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Russia isn't welcoming at all, but their restrictions on Sentinels are quite strict. They are against foreign countries hunting their citizens. It's safer than in America.
It's also vast. There's nothing around for miles from where they're staying at now. There's nobody to report them.
It's unfortunately very cold. The temperatures drop well below minus twenty and the snowy emptiness reminds Erik of Auschwitz like nothing else.
It's really a miracle that neither of them has gotten sick before. Erik is expecting to be first. He doesn't have a mutation anymore, he's just an old weak man now.
And illness kills.
But it's Pietro who gets sick first. Erik doesn't notice, Pietro is his usual snappy self. He doesn't think twice when Pietro picks a fight with him every conversation. There's not much food, he's irritable. Like usual, maybe a bit more.
He's been trying to brush it off for the past two days but now he's shivering feverishly in his sleeping bag. Erik can hear his teeth chatter at night. At first he lets himself to be pushed away and dismissed. If Pietro doesn't want to be cared for, he won't overstep.
But then Pietro grows too weak to pick a fight with him. He doesn't get out of bed in the morning and doesn't offer a typical half-assed explanation. Doesn't even talk.
Illness kills.
He makes him tea and helps him sit up so he can drink it. Pietro swallows the drink slowly. Erik hopes it helps him. There's nothing else he can do.
It's odd, seeing Pietro so weak. It's uncanny. He's always so strong and active, so something feels very wrong now. Like the world tilted away from its axis. Pietro pushes him away when he tries to fix his jacket to cover his neck. He coughs.
It brings back memories of Auschwitz again. Of Ruth's pale, sweaty frame, crying out for him and mother, just a shadow of herself.
Illness kills.
He checks Pietro's temperature, ignoring his swatting hands. He's slow and that's terrifying. He can't even push Erik away.
"It's just a cold." Pietro tells him. He tries to push his hand away again but coughing wracks his slender frame yet again.
Illness kills.
Pietro is concerning hot now. Erik gives him a cold compress on his forehead, made out of another scarf and the melted snow from outside. He wishes he could do more than that, but cold tundra doesn't offer any medication.
"I'm an adult, leave me alone." Pietro attempts to push him away again. He'd look more threatening if he wasn't flushed and shaking as he glares at him. "I'm not dying."
Illness kills.
He looks like Ruth in some angles. There was nothing he could do for Ruth. She also tried to shake it off. Being ill meant death sentence in the camp, there was no other way. But ignoring it didn't save her either.
Erik wraps a scarf around Pietro's neck with shaky hands when he can't fix the jacket. "Of course you're not dying." He tries to keep the fear from slipping into his voice.
He tries to keep the same dismissive attitude that Pietro has. This isn't Auschwitz and Pietro isn't Ruth. He's young, strong.
So was she and she died anyway
He'll live. He has to. Erik can't lose his son before he had a chance to right his wrongs yet. Not while Pietro still hates him.
"Finish your tea." He tells him instead firmly. He doesn't want to get lost in memories but they're all around him, drowning him. Choking him. It was just as cold back then. Erik was protected against it in the lab. Ruth wasn't.
Illness kills.
Pietro does it with a half attempted eye roll. He coughs, the action shaking his entire body. Erik helps him lay down again after he takes the mug from his hands.
Pietro is still shaking, his face is flushed with the fever and his silver hair is sweaty. He tries to curl up in himself and avoid Erik's eyes.
Erik doesn't blame him. Hiding a weakness is only reasonable when dealing with an enemy. He has been Pietro's enemy for longer than he has been a father.
Illness kills.
"Nobody died of a fucking cold." Pietro dismisses him when he attempts to fix the bedding to be more comfortable.
Foolish boy. He knows nothing of cold barracks, shaking, starved bodies and rotting corpses.
He knows nothing to the dark stench of death in the cramped houses.
He knows nothing of Erik's futile begging, crying and shaking with Ruth and praying that she'd wake up, back when he still believed there was a god.
He knows nothing of Shawn's cold hands forcing him to stand still and watch her autopsy, the assistant carefully opening her chest and showing off the lungs.
"Pneumonia killed her. She wasn't a mutant." The assistant tells Schmidt. Schmidt just shakes his head and tells Erik that this is why they are superior. Mutants don't die of a cold.
Tears sprout in Erik's eyes and he's cold, so cold. Pietro is warm and-
Illness kills.
Erik leans down to kiss his forehead. His mother did that whenever he was ill. Did Magda do the same for Pietro? He wants to bring him comfort.
Pietro attempts to raise his hand and shove him but he's too weak to even say anything now. He closes his eyes at the kiss.
Just like Ruth.
Illness kills.
Not this time. Illness comes and goes and Pietro will recover again and give him hell for coddling him. It'll be just a cold, not pneumonia.
"Plenty did." He remembers the stacked infirmary, piles of living corpses trembling feverishly just like Pietro is right now.
He couldn't help Ruth but he can try to help his son. "But you won't."
Russian isn't Poland, Pietro isn't Ruth and illness doesn't have to kill.
Fate granted him one more chance with his son and he won't let it be taken away.