She was running. Around her people were screaming and dying. Everywhere she went metal objects seemed to have a life of their own, and that life was used to mercilessly massacre anything and everything at their path.
She didn’t know how Magneto managed to avoid hitting mutants. She didn’t care. It wasn’t important. Important was to get in to the main tent.
She skirted past guards who were battling over their rifles that were targeting their owners. Something, perhaps a stray bullet scratched her thigh, making her stumble, but she regained her balance quickly enough. There was a large cage ahead. Two figures lying on the ground in there. Logan and Sabretooth. As she watched Sabretooth crawled to Logan and with a sudden jerk flipped him over on his stomach to the dusty ground. Gigantic mutant’s hands landed on Logan’s back, and Logan was screaming.
She ran along the narrow isle between the rows for spectators and flung herself over the wall of the cage, landing on Sabretooth’s back. The beast let go of Logan, sprung on his feet with a mighty roar and grabbed her, sharp talons digging through her clothes and sinking in to her skin.
She was sure that this was it. At any second now she’d feel a sharp snap as Sabretooth snapped her neck. She closed her eyes. And felt warm breath fanning over her face.
“You should have just told me that you wanted to play rough, cunt… But we’ll have to look in to it later. There’s a war going on, in case you haven’t noticed…” Sabretooth purred, then placed her back on to the ground surprisingly gently, turning his whole attention back to Logan who was squirming on the ground, struggling to get on his hands and knees.
“How’s that back of yours, runt?”
“Better… I guess…”
“Good. We better get out of here. They forgot us now, but it won’t take long from them to take Magneto down,” Sabretooth grunted, grabbed Logan and hoisted him up.
Logan swayed on his feet, all imaginable emotions flashing over his face, then a deep frown settled over his features and his left knee buckled under his weight. Sabretooth caught him before he fell. Rogue hurried to Logan’s other side to offer support as well.
“Jesus. Lay off that beer, runt…” Sabretooth gasped, then started to steer them towards the back exit of the tent.
They made it out just in time. The whole tent behind them started to tremble and groan as if it were becoming alive, then suddenly lurched violently up in the air, only to come crashing down over a group of soldiers who had been standing near the front entrance.
“My car is parked behind those bushes!” She shouted over the noise, pointing towards lush expanse of thorny roses that somehow miraculously had been spared during FOH’s initial attack and that had been survived Stryker’s reign over the area as well. There was only one problem. To get there they would have to get past of Stryker’s reserves that had gathered in front of the roses and were currently planning the best way to take Magneto down. They hadn’t noticed the three mutants yet, but it would only be a matter of time before…
“Hostiles! Fire at will!” Command echoed from the tile wall that surrounded the garden, and suddenly she was hugging the ground, Logan’s heavy weight bearing down on her.
“Stay down, kid… Stay down. We’ll let Vic take care of them,” Logan whispered, his lips nearly grazing her earlobe, then the whole world was consumed by deafening noise, stench of gunpowder and muck and debris raining down on them.
Then it was over. Logan was crawling back on his feet, jostling her after him rather clumsily. Together they staggered to where Sabretooth lay, surrounded by uniformed corpses. There was not an inch of healthy flesh on him left, his body was littered with small round holes and few gaping craters that still bled, but those had only slowed him down. What had stopped him was the small, blackened hole smack dab middle of his forehead. Back of his skull had been blown off and what was left of his brain had exploded to pink and grey halo around his head.
“Is he…”
“Dead? Yeah. Can’t get much deader from that…” Logan said, poking Sabretooth’s shoulder gently with his toes, nearly toppling over when his knee saw it fit to give up again.
“Is he really dead?” She asked.
“Will he stay dead or…” She clarified when Logan looked at her with puzzled look on his face.
“Good old Vic’s dead as a doornail. I kind of doubt that even he could come back from that. But I wouldn’t put it past him; I have seen stranger things happening… Listen, are we going to go now, or do you want to stay and arrange a funeral?”
“How can you be so insensitive? He saved our lives!” She shrieked when Logan started wobbling towards the brick wall, pulling her after him.
“He saved your life only because Magneto needs you alive. And me… I guess you could call it a professional rivalry. He saved my life to show off how much better he was than I. Now… are you going to stand here moping around and weeping after that asshole until Stryker gets things settled with Mags, or are you coming with me?”
She took Logan’s hand grudgingly, throwing one last glance towards the maniac that had given his life for hers, then concentrated to the task of getting over the two-meter wall.
Since Logan’s leg was currently less than trustworthy she drove. She was grateful for that. If she was driving, she had something to do, she wouldn’t have to try and come up with witty conversations and such. She didn’t trust her mouth enough to speak. On one level she knew they were doing what was good for them. They’d be free from Stryker and Magneto, at least for the time it took from them to recover after the brawl. But there was a tiny voice nagging in the deepest pit of her mind, asking questions that shouldn’t have been asked. We’re they doing the right thing? Shouldn’t they have had at least try and help Magneto? Take Sabretooth along with them? Logan himself had said that there was a small possibility that his mutation would bring him back from the dead. What if it happened? What if Stryker won the match and Sabretooth came back, only to be captured and tortured…
She shook her head and reached for the radio. Logan swatted her hand away before she had the time to turn it on.
“Don’t. Just keep driving.”
“Okay. Where to?”
“Just drive. Further we get from Stryker the better.”
“Okay.”
That was the extent of their conversation until hours later they had to stop for gas. That seemed to baffle and irritate Logan. He refused to let her out from the car alone, and when she went to pay for the gas he followed her, his eyes darting back and forth between her and their surroundings as he struggled with his limp leg. Any kind of noise seemed to aggravate him even more until she was afraid he would flat out pop his claws if the cashier didn’t hurry up.
“We should probably stop for the night…” She ventured when they returned to the car. Logan nodded, but reluctance shone clear from his eyes.
“I think they… Magneto and Stryker both will be busy for quite some time yet. We can afford to rest for a while,” she said. Logan didn’t answer, just buckled his seatbelt and resumed his earlier manner of staring the road ahead, stealing quick glances of her from the corner of his eye every now and then.
She found a suitable place, a small motel. Not too pricy but tidy and cozy. She wasn’t sure of what Logan was thinking. She wasn’t sure of his opinion of their relationship. What had happened little over two weeks ago, was it just something that happened for him, or did it held a deeper meaning? Aside from that small, chaste kiss he had placed on her palm at the infirmary he hadn’t shown any signs of emotional or physical interest in her. So she chose a room with two beds.
“I’m just going to take a quick shower and then go to sleep. Or… Are you hungry?” She asked from Logan who was sitting on the edge of the bed that was closest to the door. Logan shook his head.
“Okay. Just tell me if you need anything…” She started. The rest of her sentence was cut off when Logan grasped her roughly from around her waist and pulled her on to the bed with him, burying his face against her stomach.
“Logan?”
“Don’t. Don’t talk…”
“But I really, really do need that shower, and…”
“Just shut up, please… I don’t want to wake up yet…”
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