Right from the start, Erik's favorite thing about Moira is the look she gets on her face when she's annoyed at him. It's a great face; Erik gets off on it more than a little, and provokes her to it every chance he gets.
For Moira's part, she'll never admit it, but Erik just knows his smirk gets her hot — at least if he's judging by all the times he's smirked at her and she's made that face right before shoving him into a wall to have her way with him (this happens a lot).
Actually, that might explain why the phone sex thing just doesn't work out for the longest time: he can picture her annoyed face perfectly regardless of whether or not she's around, but she must have trouble doing the same. Clearly Erik is much more magnetic in person.
one
As it turns out, recruitment trips are much less fun than hunting trips. Mostly because Erik doesn't get to kill anyone, even as a last resort. He's dying of boredom by the end of the first day.
He's also horny, and since there's a phone in his room, he decides he might as well make use of it. He sits down on the bed, leaning back against the headboard and crossing his legs out in front of him, and dials a number. There are a few hoops to jump through, three bouts of, "I need to speak with Agent MacTaggert, please, it's urgent. No, I can't talk to you about it," before someone slightly less idiotic than the others finally gets her on the line.
"What is it?" Moira says, all brisk and business-like.
Erik smirks. "Tell me what you're wearing," he says in a sensual, commanding voice.
There comes a long silence on the other end of the line. She's obviously too overcome with lust to respond right away. But Erik is patient. He can wait. And since he's waiting anyway, he goes ahead and sticks his hand down the front of his pants to get things started.
"Erik, this is the emergency line," Moira says. She sounds exasperated, but it's clearly just a front for her real feelings.
"This is an emergency." Erik considers his options, then groans for effect.
"Are you out of your mind?" Moira hisses. "I'm not about to — don't call me here again if it's not official business. You know what, don't call here at all, let Charles do it."
Then she hangs up. Erik takes the phone away from his ear, frowns at it, then sets it back in the cradle. He'd call back, but he's already half hard, and he'll lose his erection if he has to go through a bunch of morons to get ahold of her again. So instead of redialing the number, he shrugs and keeps on doing what he's doing.
(Moira knows getting involved with Erik is a bad idea. And the more she gets to know him, the more shit he pulls, the more she knows it's all going to end badly.
She doesn't realize how badly until Cuba.)
two
Erik gives it a few months before he tries to get back in touch with Moira. It's not that he's scared of her, it's not that he's concerned at all about what she might have to say to him. It's just that he's been very busy with the Brotherhood. It takes a lot out of him to keep a constant eye on Shaw's former people to make sure none of them try to kill him in his sleep or stage a coup. Anyway, he has better things to do than try to make nice with someone who tried to shoot him — a lot — the last time he saw her.
But one night in February there's a foot of snow on the ground, nothing to do and no one to do it with. Azazel and Mystique have gone to bed early — and doesn't Erik appreciate that, since he shares a wall with him (he has the master bedroom, and moving is not an option) — while Angel and Janos are hogging the television. As for Emma, she fucked off days ago to God-knows-where to do God-knows-what and be back God-knows-when. After all the trouble Erik went through to break her out of the CIA, she can't even be shitted to check in. There's gratitude for you.
So Erik's bored, and he's restless (not to mention horny). Who knew playing the long game — where waiting for the pieces to fall into place could last months or years instead of days or weeks — would be so insipid.
That's one thing to be said for Moira: she's never boring. She livens things right up. She'll be the first non-stupid person Erik's talked to in weeks — maybe even months.
She picks up. "Hello?"
"Tell me what you're wearing." It's a risk, an opening gambit that might get him hung up on, but Erik's banking on her being pissed enough to yell at him for a while — long enough for him to get a word in, long enough for her to remember that she likes him well enough in person. Long enough for her to remember that she misses him too.
"...Who is this?" and instead of sounding mad, she sounds cold, which isn't something Erik's used to out of her.
It's a blow to his ego, but his ego is considerable, so he recovers quickly. "This is Magne —" but then he realizes that she might not recognize him by that name, so instead he goes with a sultry: "This is Erik."
"I don't know anyone named Erik. Don't call here again."
And then there's nothing but dial tone.
Erik stares at the phone awhile with a sick, sinking feeling in his gut. Before long, it twists itself into something darker and hotter, a sweltering rage.
He dials another number, and shouts himself hoarse for a long time.
(When Moira's doorbell rings the next day, part of her expects it to be the postman, while another, quieter part of her expects it to be...she's not really sure. For just an instant, the scent of leather fills her nose — If she weren't used to getting flashes of sense memory just like that, she'd be convinced she's actually breathing that smell in, but she knows she's not.
