the mutant menace

multi-muse, xmcu based. low-activity. side blog to mutantism.

[mutntmenace-blog]

maddogerich.

       “No, it hasn’t been that long,” he tells her, because maybe he is the sort of Jew who mostly only appears for the High Holy Days, but Oskar goes sometimes on Saturday mornings and rarely Friday evenings.  Then there is Randi, who has needed prayer to get through raising her sons.  “I think I accidentally went in once to hide from Noah a few years ago.”

   Erich accepts the bread with one hand, and rips off a piece with his teeth like a dog tearing at a stray piece of meat dropped by the butcher.  He knows Noah complains about him; he always likes to leave Noah with something rude to be angry about before he sets sail, something to remember him by while he’s away.  This time it was a jab at his big hairy eyebrows.  When you go down on a girl, Noah, he had asked, does she grab your hair or does she use those things like they’re the handlebars on a bike? 

       “I’m not biting my nails waiting for Oskar to be able to see again.  He’s nicer blind.  Was Esther Schwarz pregnant or just fat?  Did the rabbi ever notice what his son is growing in his herb garden?”

the bread is soft and warm and stuffed against her cheek. she chews and watches him out of the corner of her eye. is he taller? harsher? his hair is longer, sure. skin darker. but is he older? wiser? different? is there a peace in his wild chest that he didn’t have before? a stillness in him that he stole from a gentle shore somewhere? she blinks and looks forward, something uneasy in her throat. probably not. “pregnant. she’s had a boy. mama went to the bris. no, but the boy is giving it out for a wank, apparently.” 

the hill gets steep, walking past the dock chippies, the smell of fish heady and familiar. up towards their street. she picks an invisible piece of lint off his arm and then threads hers through so she can hold his elbow. “where did you go, then?”

[mutntmenace-blog]

sapphirescales.

     as though it had been a blip, the hardness falls away from her eyes, her face, the set of her shoulders. raven sips at her tea – more raven than mystique. it’s hot enough to scald her tongue, if she sips it too slow. there’s no sugar to sweeten the taste, and she doesn’t ask for any. there’s a comfort in the clear tea, the way she can see to the bottom of the mug and the thin scratches left by the scrape of spoons over the years.

a ghost of a smile touches her mouth. “is that what you think this is?” love. erik’s gunmetal eyes and his gritted jaw. love. her hand, slipping into his, and the tight press of his mouth against hers. love. the year after cuba. “neither of us have the time for that with anyone, let alone with each other.” the truth – and not the truth. as though darwin will see it on her face, she deliberately doesn’t think about janos. or erik’s voice, distorted through the phone, asking her to pick him up from long island. the bruises littered on his collarbone like a wreath of ill-fitting flowers. the tired, languid slide of his body into the bath. the way she had ached for the closeness. there’s a small swallow that betrays her, mug still on the table.

he thinks she meant to be crueler. he thinks is that what you think this is was meant to bite. but if there was a bite ––– it was only for her own lips, teeth sharp against her own cheek. he stares and has nothing to say, eyes dark and deep and pretending not to see. 'okay,' he says, placatingly. "okay," he repeats, dropping his eyes so they aren't a challenge. "forgive the assumption."

there’s a long quiet, the kind that ferments. it sits between them, listening to the house. to the footsteps of other people, to the yells of sean training, to erik’s absence. he has finished his tea before he speaks again. “you said you’ve heard it all before. what have you heard? ” 

[mutntmenace-blog]

maddogerich.

   Erich gives her a look like who, me?  It’s a moot point, he almost tells her, Randi will be disappointed in him no matter what he does, but that seems a little on the nose for such a nice morning.  He trails in her wake like a seabird following a boat and grins back at her when she nearly-smiles at him.

       “I would never disappoint my mother,” he says.  “Me, a good Jew?  No, I know the commandments.”

   He broke two of them last night at least, but that seems beside the point.

       “How was it here?  Catch me up.”

she almost does the same; a long standing joke between the boys. something tossed around. a ball with spikes for their rough hands. randi is already disappointed. something noah would laugh at as he threw it. something yaakov would drag him under his arm for. but, he’s been gone for too long for her to remember the rhythms of their jokes and he’s been gone too long for it not to sound like truth.

“a good jew? no one in your family has been to the synagogue since yaakov had his bar mitzvah." 

she slows down so he can catch up. opens the bag with a wrinkle of paper. tears off a corner of bread and gives him half. warm, soft. muffled, “boring. cold. oskar’s eyes are better. the scarring has gone down. noah complains about you every day. zanna got a new dog –– but you knew that.”

