"...being born is the easy part, yes

it is this staying here that's difficult

this walking for the heart without being certain

exactly why, threading a path through the city

as though I could gather these streets

and bridges to me, hold them in this moment

shining, unassailable."

-Catherine Hunter

After the Fall: Told in Meals and Dialogue

"So why'd you choose Prague? Old world charm?" John had been fiddling with the silverware, as he and Magneto ate dinner in a small café. He wasn't suppose to go all lighter happy in public because two out of three in their little group couldn't change their very-America's-Most-Wanted-Faces and the one person who could was busy back in Washington being subversive and stuff.

Magneto smiled. His smiles looked cockier than any smirk John thought he could come up with. "Why'd you choose Bobby Drake?" He calmly reached over and slid the silverware to his side of the table, brushing the tips of his fingers against John's.

"What?" John sat up straight, and fought the urge to burst out with a Kitty-esq 'Like, gross!' "I never chose Bobby. What the hell are you talking about? I'm not like that!" Magneto gave that smile, that I-put-up-with-you-because-I'm-older-and-wiser-and-better-than-you-so-watch-your-arse-you-little-shit smile. John would have punched him if he were back in Juvie. He would've punched him if he were back on the street or in another foster home. He would've punched him if he were back in the Institute. He would have punched him if he didn't think that quite possibly Magneto had metal under his skin. He would have punched him, but he thought maybe that's what Magneto wanted and god damn it, he wouldn't do that.

It was that same holier-than-thou smile Magneto had given him after Mystique said, "Welcome to the Brotherhood" and John had said, "Brotherhood? There were two of you and now with me there are three. Even a chess club needs more than three." Mystique had gotten a little pissed that he ruined her Master of the Ceremonies moment. Magneto had pulled him aside later on and said that Mystique was better as an ally than an enemy. John had said whatever.

It wasn't like John didn't like Prague and it was ok, even if he didn't speak German or Czech or whatever they spoke here. It was ok, even if he got lost a lot, because he never bothered to stay within a safe zone of tourists and shop keepers who liked tourists. It was ok; even if one too many people had called him American but John guessed it was probably all the same if he didn't speak Prague.

He had his own room and it wasn't even filled with all that modern furniture Magneto seemed to be into. He could control the temperature and the stereo and everything, which might not seem like a lot but it was. John had new clothes so he could get rid of the Bobby-Drake-I-am-the-country-club-version-of-a-sugar-daddy ones. Magneto didn't seem like that, or like those gummy skinned guys in Juvie who picked through new kids for their bitch (very Shawshank Redemption). He even stole a camera and some black and white film and was fiddling around with them for a while because evidently he wasn't ready to read 'How to Alienate Yourself from the Free World And Become an Arch Villain in Ten Easy Steps' or 'The Art of War' (although he had read 'The Communist Manifesto' last year for History and gotten an A on the damn report).

It kept him from the other store, the one with gold leaf sketchpads and journals and famous French pens and handmade paper from Nepal. That store that put the fast forward on memories, dragging him to those times late at night when Bobby would say half joking, 'tell me a story' and John would oblige, half serious, for once foregoing the Marlon Brando attitude. Once he remembered that, everything else was fair game, and most of the time the next thing to think about would be those nightmare nights, when one of them would end up curled in the other's bed, silent and waiting for the shaking to stop. John never cried but he moaned a lot in his sleep and while Bobby had cried once (his face on blush mode the whole next day) his nightmares stood out only because he would freeze John's sheets.

Magneto reshaped the knife he had taken from John, molding it into a small chess piece. It looked like a giant nipple to John. Or some phallic symbol. "Do you play chess John?" Magneto palmed the piece, pulling some trick so it vanished.

"You know, to everyone else it looks like you're my grandfather and everything."

"Appearances are deceiving." The piece reappeared in Magneto's other hand. John realized (and felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner) that Magneto could have just taken apart the original and built it onto his other hand, sliding the metal through his sleeve and along his back to his waiting palm.

"No. An English teacher in Juvie tried to teach me it once. Said I could do with the stability."

"Stability? Really?"

"Well that and we weren't allowed to have checkers after someone sharpened one of the pieces down and used it to try and slice a guard's throat."

"Charming." John shrugged and went back to picking at his sandwich. It helped to fiddle with something and he doubted Magneto would try to take this too because he'd look pretty damn stupid with John's plate on his side of the table. Magneto didn't do looking stupid.

...