Actually, the smell itself throws her less than the annoyance that comes along with it. She used to think leather was sexy. If it's not anymore there has to be a reason, but she has no idea what that could be — whatever it is, it's just far enough out of her reach that trying to drag it toward her will only make it slip farther away, like everything else she's come this close to remembering over the past couple months.
So she ignores it for now, and opens the door to find a man she doesn't know sitting there.
"Well, actually, you do," he says cheerily.
"...Excuse me, what?"
"Know me." He peers at her. "Say, you wouldn't strike a man in a wheelchair, would you?"
"Who are you?"
"Please try to understand: I thought this would be easier for everyone," he says, and raises his hand to his temple.
It makes no sense whatsoever, until a second later when it all does. And Moira remembers everything that's been locked away from her for months, and she understands immediately what it means for her career, for her future in the CIA; and she realizes immediately how fucked everything is, and she could just scream.
As it turns out, even though she wouldn't normally hit a man in a wheelchair, she makes an exception for Charles.)
three
Erik gives it three days before calling her again.
When she picks up the phone this time, he says, "Moira." Only that, then waits to see what she'll say. He doesn't have to wait very long.
"What do you want, Erik?" she asks. She sounds tired, frustrated.
"Don't try telling me you don't know," he says, suggestively.
Moira makes a noise somewhere between 'ugh' and a groan. "Erik, you tried to choke me with my own dogtags."
And here Erik had hoped that was the one thing she wouldn't remember (in fact, he's requested it. So much for that). "You shot at me first," he reminds her. "A few times. I only tried to choke you the once."
"This is stupid. I don't have time for it. Stop calling me," and before Erik can argue that it would be a lot less stupid if she'd say something hot, she hangs up on him yet again.
That's when he decides that, since they've always gotten along better in person anyway, he'll go with that the next time.
(The same car has passed by Moira's house four times in the last half hour.
The fifth time it turns the corner onto her street, she storms out of her house, across her lawn, and into the road, and halts right in the car's path with her arms crossed over her chest. It stops abruptly, several feet from her — no tires squealing, no brakes grinding, no back-and-forth swaying motion; it just stops, dead-still, which makes sense considering it's also levitating half an inch above the pavement.
She goes over to the driver's side. Erik rolls the window down, and Moira leans in and says, "What. Are you doing here?"
Erik smirks. "Did you miss me."
"Not really," Moira says.
*
She'll never really be sure how 'dragging Erik in the house so they can have it out without giving the neighbors two shows in one week' turns into 'shoving Erik up against the front door as soon as it's closed,' but that's what happens. She doesn't even know she's going to do it until she does, and even then she doesn't know why except that she can remember him, the taste of his mouth on hers and the length of his body against her. It's not comforting exactly, but it's tangible, and, more importantly, familiar.
When they have to stop for breath, Erik says, "See, I knew you —"
"You can shut up or you can leave," Moira interrupts, because Erik's body is all right, but she's not interested in listening to his bragging.
Erik grins at her, and doesn't say another word.)
four
"Hello?" Erik says, a little irritably — who calls this late at night? It had better be a wrong number.
"Hey there, sexy," Moira says.
Erik sits bolt upright in his chair. Moira's almost never the one to call him — it's usually the other way around — and even when she does, she's usually impatient, dry, sarcastic. She never flirts with him, uses no pet names (unless insults expressed insultingly count), and definitely doesn't call him up in the middle of the night to call him sexy.
"Hey yourself." He's too turned on, too off-balanced by this surprise to remember any of his lines. What does he usually lead with? Well, she won't know the difference anyway, since she doesn't sound all that sober.
"D'you want to see my gun?" She hiccups. "It's a very big...very big gun."
"...Sure," Erik says, cheered by the realization that his lines can't be any worse than hers. A second later, he's struck by inspiration: "I could tell you about my gun."
Moira giggles. "Go ahead."
Erik takes that as leave to wax eloquent, which he does for several minutes until he hears another, more masculine giggle on the other end of the line.
He holds the receiver away from his ear and stares at it like it's a venomous snake. Then, as softly as he can, he sets it down on his desk and stalks out of his office.
He finds Azazel and Mystique in the kitchen, Azazel sniggering at the shot glass in his hand, Mystique waving her hand to shush him while slurring something about sexy sexy barrels into the phone.
It takes a minute, but Azazel finally looks up to see Erik; his eyes go wide and he vanishes in a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. Mystique starts coughing, and when she catches Erik's eye, she begins giggling uncontrollably, then almost falls out of her chair when she tries to wave at him. Were the chair not wooden, Erik would help her along with that.
"You're going to regret this," Erik says through gritted teeth, which only makes her laugh harder.
