Charles squeezes his eyes shut, holding Erik to his neck and gripping to him and this reality that he’s created. Erik’s words sting, they bring up memories that cause him to taste bile in his mouth and his gut to twist painfully. But it’s true, he knows, and he nods his head. Indeed, he knows all too well what addiction can do, what it has done to him. Easy to slip into, but so hard to crawl yourself out. If he were to stay here with Erik, there would be no guarantee that he’d ever truly leave. The idea of being able to stay here with Erik - happy, able, in love - would be far too tempting.

So Charles swallows back the sour taste and forces himself to nod. “Yes,” he croaks out the agreement and allows Erik to pull away. He looks up at his once-lover, a soft, proud smile crossing his face as Erik concentrates and the world stops shaking and crumbling in on itself. Instead,it steadies, and rebuilds some parts. It’s not as beautiful as it had been when Erik was still unaware of the dream, but still there, working.

It’s duly representative of Erik himself, Charles thinks - broken in some places, yes, but strong, admirable, good. And so, here they are. Charles still standing in Erik’s arms, both of them fully aware of what is happening here within the dream, and what has happened in the real world - to each of them, to both of them. In the real world, he’s supposed to keep a respectable distance from Erik. He’s supposed to be cordial but not overbearing, and mindful of their past.

Here, however, Charles doesn’t care about any of that. He doesn’t even care about it outside of the dream, honestly, it’s just that he’s expected to. He’d already broken the unspoken boundaries when Erik first showed up, pulling him into a reckless, awkward hug, kissing his shoulder and neck aimlessly. Even now, he’s lying in bed with the man, holding his hand. Looking back, he probably should have waited, but it’s always been in his nature to comfort physically.

Here, though, he has no intentions of leaving Erik’s arms. Not when he can actually stand with him, hold him, look into those beautiful eyes he’d missed so much. He smiles gently, taking in a breath. “Excellent job,” Charles murmurs in reference to the world steadying around them. His moves to gently trace the lines of Erik’s face, brushing over his cheek and back through his hair. “How are you feeling?”

"You didn’t come to Pietro before because you were in prison,” Marya says sharply. She leans forward to meet Erik and her eyes are blazing, twin fires of a deep and righteous judgment. Though the lines of her face have hardly twisted into anything dramatic, there is a savage severity in the subtleness of her rage. “Though we agree at least in part on one thing. You weren’t a fit father then. Hell, you aren’t a fit father now, but at least you’re marginally less dangerous since they clipped your goddamn wings.”

Something passes over her, a thinning of the lips as if she regrets saying that, but Marya has never been much of an apologetic woman. Being an immigrant tore that out of her and what little sympathy might have remained has been solely reserved for her children - a distinction which Pietro is very much included in the awarding of.

The food arrives but Marya doesn’t shift, not even the slightest. Apparently the tension is a mean and visceral thing because the waitress leaves as quickly as she can, unnerved into a skittish sort of retreat i n her haste to let whatever this private business is play out. When she’s gone, Marya glances toward the bathrooms expectantly, some sort of maternal instinct alerting her to the passing of time so that she knows exactly that it’s Pietro coming out. She flashes the boy a soft look of reminder and he rolls his eyes, put-upon, but slows his steps so as not to attract attention. It gives her the time she needs to finish speaking to Erik.

"We don’t talk about Wanda because he spent the better part of a year waking up screaming from night terrors after she went away. You’ll never fully appreciate how painful that was for him because it wasn’t you who rocked him through it, who held him as he cried until he retched and tried to convince him that he wasn’t broken, that his sister wasn’t bad or somehow less just because she was sick. That was me, Lehnsherr, and don’t for one moment think that I won’t hesitate to alert the authorities to your connection to Pietro if that’s what it takes to protect him from you. They’d be very interested to learn that you have a son," and even though all their efforts at keeping the children protected by hiding their parentage would be wasted, Marya thinks it would be worth it if it meant her boy had a chance at growing up whole and healthy. She glances back at said boy, who’s just now coming up on the table. With the last scrap of privacy they have, Marya adds, "I don’t give a monkey’s blue balls what you will or will not allow. Any right to issue decrees regarding the children were lost to you when you decided that being Magneto was more important than being Papa."

"I washed ‘em twice!” Pietro chooses this moment to bulldoze back into the booth, crowing proudly as he clambers into his seat. He gets up on his knees and grins at Erik, thrusts his small, still faintly damp hands in the man’s face. “The soap here smells like pineapples!”