They were eating lunch in a small park by the east bank of the Vltava River, at one of those chess tables, the kind you'd see in New York or in San Francisco, in the respective Union Squares. Magneto was slowly teaching him the moves and positions of chess, and John was slowly becoming better at ignoring Magneto's exasperated sighs. Maybe it gave Magneto those feelings of a family, having these meals together, at least one a day. Maybe Magneto had let all the 'this your grandson, yes?' comments that had started in Dresden and hadn't stopped to go to his head. Whatever. John thought for a moment and picked up his knight, moved it to take a rook. "There."

Magneto countered by taking John's bishop. "The closer they are to the king, the more valuable they are, John."

"Crap." John went back to rubbing his face into the cup of his hand. His elbow was starting to hurt from leaning on the concrete and he really wanted to just burn up this whole stupid freaking chessboard right about now, despite that it was carved out of stone. Game of the gods, his ass. There was a reason people didn't worship Odin anymore and it probably was because the guy spent too much time playing this damn game and not enough time demanding ale, virgins and sacrifices. Besides, chess was from like, China, and weren't they Commies over there? Seriously, if this were The Cold War, everyone would be sticking to checkers. "King me," he muttered.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing." John sighed and tried to concentrate. He let his hand hover and grabbed one at random. Seeing an opening he moved his pawn.

"Daring. But foolish." Magneto calmed took his queen and checked John's king.

"Fuck it." John decided to ignore the fact that the game wasn't over.

"Rome wasn't built in a day."

"Yeah, and I wasn't made to play chess, so we're even." Magneto began gathering up the intricately carved wooden pieces and putting them gently into a leather bag.

"What do you mean?" John shrugged.

"Parents didn't even finish secondary school." Magneto shrugged and leaned back in his high backed chair. John followed the motion, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

"Education doesn't necessarily rely upon degrees John." I know, John wanted to say and roll up of the sleeves of his jacket, show him the scars, tell him the stories, shock that self-assured look off his face. Street smart, 'member?

"Whatever." They sit in silence for a few minutes. "Do you have any siblings?"

"I'm sorry?" Magneto stiffened.

"I just thought maybe that's why you chose Prague. Family."

"My older sister died in a concentration camp. She and her husband." John tried to not let his eyes go immediately to Magneto's left arm.

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's alright. Do you?"

"Have siblings? Yeah I guess."

"Having siblings is not quite something most people guess about John. It's considered to be more of a sure thing."

John shrugged. "My older brother Asher, he took off when I was ten- he was eighteen- to go and find my dad. A little after that my mom took my younger brother Seth, he was eight, to go somewhere. I don't know where, she didn't say or call or anything; just left me in Seattle's capable hands. So, I don't know." There was a silence and John spoke again. "Why do you call me John?"

Magneto's forehead crinkled slightly. "That's your name- unless you prefer for me to call you St. John?"

"No, I mean, when we met you said 'tell me your real name' and gave me all that crap about gods and insects and whatever so why do you call me John? You don't call Mystique Raven or anything."

"Incognito John, means not using one's mutant name, however true it sounds." John shrugged. There was another silence. The first time Magneto-Erik-whatever had tried to get a silence in one of their dinners and John kept continuing to talk, he asked if he needed Ritalin or Aderall or something. Magneto was used to it now, and had stopped trying to be contemplative over dinner. He had stopped complaining when John played the Dead Kennedys or Bright Eyes or whatever he felt like too loud. Magneto was the one who'd give him money on one of the first days when they had wandered around London under the pretense of buying non-pajama/Ronny Drake/ bringer of the homospaiens Apocalypse/Evil Doer/prison garb and ended up at a music store. Besides, he could always hang out with Mystique-Raven-whatever when she came to town if he wanted silence or deep philosophical questions.

John would never admit it but occasionally there were silences where he didn't need to talk, times when it was almost like he was back sharing a room with Bobby (Drake, Drake, he tries correcting his thoughts), waiting to fall asleep because they had always turned out the lights at the same time. It was easier that way. Those times, the breathing at the same time as some else times, neither wanting the other to change times, they weren't all that bad.

...

It was before breakfast when John made his move. He came into Magneto's room quietly and flopped onto his bed, jerking the older man out of sleep and into a confused before-coffee haze. "Wh-"

"This bed is fucking uncomfortable." John shifted, allowing his hips to rise slightly as he did.

"What the hell do you want John?" Magneto didn't sound giving and had his eyes closed still.

"Would you spot me ten dollars? I mean it's not like you ever set up an allowance for me and I can't exactly get a job..." John kept his head on the spare pillow, turning his face so his cheek rested on the fabric, looking at Magneto, who finally opened his eyes. He rubbed his temples.

"What for?"

