He thought it would be easier than this.

He thought it would be just like walking out the last time, thought that he had been rendered insensate to the look about his former lover. There was no room for pity nor affection in Magneto's heart; unefficient emotions, those things, unable to inspire great deeds or urge great men to transcendence. Erik was if nothing else efficient, and ruthless, and till now had considered himself cold to boot.

But now, with Charles before him helpless and unguarded, still in the thrall of some monster that barely clung to life, he felt...something stir within him. Not quite pity, no, nor affection; Erik had long ago given up on feeling such things for Charles, emotions stunted by those weekly 'visits' and the unfailing sympathy of this _man_ for those who had ensnared him, who had been closer than any brother, had Charles never known what captivity was like, had he never known was it was to want _someone_ to come and _save_ him, pride and dignity be damned, if only to save each other--

Erik shook his head and rose from his reverie. The walls of the room around them had already begun to hemorrhage water, and the room's metal infrastructure was only maintaining its integrity at his coaxing. There was no time for dithering.

He gestured at the moribund abomination behind him. Mystique needed no words; they had their own brand of telepathy, after all these years of working together and planning together and fucking together. She slit the boy's throat with a smooth, fluid motion of her hands.

Charles blinked his eyes. As the lifeblood pooled out of the boy's neck, his hold over Charles buckled and snapped. Charles lifted the makeshift Cerebro helmet off his head and wheeled himself about; he had always had to crane his neck up to look at Erik, from his disadvantaged position. Something about that had always struck Erik as right.

"What...Erik, what's going on?" He took in the room, the wasted corpse leaking its fluid bile over itself, Mystique with blood on her hands and satisfaction written along the planes of her face.

Erik nodded slow and deep at his former lover. "Come, Charles," he said, gripping the wheels of Charles' chair in a magnetic vice. "We have much to discuss, old--friend."