Devotion

~~~~~~

If I am right
If I can be
Constant and faithful
You'll find me

In my devotion
In my devotion

~~~~~~

From the start, we were vastly different people.

He was forever looking for a resolution he cannot find, and will not *ever* find, and I was looking for adventures.

I found them, and found the path that has taken me to where I am now - - sitting at a desk, within a mansion just outside of New Salem Massachusetts. Surrounded by the ebbing and throbbing presence of my students, children who I have taught and am still teaching.

I have felt their suffering with them, felt their joys, looked on as an unexpected protector and friend to many of them.

Scott is in the den, brooding over Jean and her reactions to Logan's recent return; Jean is brooding over Scott and Logan, while Logan's mind is brooding over both Scott and Jean in ways so similar that I cannot not help but smile. Storm is up on the roof, enjoying the light rain that is probably of her own doing. Rouge is playing a video game with Bobby and Kitty.

My children, all of them. I love them as greatly as the children that I will never have. Runaways and lost souls from broken homes, those cast-outs from their own families trying to run from society.

I seem to have an in-born draw towards those who need an anchor. I still remember those stormy eyes when I'd first looked upon him.

He was one of those many who came, young and penniless, into America after World War II. But he was tall -- he'd always been tall -- and looked older than he really was. Who would believe that a boy so young could have survived the concentration camps? Made his way across Europe and to America?

But I felt the need and power behind that hard gaze, and reached out to help him.

My only wish is that he would've let me hold him longer.

~~~~~~

What if you find a fault
Between my purpose and my deeds
Deem me beyond salvation
Judge me to be unworthy

Of your devotion
Of your devotion

~~~~~~

Charles. Will you ever understand why I do those things I do?

And what gave you the absurd notion that surrounding me in *plastic* would keep me 'from causing further trouble'? Really Charles. You always underestimate me so greatly. Do you think I would have survived Auschwitz and everything else life has thrown at me, so well, were I so easily beaten back?

When I have 'idiot' stamped across my forehead, Charles, then you'll be correct in your assumptions. But until then, I have not and will not ever fall so easily.

You were willing to visit me, Charles, and approve of the treatment I was getting then, but you must have been forgetting, or ignoring, how much I fear to be confined so tightly.

It was spectacular, the damage I inflicted with the keys in that man's pocket. Three of them, to be exact, and after I'd slit his throat I was able to use them to break free of the plexiglas cage you so thoroughly admired. The metal had called to me, and I'd risen, breaking the metal walls inward through their plastic 'sheathing'.

Freedom, Charles, is a greatly savoured thing after so long in that cage -- four months I waited for the guard to slip and have metal on his body. Four months of sitting with you, once a day, for an hour's distraction of plastic chess.

The Guard never knew why I would shift every so often, or the dark glances I pierced you with. How could I explain to him that you were dallying with my mind, stroking my most sensitive nerves from within my own body?

You had me there, as your little caged bird -- you knew where I was at every moment, where to find me, and I was always ready. With no outlets for my attention other than you, Charles.

Without any competition, you did so well.

A pity. That was almost my favourite part -- when you had to cajole me away from Cerebro, or away from any other things I was working on. And it never took very much convincing to get me into your bed, to get me to want you under my hands rather than a slab of metal.

But you always had to be in-control, and you couldn't handle the differences of our opinions, Charles.

How I wish that you had let it go on, that I had let there be compromise. So many useless wishes to have, when it is all too late and we find ourselves at the gates of another Hellish war.

~~~~~~

Could this be obsession?
Deliver me.

~~~~~~

Magnus broke free of his prison little over a week ago -- it took him barely four months, and I'm impressed that he waited so long before making his move. He was likely awaiting a flawless opportunity.

Jean once asked me how I know Magneto so very well -- I told her that we had been friends for a long time.

I believe that the best answer, the truthful one, would be that I've had a long-standing obsession with the silver-haired man that so many consider to be evil. Since I first met him, we've had an on and off love affair -- sometimes I'm the one who ends it, sometimes he is.

The clearest day in my mind was when he first left the mansion -- packed up his clothing from the room we shared, and walked out of the front door. We'd had a bitter, sharp-edged argument first, and it had been one of the few times he'd cried anytime other than in his sleep.