(Around the third time Erik pulls away and narrows his eyes at her, Moira has had it. "Okay, what's your problem?"
He stares at her for a moment, then says, "Are you sure you're not Mystique?"
"...Pretty sure. Put your pants back on. We're done here." Moira gets out of bed, throws her robe on, and heads toward the bedroom door. She has a lot of assigned reading to do over the weekend; she doesn't have time for this shit.
"No we're not," Erik calls after her, but when he shows up in the living room a few minutes later, he is wearing pants. He stands in the doorway for a minute — she glances at him and rolls her eyes at the expectant look on his face — then crosses over to the loveseat where she's sitting. He picks up one of her textbooks from the coffee table, and she can hear his frown when he says, sounding bemused, "You're studying genetics."
"Only for the last three years," Moira says. "I'm so glad you've been paying attention."
"Why?"
She gets asked that a lot, but she doesn't think Erik means it the way guys usually do — at least, he'd better not if he ever wants to sleep with her again — so she bites back her knee-jerk retort and thinks about it before saying, "Because it's not easy. And it's important."
"...Huh," Erik says.
Moira rolls her eyes again, and, when Erik remains standing there, eventually gets around to moving her legs so there's room for him to sit beside her. Then she puts her feet in his lap and kicks him when he leers at her, and again when his hand starts moving up her thigh, and a few more times for no real reason.
*
Three weeks later, Moira stubs her toe on Erik's helmet in the hallway, and that's when she realizes how much of Erik's crap has magically appeared around the house. And come to think of it, Erik himself has yet to leave, as far as she can tell.
She picks up the helmet and carries it into the living room, where Erik lies sprawled on the sofa watching an episode of M*A*S*H. He's paler than he was when he showed up a few weeks ago — she knows the Brotherhood headquarters are somewhere in Brazil, even though Erik acts like it's a state secret: he always has a tan in the middle of January, not to mention that when he tries to impress her by speaking other languages in bed, it's usually Portuguese now instead of French — and he looks half asleep, and Moira really doesn't know at what point he decided he had the right to look so comfortable and at home in her living room.
She steps between him and the television screen, tosses his helmet at him (it bounces off his shoulder and rolls off into a corner), then puts her hands on her hips and says, "You don't live here."
Erik grimaces and rubs his shoulder. "What are you getting at?"
"You don't live here! Go home!"
"But I like it here. And all my stuff is here," Erik says, grinning at her. "It's good enough for me."
Moira stares at him, then leaves the room before she strangles him.
*
When she gets up the next morning, Erik says, "We're out of milk."
"So go to the store and get some. And when you get back, put all your crap somewhere so I don't keep tripping on it."
Moira never exactly tells Erik he can move in, because it would be a little too much like capitulating; and besides, he has enough to smirk about already, or thinks he does.)
five
"Tell me what you're wearing," Erik says. It's still the first thing he says to Moira over the phone, even though it's never gotten him anywhere. Part of it's habit, part of it's making sure that she still recognizes him — even though by now he's pretty sure he's grated at her long enough that she couldn't forget him if she wanted to, if she made a point of trying.
"Clothes," she answers, drily.
Oh, so she's going with sarcasm instead of just ignoring him this time. She must miss him or something. It's been a while since they were away from each other for more than a week or so at a time, but for the past month either she's been out of town for conferences (or not-so secret X-Men missions) or he's been off on Brotherhood business, or both.
Erik grins, and says, "Well, that's a pity. Just think of the things I could do to you, if you weren't wearing any."
Moira snorts.
"You know you miss me. You know you miss my cock," Erik says. He stretches out on the couch and goes on about that for a while, all the usual things he says, what he'll do and how she'll react. He expects her to hang up on him at any moment, but he's not about to stop on his own, not when picturing the annoyed look on her face is working so well for him.
"Your cunt will get so wet for me, and you'll come four times," he says, because hell, who wouldn't want to come four times in one session. He wishes he could.
And that's when Moira cuts in with: "It'll be twice at the most, and the second one won't be that great."
"You'll come four times," Erik repeats, and she lets him go on for another couple sentences before:
"What would it take to get you to shut up? Do I have to sit on your face?"
Erik was turned-on before, but when he hears her say that, he goes instantly hard and all but comes in his pants. "You should," he says, reaching into his pants to stroke himself. "And I'll lick you out, and while that's happening you should lean down and suck me."
"...I'll think about it," Moira says. "But only if you've taken a shower."
Erik's hand falters. "What do you mean, if I've showered?"
"I mean I'm not putting my mouth on your dick unless you washed up first. This isn't news, Erik."
