Note: Set in the same universe as 'I Want You To Spit In My Face'. Takes place approximately 6 years before that.
Summary: In hindsight, it's relatively unsurprising when a friend of a friend of a friend's introduces her to a baby-faced guy with eyes too blue to be comfortable and a disarmingly charming smile.
When Will met Grace.
She's a nice girl, Moira McTaggert.
First of her promotion in high school, exemplar behavior throughout her whole scholarship, good family, spotless WASP education, irreproachable manners, and a whisk of taste for danger and new experiences that make her funny, easy to get to know and like. She's not overly charismatic, but people like her, and she's not afraid of saying what she thinks or fighting for what she wants –there are stories about her and how she managed to steal a boyfriend from a head cheerleader, and that time she set off an improvised bonfire with hers and her schoolmates' notebook from their last year of high school, and that other time at a guy's eighteenth birthday where she did a very good dance of Madonna's Like a Virgin on a restaurant tabletop to win a well paid bet.
So, in hindsight, it's relatively unsurprising when a friend of a friend of a friend's introduces her to a baby-faced guy with eyes too blue to be comfortable and a disarmingly charming smile. He's trying too hard to impress girls and just that short of a pain in the ass, but once you get past the disapproving frown that crosses his face each time you take a new drink, Charles Xavier reveals himself as a witty guy with a wry sense of humor, a sharp mind and a sense of mischief that makes him appear like a kid who grew too quick trying to claim their childhood back without having the slightest idea how to stop being responsible for everyone and everything.
Moira takes an intense liking to him.
Charles is here for a double degree: psychology and philosophy. He's also assisting to as much lessons on genetics as he possibly can, and seriously considers entering the exams as a freelance candidate –he would, too, if it weren't scheduled at the same time as his psychology exams. Charles reads in English, French and Latin, and self teaches himself American Sign Language in his spare time. He writes essays about all and nothing and lives in a constant clutter of post-it notes and dog-eared books. He can recite three Shakespeare plays and five chapters of The Hobbit by heart, along with the most impressive stack of erotic poetry Moira's ever heard of. He's a bloody genius and he wants to know as much as he possibly can about all and nothing: social codes of parties, flower language, the handkerchief code –later, she admits that one should have tipped her off, but her first year at university was, truth be told, a messy blur of pots and lectures and shitfaced exams she still doesn't know how she managed not to completely screw up, and most of her free time that wasn't occupied with partying or sightseeing or perfecting her skills at striptease was spent bent in half above the toilet seat, or lying in bed with a burned soup –courtesy of her roommate- and a much more efficient packet of ice and two Tylenol –courtesy of Charles who, for all he never drank or smoked or sniffed, seemed to know a good deal already about the most efficient ways to ward off headaches, from cataplasms to chunks of ice down to the precise dosage of aspirins according to how much you've drunk and with whom. She couldn't possibly have known.
Charles is a bloody genius, and Moira is in bloody love.
Charles and Moira end up becoming Charles-and-Moira: it's getting difficult to get to see one without the other.
It's not so much shared interests than a sort of completion that keep them together. Charles is the stern mother to Moira's inner five years old, the bookmark to her borrowed textbook, the aspirin to her hangover. Moira is the cricket to Charles' ant, the genie to his childish wishes –like that time she booby traps one of his teacher's office after said teacher behaved like a butt-hurt prick about Charles' interpretation of some of the studied poems- the light to his cavern. He's the genius to her fun, she's the approachable to his mystery: they just need each other to function.
And if Moira enjoys it a bit too much when they fall asleep on the roof of her dorm after a far too long stargazing session the weekend before the end of finals, well, it's of nobody's business other than herself. She does, after all, have a right to cherish whatever precious moment she wants.
One day, after months and months and months of alternate cajoling, debating and pleading, she finally convinces Charles to try and smoke his first pot ever. She can't believe he's waited until he was nineteen to do that, but he just shrugs, says he's had more important things to do, and leaves it at that. Moira doesn't want to learn about an ex-girlfriend or a fiancée or something, so she doesn't push, simply hands him the pot back.
It takes a while, because Charles refuses to relax at first, and his presence always puts her on edge anyways, but they finally manage to get themselves properly stoned in the middle of Charles' room –his roommate decided to screw studies and leave somewhere around Christmas, so the battlefield's all his- and they giggle like hopeless loons at the mess of paper and colored sticky-notes and Charles, for some reason, starts declaiming Byron, and Moira's sprawled atop him –like she usually is, mind you- and his lips look so sexy like that, barely slurring on the well-known words despite their swollen state… really, anybody in Moira's place would have kissed him, too.
Moira, Charles says in the most apologetic voice he's ever had, I'm truly sorry, but girls just aren't my thing. Not even one as great as you are.
Moira stops dead, defeated but not completely heartbroken –even she could understand that a full year of foreplay was pushing it- and she assures him it's okay, it's not like he chose to like guys, and at least now she doesn't have to wonder whether she's good enough for him anymore, since she can't even compete in the first place. It's all for the better, really, don't worry, let's just find a movie to watch and tomorrow we'll be back to normal, 'kay?
It's 2005 and whoever of them thought it was a good idea to put The Fellowship of the Ring in the DVD player while undergoing a massive case of early crash-slash-heartbreak-slash-coming out clearly wasn't thinking straight because they both fall asleep before Sam and Frodo even make it out of the Shire. –Granted, not thinking straight was kind of the whole point, but still.
It's not until Moira wakes up in a pool of drool on Charles' stomach –whose legs somehow managed to find they way back to the sofa while his head elected Hugo's Les Misérables 'en version originale' as a decent pillow- that she realizes that, for all his confession of the night before –and it's not a pot-induced hallucination, because Charles cheek is still bruised from that part where he flailed too much and punched himself- Charles hadn't opened his lips once.
Moira seriously considers punching him awake –if he is indeed, a Mutant, she has BFF right to know everything about it- but then the throbbing in her head gets too much, and she decides to stick to her ritual of strong coffee and scrambled eggs instead.
Because Charles may be gay –which is a pity for her love life- but he can also speak in her mind –and it's better than The Sentinel and Superman combined- which makes him double his amazing-ness ratio in her eyes and, from that moment on, she knows she'll never want to live a life Charles isn't a part of. She'll deal with the delicate problem of wanting to date someone else than her delicious substitute later, when the elephants in her head stop dancing the rumba. Till then, she's going to find plenty of ways to put Charles' gift to good use.
Except the first thing Charles does when waking up is to vow never to smoke again and to keep his power in better check: he doesn't want to be discovered just yet, and no Moira you can't tell anyone about it or there will be repercussions and no you won't know what kind of repercussions, now leave me alone, I'd like to wash your saliva out of my shirt.
Moira stops insisting after he throws a library table down and calls her a bitch, because even when he comes back half an hour later an practically grovels in apology, she can't help but think he was right anyways.
(She never realizes Charles isn't showing her even half of what he can really do, because she'd be fucking terrorized if he did, and she's the first real friend he's ever had asides of Raven, and he really doesn't want to lose her, or worse, frighten her.
He knows full well that's what would happen if she knew exactly how powerful he is.)