Erik is not a sentimental man at all. When he left, he fled, just like he'd fled Auschwitz -- no turning back, no last looks. He threw his trunk into my car, and drove off. I never bothered to report the car stolen.

It was after then that he became a Nazi hunter, and after five successful years of that, we came together for a time. I have watched every step of the road that has turned him into the introverted, secretive man that the world sees.

But I know *my* Erik is still within him, angry and brilliant.

I almost wish that I didn't know that. It would hurt less when he shunned me if I didn't know.

~~~~~~

Passing infatuation?
Deliver me

~~~~~~

I have ever acted upon my whims.

What whim it was to go to his precious school, I don't know. Perhaps I want to test him further -- he could deal with me as a pet, but can he handle reality once more? Or not?

I wonder how long it shall last this time. Days? Weeks? Before he shoves me away, to keep it secret from his students, or I shove him away because he interferes with my way. It doesn't matter. Each time has been worthwhile, however badly it ends.

Charles.. You won't feel me coming to you this time -- my helmet saves me from that near ceaseless mental probing. What do you think you'll do? Find a chink in my armour, slip in, and muck about my brain?

That would ruin all the enjoyment in your life, and you know it very well. Why don't you *tell* your darling students why you can't get into my mind; why don't you *tell* them the reason you can't order someone to kill me.

Tell them why you haven't done it yourself.

Such are the reasons that we have never lasted too long, Charles.

You don't risk telling such things, because you fear it won't last, but it's your withholding that makes it crumble so fast.

I have ever hated being lied to, or denied publicly.

~~~~~~

Feeling lacking in purity?
Deliver me.

~~~~~~

I fear what they would say were they to learn of the nights he and I have shared together -- is it not the greatest hypocrisy in existence to hold a lover so close at night, and work so hard to stop him during the day?

I do not know how many times I have wielded the ability to save lives and stop great harm, with my knowledge of Erik -- but could not bring myself to use it against Magneto. My mind is still haunted by the day the police surrounded him. How foolish of me to get into the minds of his allies, to try to manipulate him indirectly. I should have expected him to take the weapons from the police and use them against them.

And I could have stopped him. Helmet or no, I could have stopped him, could have stopped so much destruction. I could have spoken directly to him.

And it is times like that that I fear for my students -- would I be able to stop him were they threatened directly by him? He has kidnapped Rogue, nearly killed her, harmed, to some degree, all of the X-men.

But if he ever did kill one of my students, what would I do then?

~~~~~~

Test of fidelity?
Deliver me.

~~~~~~

Forbid that I ever again commit to your cause, Charles; why did I even waste my time listening to you yammer on and on?

I'm sure you ask yourself why I didn't listen more, or perhaps you ask yourself why you argued me so fiercely? I cannot know, Charles.

But you saved me, for a time; you gave me haven, a distraction and a useful channel for my powers. You mentally taught me English and so many other things -- knowledge to one such as I was like food to a starving man. You gloated in the fact that I was eager, that I enjoyed your companionship, that as a fellow mutant, I would support you ways.

To a degree, Charles, you are a 'control freak', as Toad has so eloquently called me on occasion. But where-as I require complete knowledge of where I am, my surroundings and threats that may occur, you feel a need, it seems, to be surrounded by those who are like putty to the touch of your hands.

Your beloved students look up to you, Charles, like you are a saint.

How badly could I smear that image were they to see another side of you? The side that has moaned my name in pleasure and lust on many a night, the side that explored with me the situation that was us, a two-fold danger.

Not simply Mutants. Not simply Mutie freaks who walk the streets, daring to parade as 'normal' humans. But lovers. Two mutants, two men, living together, founding a school together?

Casting doubt on your 'good' family name.

You do not see it -- those who only looked in from the outside cannot understand it. But the Humans are to Mutants what Nazis were to Jews - - they want us dead, and you act as the allied countries did. 'Give them Sudatenland! Give them Austria! Their purpose is good! They will understand.'

Charles, Charles...

You never learn from past mistakes, do you?

Now I see it -- clearly, the hard etchings that only reality can do. The sprawling land, the isolation of the school I helped you make from your family home.

And stand at the gates, letting old memories wash over me like the hum of steel.

~~~~~~

What if I should find
You're no good for me?

~~~~~~

I feel it now as I felt it all those years before.

The tugging.