[mutntmenace-blog]

sapphirescales.

     she’d be an idiot not to hear the way his voice rings, like squared shoulders and gritted teeth. you’re not the only one, she wants to say, but raven knows it’s not the same. how many handfuls of mornings did they have before shaw attacked the base? how many scarce easy evenings did they have? the very thing that banded them together, that had sobered them to the reality of their situation, had been darwin’s death. 

and, in the years after he’d come back – after the brotherhood had come back – there had been more and more changes still. to raven and erik. to charles.

“so, do me a favor and don’t.” her eyes harden. “whatever revelation you think you’re about to give me, i can tell you now, i’ve heard it all before.”

“okay,” he says, holding a loose hand up in surrender. his smile twitches. he gets exactly what he thought he would. he does her the favour; closes his mouth, drops his curious eyes. the silence is comfortable, even though it’s impatient. it stretches.

he stirs his tea. 

he has seen erik gearing himself up for a fight. he has seen the still, black-eyed search for who has it in for him. he has heard him hiss, he has seen the whip of his fast temper at raven, at charles –– how quickly, almost cruelly, it can dissipate while they’re still reeling. he has also seen him smile broad and open for raven. has also seen him sit with alex in a comfortable silence alex probably doesn’t know is comfortable. 

"you can still love someone and call them a dick, you know,” he adds into the thoughtful silence, and doesn’t wonder whether or not love is a step too far.

[mutntmenace-blog]

sapphirescales.

     if anything, raven wishes that erik hadn’t still been yelling when darwin walked in. that darwin had taken another two minutes. all too aware of the implications, she kept her face blank and held her tongue until erik had stormed off. she’ll find him later – and decide then whether she’ll get angry or throw a vase at him again. ( there’s already a likely possibility for both but business first. )

when erik leaves, raven busies herself with clearing the table where they’d had an impromptu meeting. tucking the pictures back into the folder that erik had gotten a while ago. the mug of tea that’s set down in front of her is a surprise – obvious by the way she blinks at the mug, almost like she can’t quite comprehend it.

“thanks,” she says after a pause. blue fingers curl around the handle. golden eyes flick up to him, considering.

“ —— is that right.”

he sits down opposite her, cradling his own mug. he meets her eye, a lack of expectation in his stare. his shrug is a small thing, something to accompany him leaning back and taking a sip of his tea. the chair creaks. his tea is hot and he looks away from her to blow on it before speaking. 

“it looks like it.” 

there’s the flicker of a smile as her blue fingers thread through the handle. something sweet about it. accepting. it’s not their fight, after all. even if it feels like he’s waiting for it to be. “ –– i feel like i’m still playing catch up. after all this time.” his spoon clinks against the edge of his mug as he stirs it. he knew them for such a short time before. he sometimes wonders if he was imagining the dynamics, wonders if it was always this way with them. but –– then he sees charles’ clenched jaw when raven hangs over erik’s shoulders at the kitchen table, when erik turns to whisper something secret in her ear. hank’s matching hard-eyed stare. 

like a man ready to do it, he starts: “i don’t want to cross a line.”

[theavengers]

Mahershala Ali photographed by Christina von Messling for Brooklyn magazine

[portraitofadumbassonfire]

Moonlight (2016)

[mutntmenace-blog]

maddogerich.

   For all that Erich thinks of himself as daring, he doesn’t make a habit of kissing women on the mouth without being at least fairly sure they want him to — least of all Edie, whose brother would break his face for it whether or not she wanted the kiss.

       “Happy the last time I saw her,” he says, and isn’t exactly bragging, there’s just no point in not admitting it, since he’s in Zanna’s neighbourhood, and smells, probably, like her dogs or her perfume, and definitely like cigarette smoke and sweat.  “Unlike you, sourpuss.  Even though my scolding is over and you have this nice bread.  You’re my first hello, you know.  My mother even doesn’t know I’m back yet.”

she rolls her eyes, and starts walking. turning her face to the sea is a relief. he smells heavy –– heavy smoke, heavy dogs, the heavy musk of zanna whispering in his ear, running her hands through his wrecked hair. she shouldn’t be surprised, but she’s out of practice and had no time to prepare. 

even with her back to him, walking briskly (a click click of her neat shoes), the unwinding of her tense shoulders is like a string being pulled. she turns around to him on lighter feet, walking backwards, and almost grins. “i’ll walk you back to your mother’s house, then. i can’t have you disappointing randi.”