"Develop film."

"From the camera you stole." John nodded. "And the film you stole." John nodded. "Why the sudden interest in paying for things?" John shrugged.

"You can't exactly steal people into developing your pictures. Well, you can, but that's called kidnapping, not stealing. Plus I'd have to get the material somewhere which would be more stealing. And you gave me the whole undercover speech already, remember?" Magneto seriously looked like he was reconsidering the whole insect and god statement and whatever he had told Mystique to get her to turn the helicopter around. He probably would have stuck to coaxing Bobby to defect if he had known that John, despite his lack of people skills, was a morning person. Bobby, with all his virtues and his redeeming characteristics, was not a 'get four hours of sleep and go because it's daylight' kind of guy.

"Why don't you develop them yourself?" John shrugged, letting his shirt ride up again slowly, exposing his piercing, the thin metal stud thrust into the skin below his belly button and just above his belt, bisecting the thin line of hair there.

When diplomacy and fists failed, he had learned, a long time ago before there were Juvie nights and foster parents instead, seduction would do. It could protect, provide, damn near from anyone and anything. It filled the empty spaces. Sometimes it wasn't so bad. Plus it tended to be the better alternative to getting the shit kicked out of him. Although there was a good percentage of time in which sex was followed by getting the shit kicked out of him so maybe it was time to rethink the philosophy. Whatever.

"Dunno how." He waited.

"Why the sudden interest in the camera?"

"Dunno. Seems like a good way to waste my time, as good as any other. Besides, maybe I can use it to be subversive and stuff. Reconnaissance." Magneto didn't say anything. "Thought I was on your side."

"Didn't think you liked to choose sides." John shrugged again. Whatever. He started to roll to get up, feeling Magneto lightly touch his shoulder, sounding strained. "Ask me when I wake up John." He left the apartment and wandered for the rest of the day. He didn't do begging. The next morning he woke up to find a film developing kit upon his bedside table and three how-to-books.

...

"John? John, wake up." John opened his eyes, pissed that he had fallen asleep. On Magneto's bed for Christ's sake, and that fucker was as hard as anything, with metal slats and all. "What are you doing?" John reached over and hit stop on the laptop, freezing the screen and sitting cross-legged, turning to look at Magneto. He stood dripping, rain still rolling off his long black coat and matching fedora, the traditional Bad Guy outfit.

"Watching porn." Magneto raised an eyebrow. "Your laptop plays DVDs." Magneto turned, started to hang up his coat on the metal stand, the rain shaken off and puddling on the floor. "How the hell do you sleep on this thing?"

"Bad dream?"

"Huh?"

Magneto turned, stepping out of his dress shoes, standing on the hardwood floor in damp socks. "You talk in your sleep."

John shrugged, didn't break eye contact. "I don't dream." Magneto raised his eyebrows.

"Your brother hurt you."

"Ash was a fuck." John stood, made to walk out of the room.

"Do you want something to eat?" John stopped. Generally he was against that. Standing, hesitating in doorways, they were risky places to be; you couldn't see behind you or what might be waiting in front. It was better to just keep moving, not to retract your steps. He turned back.

"Midnight snack?" Magneto waited. He wasn't into the whole shrugging thing, John had noticed. John shrugged. "Sure."

John measured out cups of the yellow powder and then moved to the tap. Magneto watched, flipping two pieces of French toast in the pan with the metal spatula, his hands resting lightly on the counter edge. He reached over and turned on the tap for him, still flipping two more pieces of bread into the mix of milk, cinnamon and egg with a fork. The fork hovered in the air, letting a piece of bread drip back the extra into the glass bowl. "What is that?" It looked like the mutant version of that Fantasia short John had watched when he was younger, because Seth loved Mickey Mouse. The brooms and mops one. 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'.

"Something I bought," John emphasized bought, just in case there were misunderstandings, "cause I got tired of drinking tap. Soda was too expensive and you told me just to get whatever I liked. Not sure what it is but it tastes more or less like lemonade. Want some?" He took down two glasses and placed them on the counter. Arching his neck and spine down, he rested his forehead on the cold faucet as the water ran and filled the pitcher. He waited and Magneto still didn't say anything. "He beat me too. Pretty bad. I guess everyone figured it was just sibling shit, the bruises and cuts. Said he'd kill me if I ever told anyone why he really beat me, why he always made sure we shared a room."

"I'm-"

"Things pass." He shut off the tap and stood straight. "I don't want to talk about it." John sat on the counter top, holding the plate on top of knees. Magneto did the same, facing him on the counter between the sink and the stove. John tried to catch some of the syrup in the small indentation in the center of the fork and spoon it into his mouth. It dripped on to his chin slightly and he licked it away, and then rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth to be sure it was gone. He kept his eyes on his plate.

