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A ring to control me
Moira knew he was not for her. She knew it from the moment she met him, and she reaffirmed herself when Erik entered their lives. She felt an immediate crush on the Professor just looking at him, just hearing him. He was a unique man in more than one sense, but that same man would never become his.
She made her fight, with everything and that.
Before them, she had never really considered her position on same-sex relationships, she had never had to think about that. She did not know anyone with those preferences, and she liked to believe that he was open-minded. She was wrong. After seeing the naturalness with which Charles acted next to Erik felt an inexplicable malaise. Years later she had to admit that the real disgust came more as a result of her rejected feelings, rather than the fact that they were two men.
She adored Charles Xavier, but she hated Erik Lehnsherr like no one else.
Moira saw from outside, but extremely close, the way in which the feelings between both flourished. She was there when they met, and she did not need to be able to read minds to know that Charles felt something stronger when his mind hit the redhead's for the first time.
She tried to believe when he began to take an interest in her, not as a partner, but as the woman she was. It was ironic, sad. A born casanova failing so miserably to replicate his usual techniques. Charles’ conquests were always simple because he had a genuine interest in every woman who passed in front of him, especially because he never had a point of comparison for it.
Xavier did not know what it was like to respect someone elseor not be able to see anyone else. Erik could tell with all the pride in the world that he was the reason Charles started doing it; be true to someone, even when there is nothing formal between them.
The denial in man was prolonged. Charles did not want to lose the beautiful friendship he had with Lehnsherr. Moira admitted that she took advantage of that fact. The moment he accepted that he was hopelessly in love, it would be her end and years passed before that happened.
She even forgot her crusade — thanks to the powers of the Professor, she would know later — when everything happened. Apocalypse reached everyone, misfortune was destined and there was nothing left to look at the fatal conclusion of the events when he returned to be witness to what Charles continued to deny.
Of that that Erik himself continued to deny.
Magneto's wrath swept the enemy — and although he could never say that he did it alone, everyone knew that, had Erik continued on the enemy's side, Apocalypse would have won — at the least expected time. The reason was obvious.
Charles Xavier was in danger.
Moira could not help but marvel, as the rest, of how powerful that man could become when he touched who he considered his equal ... Who, although denied, was still his protégé and treasure.
As soon as it was over, and running to the body without energy, Erik looked with regret at his old friend. Moira had Charles’ hands clasped tightly, unable to accept that she could lose him for god. Confused, disoriented, barely able to answer when she asked him where he was.
“I'm on a beach in Cuba ... With you…”
The disappointment in the eyes as peaceful as the heavens told Moira that, definitely, that comment was not for her, at all.
The fact that Charles looked for the green-eyed possessor reaffirmed it.
Through Erik's gaze, she knew that he understood it too.
Only they knew what Lehnsherr mentally replied then:
Here I am, my friend ... Loving you more than I loved you then…
Moira would never know that those words were the real cause behind the tears in the eyes of the professor, who closed his eyes a short time later, exhausted.
When Charles opened his eyes, Moira was no longer there. She never returned to the mansion either. The professor did not have much time to think about it, since Erik was there. He really noticed her absence when the redhead left again just days later. Neither could he pay the attention due at that moment, not with the last words of the other repeating itself tirelessly in his mind.
“You sure I can't convince you to stay?”
“You are psychic ... You could convince me to do anything...”
You know I could not do it, even if I wanted to...
Someday you will... I'm tied to you, Charles ... I gave you the only weapon that could kill me, hoping you never pull the trigger
“Goodbye, old friend” replied, serene.
A ring to remember you...? Charles replied, watching his hand, the piece resting in his palm, made to measure by the other.
“Good luck, Professor” Erik said goodbye, in a calm voice.
A ring to control me he explained, and in his mind the previous nights were drawn, and the time it took him to form that piece that, identical to his own, that rested on his hand, was formed from a larger metal.
The blue eyes moistened immediately. With trembling hands, he placed the ring on his finger, and sank into his seat as he felt that mind moving farther and farther away.
The most significant gesture that Erik could ever do ...
There was no longer that helmet that kept Charles out of his mind and that was because Erik himself was in charge of fusing it to form those rings that, with pride, they would carry until the day of their death.
A death they would face together.
Someday.
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