s lips traveled following that heartline. Charles sucked in a wet breath; his shoulder bucked. Erik gave one last grace of his soft lips kissing a trail to his uncovered collar bone.
Charles traced a lone finger down Erik’s chest writing a sonnet of want, tampering off.
Of what they could not have at this hour, and in three they had to appear as what they were not and lead their children to safety away from the building that was not their home and needn’t be welcomed or recognized. Erik flicked off the golden light of the lamp and was greeted by the blue hour and last luminous stretch of the moon’s arms soaking into the room. The two breathed with the darkness.
Oh, how they yearned to be knotted together with limbs abashed together. Together.
Not afraid of sleep parting them.
Erik nestled his head against the crook of Charles’s neck. Held against him. Charles twirled wisps of his bangs. He did not want Charles to be far from him.
“If…anything was to happen to me…, would you...?”
“Take care of Pietro?” Charles captured his voice drifting off, “I would. I absolutely would, darling. Without hesitation.”
Erik and Charles greeted the pale sun together. Hands, fingers intertwined, their palms fasting, joined together.
“Our little moon.”