"What were you watching?" John looked up.

"The Usual Suspects. It's a good movie." Magneto nodded.

"Where did you get it?"

"Found it in a store. Pretty cheap- American release version and everything. Figured it was a better buy than the soda." He ate another corner of toast, soaked in syrup and melted butter. "You should get a table. I mean I bet it's great for my calves and shit to eat standing up but a table might look nice." Magneto didn't say anything; just put his plate quietly into the sink on top of the dirty dishes. John finished eating, slid down and did the same. "Have you ever seen it?" He gathered up the milk, the eggs and butter and placed them in the fridge, rearranging the cartons of leftovers.

"No."

"You want to?"

"Sure." Magneto followed him into his bedroom and John cued the movie from the beginning, shifting on the bed, trying to get comfortable. Magneto watched him and waited for him to stop. He did once the first scene began.

...

John laid on the floor of his room, digesting desert, a pint of ice cream. Magneto came in, looked at him, and then looked up at the ceiling in one of those why-god-did-I-have-to-recruit-the-crazy-one-looks, at the photographs John had taped up there, on the wrinkly and bumpy white plaster. "So are you and Mystique a thing, Erik?" It had been raining for three days and after yesterday's 'eff it' fiasco from which he came home wet, muddy, and shivering. He had been bleeding from his knee and palms, and his pants ripped where cargoes hit cobblestone. Magneto had forbid him to go out until the downpour let up a bit. John had said whatever and obliged because there was just as little to do in a rainstorm, as there was to do in the apartment, and at least an apartment had DVDs.

The thing was, Magneto hadn't even given a shit when he came back that one night and found John stretched out on a hotel bed, holding a wet washcloth to the skin above where his appendix would be. Hadn't even batted an eye as he stood in the doorway and watched John wipe away blood and extra ink from the exploding fireball printed on his skin, his back arched against the itchy expensive blanket, the tips of fading scars white against his ribs. He hadn't said anything and John hadn't felt the need to tell him where he'd gotten it done or how he got the money. Magneto started telling him meal times after that, and slipping him the change from the bills without mentioning it.

Magneto looked down at him and didn't answer. "These aren't so bad."

"Thanks."

"Enjoying the zoom I see." He reached up, tapping his index finger against one buried in the center, the overlapping others framing two men kissing, photographed from across a square. John shrugged.

"You didn't answer my question." Magneto looked at him. "Not that you were planning to."

"Why are you lying on the floor?"

"Best place to see the pictures." Magneto chose not to ask the next logical question. John went back to looking at the prints. He liked one on the outer right side a lot, a small boy racing through a flock of pigeons that hadn't quite reacted yet. His mother was chasing after him, just about to scoop him up. The boy was all smiles. The mom was not. Frozen like that, the pigeons yearning to fly, the boy waiting to be caught, the mother ready to console him when he fell. Frozen. John looked back at Magneto. "You should try it."

He stretched his arms behind his head, along the floor, not caring that his shirt rode up or that he wasn't wearing a belt or that his labret was in. Someone might think that was stupid, wearing metal jewelry around a guy who practically ate it. John wasn't stupid. Cocky, but not stupid.

"Try what?"

"Bungee jumping. What the hell do you think I meant? Lying on the floor." John shook his head. Christ. Magneto lay down, looking for all the world dignified as hell. He didn't say anything though as he arranged himself on the floor. John understood that would sound like he was giving in and John had learned a long time ago to never show a weakness if you don't know what the stakes are. That didn't change- no matter how much brownie swirl he ate, or how many dinners Magneto had with him.

They lay on the floor a long time. John let the pictures blur together, streaming a pattern of black and white and gray across the ceiling, let it sink down into his eyes and through his body until he was no longer sure what he was looking at.

He rolled over on his side and looked for a minute at Magneto. He was staring at the photos still, his chest rising slow, calm and steady. John picked up his arm and kissed it, the under side. One kiss on the prominent artery, pale blue. One kiss on a small brown beauty mark. One kiss on the 786111. He pressed his mouth into the crease of Erik's elbow and held it there for a moment, in the warm corner of skin.

"St. John." John brought his head up and looked at him. He let go. "Go back to your Bobby Drake."

"I told you, I'm not like that." Erik nodded and smiled, then looked back at the pictures. John rolled onto his back again and watched, waited until they blurred.

That night he took them down and left the picture of the little boy running on Erik's hard-as-fuck bed.