He thinks, I'm sure, that it is simply keen observation that tells me when he is near. But there is a wave of need he carries, buried deep inside; locked away in a place that only I have the key to. It is nearly impossible, given as close to him as I have been, to not feel the sorrow that is his heart.

Even when he wears the helmet.

Ah, what do I do? Has he come to reconcile again, or to attack? Do I alert my calm, resting students of the possible threat so near? And risk turning a possible simple conversation into a massacre.

He is a danger, and I know that in my mind; but in my heart I cannot disavow the feelings I still hold.

That my Erik still holds.

And then I hear the front door open, hear and *hear* in my mind, the reactions of my students, moments before the door to my office is opened, and closed, locking.

Logan falls to the floor with an audible 'thud'.

"Tell them I am not here to fight, Charles."

Erik, oh Erik. That firm, rich voice, as he does not wait for my bidding, but perches casually on the edge of my desk. I invited this, I know -- I played at him when he was trapped, and now the tables are evened again.

I reach out to them, eyes closing; I barely catch sight of him taking off his helmet.

There is Logan and Rogue to soothe, Cyclops and Jean to assure, Storm to keep from attacking, Kitty and John to keep from fear and panic.

~It is all right. He is simply here to speak with me.~

~~~~~~

What if I can't be strong enough?
What if I can't break free?

~~~~~~

"You know why I am here, Charles."

I will not let there be deception *this* time. No games, no.

A frission of need, the popping of an ember of passion as I feel his mind reach out to mine. "No, Charles," I snap, rising sharply to my feet.

"I'm sorry, Erik," he replies, the familiar face bearing an expression that might have been sincerity, if it hadn't been so damnably calm.

Another game he plays with me. I will not be chained or bound again by his tempting games.

Helmet held in one hand, ready to put it back on at any moment, I stand there, facing the crippled man before me. It had been part of the manifestation of his mental powers -- he'd simply gradually lost control of his legs. Nothing else, just his legs.

He'd been a wonderful lover, even limited--

"Get out of my mind, Charles. Now." I do not *want* to put the helmet back on, but if he forces my hand again.

No reply, only the expression you would expect from someone caught doing something they aren't apologetic about.

Ah, that gaze that had enraptured me from the first -- steady, a warming blue that would be paternal if it weren't for the lust I read in it, even now.

My hand extends, offered to him.

I make the amends that I can.

~~~~~~

Of my devotion.
Of my devotion.

~~~~~~

It had been four years since we last committed ourselves to this act.

And here I lay, just as I had four years ago -- in my bedroom, which is thankfully away from most of the student body, exhausted and sated in Erik's deceptively strong arms. He has never lost his touch as a lover, just as the fire between us has never died, even during the fiercest arguments.

I realise, as I have every time before this, that he comes back to me because he trusts and loves me. Trust comes before love from his point of view, and I understand why -- he's fallen in love many times, but never acted upon it because there was no trust to be had.

He is his most vulnerable now -- sleeping, putting himself fully into my care. How badly I missed watching him sleep, the feel of his thick white hair in my hands, his lean, strong body curled agianst mine in the heated room, amongst the dampened bedding.

I've blocked this entire room from Jean; though I'm sure that she can guess. Erik and I came upstairs under the façade of going to the small personal library I have; I sensed her going in there some hours past to check on me.

I will have to explain this to *her*, in the least.

Erik sighs softly in his sleep, shifting minutely closer; sleep had only come to him after he'd cried himself empty of nearly all emotions. His face, relaxed and placid now, still bears the badge of that opening of the floodgates with which he holds in his emotion.

One cannot survive on nothing more than hatred, and anger; the other emotions that he holds in check must be released some time. For Erik, pleasure cannot occur without pain, joy without being followed closely by sorrow.

"Ich liebe Sie," I murmur quietly, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Perhaps this truce will last weeks, perhaps more -- perhaps he finally tires of fighting with me, because I know that neither of us will back down from our respective causes.

How odd that the two things I hold closest two me in the world are at odds with each other.

A soft murmur parts his lips, the speech of the dreamer -- he'll leave in the morning, after I've drifted to sleep. I'll awaken in my bed, with the heat of his body still on the sheets beside me. But I know he'll be back again.

The choice has always been between Erik and my Dream.

How I wish I could break myself of my devotion to one of them.

~~~~~~

Of my devotion.
Of my devotion.

~~~~~~~

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