hates flowers because he didn't get a chance to buy some for his Erik, instead all they could do now was decorate his lover's grave and remind him of all that was ripped away from them.

truly loved standing here instead of a stranger all too close to him.

not been tainted by my sin... I cannot let you know that feeling. The feeling of blood and hatred that I carry."

again should I even allow myself the idea of relaxing around you. If I were to stop grieving the version I had loved so dearly and intimately. If I were to see you, to hold you in that same light then I have truly lost him all together. And you... You who has a kindness to you, a purity that has

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for Erik. For that version of his Erik. His heart would never belong to him again, and perhaps that second pain, that second betrayal would fully end up shattering him and the Eden he had wished to make. "I have lost you once, to something as simple as human hatred, and I worry I may lose you

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an anguished scream of despair. His Erik... His... "I'm sorry," was all he could really muster, voice trembling, faint... Distant. As if he was still apologizing to the past and not the present.

unable to stop it, watching as Erik could not stop it...! The memory was a constant, the only feeling of his, the lasting feeling of Erik was the last moment they shared with the other in his arms and no idea how to process the grief. The feeling of fading warmth and the bodies that dropped with

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man he loved and... And he couldn't... He couldn't-. His knees gave out, head dropping as he clung tighter, fabric barely stopping the nails that cut through and he could feel the warmth of his blood. That terrible night, the night he lost Erik to the anti-mutant riots. The sound of a gun, being

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