"Fine," Erik says through gritted teeth. "Yes, I just showered. Happy?"
"Mm-hmm," Moira says, sounding amused.
He thinks about going back to the whole sixty-nining on the couch thing, but if Moira's actually going to play along, there are other things he'd rather talk about.
"So, what are you wearing?" he purrs.
"Your boxer shorts, and a T-shirt," she says, which shouldn't be all that exciting since that's what she wears to bed at home most nights — but it is anyway.
"Which T-shirt?" Erik asks. He knows it can't be the ratty old one from her college days, the one so faded it can't even be read anymore, because he's been wearing that one to bed himself for the past few days.
"One of the plain white ones," and he knows exactly which ones she means, the ones that are several sizes too large for her that she wears around the house on those very few lazy days when she doesn't have anywhere to go or anything to do but lounge around. "So, what are you wearing?"
"...Um." Erik doesn't have a lie ready — he didn't expect her to ask him that — and like hell is he going to admit that he's in full battle regalia (sans helmet) at the moment — he likes to picture them going at it while he's dressed as Magneto, but if he tells her the truth she's going to be all critical about it like she always is, and then he won't be able to get off at all — so it takes him a few seconds to come up with something else. "I'm naked."
"Oh really," she says, and it takes him a moment to decide that she's being flirty, not skeptical. "So, what are you doing?"
And that he can answer. "I'm lying on the couch, and I'm touching myself — stroking my cock — and I'm thinking about you. You should take your clothes off too, you should tell me all about it."
"I don't feel like it," Moira says, and Erik's about to protest when he hears a buzzing sound on the other end of the line — hears it loud in his ear for just a second before it fades away.
"And what are you doing with that?"
"What do you think?"
"I think you've put that up between your thighs —" and the vibrator will be metal, because all her sex toys are metal (at Erik's insistence, which Moira agrees to as long as he doesn't mess with them without permission while she's using them) "— and you're rubbing and pressing it, trying to find just the right spot."
"Mm-hmm," Moira says, sounding a little breathless this time.
There isn't much more talking, there never has been with them once things have gotten heated; but her breathing on the other end of the line is maybe a little louder than it usually is, and Erik can picture just what she looks like doing it, can imagine just what the metal feels like, slippery between her legs.
Moira comes first, and Erik does a minute later, and Moira goes at it again five minutes later and has another little one.
"You're beautiful," Erik says, feeling drowsy and warm and good. He wants to take it back as soon as it's out of his mouth, because that is not the kind of thing they say to each other, and she'll use it against him for at least a couple of years.
Moira laughs. "You're not so bad yourself."
"Tell me more about that." Erik figures that if she starts praising him, and keeps it up, he could probably get hard again within an hour.
"Oh yeah. If size were everything, you'd be in the top fifty percentile for sure," she says. "But there's this thing called technique...."
"...Very funny," Erik says. He should have known it was too good to last.
(The house is dark when Moira gets home, and she assumes Erik is either asleep or out somewhere until she feels a tug on her ring finger, dragging her hand towards the bedroom.
"Cut it out, Erik," she yells, rolling her eyes.
The tugging stops, but then the ring gives a hard squeeze at the base of her finger, then begins vibrating softly, warming up against her skin as it does.
"I mean it," she calls out. "I'll take it off if you don't quit it right now."
It stops, and since Erik doesn't shout anything along the lines of 'Take it all off!' back at her, Moira isn't surprised when she gets to the bedroom a few minutes later to find him passed out, taking up two-thirds of the bed, along with both blankets. He's not snoring, so he's either dead or not quite asleep yet.
"You need to move," she says as she starts getting ready for bed.
Erik makes a grumbling noise, but he scoots over to his own side, and even leaves her three-fourths of her own blanket. She's down to her panties and digging through the dresser for the old T-shirt she usually wears to bed, when she feels another tug at her finger and looks over to the bed to see Erik peering at her sleepily and crooking his fingers at her in a come-hither motion.
"You are such a little boy."
"Not so little," Erik says. When she rolls her eyes, he adds, smirking "You're the one that said it."
Moira rolls her eyes, then flips him off for good measure. She gets her earplugs from off the bedside table, pops them in, turns off the lamp and slides into bed. The covers are still warm from Erik's body heat, and after she manages to tug the last corner of the blanket away from Erik and get herself comfortable, he comes back over to her side of the bed and throws a heavy arm around her waist.
Three minutes later, he starts snoring, but between the earplugs and the fan they keep going in the bedroom, she can barely hear him. It's a little annoying, since she'd gotten used to the quiet again over the past few weeks — though not as annoying as Erik waiting until she's almost asleep to start feeling her up.)