[mutntmenace-blog]

@sapphirescales !

he doesn’t mind erik. alex, hank –– their personal bitternesses go over his head. he listens when angel rants about him, about his temper, how hard he pushes her. watches emma’s frustration from afar. her respect, too. he would listen to raven too, if raven would ever say anything. he knows, even now, after erik’s shaking anger has exploded in a low hiss, accompanied by his standard purple-ringed eyes and a manic-ness darwin doesn’t even want to touch –– even now, even though darwin has seen it, has caught the tail end of it, even now he knows raven probably won’t say anything. 

he goes around the kitchen in the ringing aftermath of erik lehnsherr and his grit-tooth righteousness, and makes two teas as neutrally as he can. the clink of them is calming. when he’s done he puts one in front of raven. 

it’s not his place to say, but –– like her –– he’s not one to shy away from someone’s temper.  “ –– you let him get away with a lot.”

[mutntmenace-blog]

maddogerich.

   Erich has been back fourteen hours, and here is how he accounts for them: Three making the slow crawl off the ship — tying the knots, scrubbing the fucking decks, getting paid — one getting a drink, half of one bathing and changing his salt-crusted clothing, two getting another drink, and the rest in Zanna’s bed, because he’d been drunk and she’d been there and always willing.

   But here in the morning sun there is Edie with her bag of bread and her straight unforgiving mouth and he wants badly to make her smile.  He crosses the street and leans over her bag of bread to take her face in his hands, then kisses her on the nose instead of the mouth at the last moment.

   The bag crinkles between them and he grins at her because she’s beautiful.

       “Hello, Edie.  See, it was coming.  I couldn’t forget you.”

he’s brown and his skin looks rough under her narrowed, scrutinising stare. it’s not just his skin. his hair, his smile –– everything is sea-salt rough. brined and burnt. it doesn’t endear her. the callouses, hard and well-worn, that cover her cheeks are just reminders of his absence. there’s a safeness between his hands, though; her eyes aren’t wide, there’s no surprise that he kisses her nose. for all of his wildness, she doesn’t expect anything else. 

“ ––– you’re full of shit.” she wipes her nose with the back of her hand and half-heartedly pounds her loaf of bread into his chest, pushing him back but not far. “how is zanna?”

[mutntmenace-blog]

@maddogerich !

she sees him by accident –– not because he has sought her out, not because she was told, by anyone –– not noah or yaakov or even zanna ––, that he was back. but by accident. because zanna’s house is close to the bakery. the street is wide and stripped bare by the unforgiving sea breeze. edie stands in the middle of it, refusing to step closer. she cradles her brown paper bag, bread warm inside, behind her crossed arms.

“you didn’t say goodbye to me when you left. and now you don’t say hello.”

[denisvilleneuve]

Zoë Kravitz + guns

[badabings]

224 ICONS OF MAHERSHALA ALI IN MOONLIGHT. please like or reblog if using, and give credit to us via your blog! mediafire | cap source

[mutntmenace-blog]

cryhavok !

“look at you, all fucking red.” he squints at alex, shielding his eyes. the grounds of westchester sprawl out ahead of him, green and yellow, blinding when the water catches the high sun.

“where’s your sun-screen, man?”

[mutntmenace-blog]

sapphirescales.

     she wheezes, back curling in on impact, hand reaching out to brace herself by grasping angel’s knee. angel might be smaller but there’s no mercy in the way she slams herself into raven’s middle. she still thinks her disgruntled commentary on his sandwich choices – who, in their right mind, puts pickles in their sandwiches? who? – is absolutely valid but raven concedes the point. not entirely faking her reedy voice, still breathless, she says, “aw, are you jealous, angel? i can bitch about you instead, if it’ll make you feel special —— ”

“you’re gonna bitch about me ––” she says, swinging her knee over, shaking her hand off, so she’s straddling her stomach for better leverage. “while i’m in prime position to punch that kidney you don’t need?”

she drops her hand from raven’s throat and reaches behind her instead –– to her sides. poised to tickle. “i mean, your funeral.”

[mutntmenace-blog]

sapphirescales !

“if i have to listen to you bitch about magneto for one more second ––” her hair tumbles down over her shoulders, slipping like silk when she rolls up onto her knees and –– fast, clumsy –– plonks down onto raven’s stomach. ––– side-saddle. 

she’s smaller than raven, not heavy, but she hopes it winds the blue dick. she wraps her hands around raven’s neck and mimes strangling her.

[emmacharlottewatson]

Zoë Kravitz by Stas Komarovski for NET-A-PORTER, June 2017.