He was an animal. A killing machine.
He slept in her bed. The love of his life. The only woman to ever see beyond his hostility. His arms wrapped around her. He held her as tight as he could in hopes of the moment never vacating him. He was at his happiest with her in his arms. He could smell her sweet vanilla locks. He dug his nose further into her neck and inhaled deeply.
"I love you so much, Sophie," He whispered in her ear. She quivered in her sleep, as if a sudden cold winter breeze had found them. He squeezed her tighter like a snake suffocating it's pray. The curves of her body fit like a perfect puzzle into his. His arm wrapped around her breasts.
Victor couldn't imagine himself anywhere else but here. He didn't want to, nor did he ever close his eyes. With every sleep, with every blink, he was haunted by the horrendous deeds he had committed. The horrendous deeds he commits. All the willpower in the world couldn't help Victor Creed. Even laying low got him into trouble.
The phone rang. Sophie awoke as if a car had crashed through the window. She tumbled out of bed, slipping through his arms, to the phone. It was an emergency. It always is. The phone always made his stomach sink. The irritating sound it produced always meant she was leaving. It was the worse sound he had ever come across.
He mindlessly watched her put her clothes on. She kept tripping over her shoes and purses. He couldn't help but admiring her matching undergarments. She slipped her green scrubs on. Dropping to the floor, she tried to find the purse she was currently using. It was mixed in with all the other designer bags he had bought for her. "Do you know where my purse is?" she asked delicately. Her big brown eyes pierced his conscience.
He desperately didn't want to her to leave. He had a horrible feeling. "You left it on the table," he responded, untangling himself out of the sheets. He already had his clothes on before she came back with the purse. The clothes were still a little damp from the beating rain they had escaped when coming home from dinner. He had meant to propose to her this night.
"Oh, you don't have to get dressed! Just go back to sleep baby," she calmly insisted.
"I'm going with you," Victor dictated, "It is late and you're not going out there alone."
Setting her purse down on the bed, she went into the bathroom. She tied her hair up into a bun. He hated that bun. He liked her hair loose. She spoke through the bobby pins in her mouth, "Vic, it's right down the street. I'll be fine."
"NO!" he roared. The look in his eyes were possessive, as if he was fighting the other alpha male for the prize. She turned around, giving in to his contest, but seeming very upset over the matter.
"Okay," she mumbled, "Are you ready to go?"
He opened the door for her then locked it with his spare key. The rain was beating harder than before. The water drains in the street had over flooded. He had taken his large black coat off and hovered it over Sophie's head, shielding her from the rain. They hurried down the slippery cement steps and onto the sidewalk. "Hold onto me," he urged.
The walk was short, but the rain was unforgiving. All his senses were alert. He felt Sophie's arms clinging to his abdomen and the rain dripping down his face. He tasted it's sulfur substance. He smelled the wet deteriorating cement they were walking on and his sour clothes from the previous outing. He saw a black cat wandering into to darkness.
"This is it," she pointed out. Trees covered the entrance to her patients New York apartment complex. Visitors had to enter through the parking garage around the corner. Suddenly, they heard a crash, like a dozen trash cans falling off the third story. This didn't please Victor one bit. He felt a very familiar ache through his finger tips. Something just wasn't right. He heard the cat squeal.
"You're not going in there, Sophia," he stammered, "we're going home now." He didn't even give her a chance to respond before he picked her up, still wrapped in his coat and headed in the opposite direction. That didn't fare to well with her.
"Let me down!" she struggled, "Victor, this is my job!" She wiggled as hard and swiftly as she could, but he kept her tight in his clutch. "Victor!!" She screamed. Violently, she forced her way out of his grip and fell to the the hard, soppy ground. The anger was fuming from her eyes. She stood up and tried to brush the wet dirt off her scrubs. He was too concerned with the alarming footsteps he heard around the corner than to see how visibly mad she was.
"You can't do this! I'm late now because of you! Do you not understand there's a man dying up there?" Victor scanned the proximity, something was not right. He felt his claws protrude from his fingertips. "Victor!!!" She shouted, trying to get his attention. He turned around, but was met with a hard slap in the face.
He roared like an indistinctive animal against a frightened Sophie. He was no longer Victor Creed, but a creature of a wild plain. He had only morphed into Sabretooth once before Sophie's eyes. He had promised himself never again, for the sake of their future together. For the sake of hiding his identity.
Suddenly, a gunshot hit the ground at their feet. Both alarmed, they looked in the direction across the street. Another bullet hit Sabretooth straight in the back. His roar echoed through the streets. Two more were aimed towards Sophie, but Sabretooth had jumped in front of her, taking the bullets and both of them into the street.
Sophie, crying on the pavement under him, had a genuine fear in her eyes. She was in a cave under his large body mass. Sabretooth had taken three more bullets since their brief meeting to the earth. He ignored the pain. "Listen," he huffed, as his heart pounded against her shoulder, "I need you to forget all thats on your mind right now." Two bullets, staggered breathing. "I need you to do this for me," he whispered reassuringly. "You need to be brave."
"I can't," she sobbed. He couldn't stand to see her cry. He took 4 more bullets and a deep breath.
"Sophie, I know you can. Don't you ever say you can't!" More bullets. Sabretooth wasn't healing as fast as the bullets were hitting him. At this point he was unsure if the gunman was still across the street or right above the both of them. "I need you to play dead. Stay as lifeless and limp as you can," he whispered as another bullet hit his leg. "When it is clear, run home. Get inside, lock everything," his breathing staggered, "Don't wait for me." There wasn't enough time to reassure her. He had to act.
He jumped up, high in the air. It seemed humanly impossible, but Sabretooth was no human. He saw the gun man clothed in all black, running in the opposite direction. Sabretooth let out a pure, deep, throat-opening roar that gave even the proudest lion a shiver. He bolted, running on both hands and feet.
The gunman was running into the darkness. That was no advantage. Sabretooth leaped into the air and took him to the wall. He slammed against the brick, clenching his throat with his hyper-extended fingers and razor sharp claws. He would show no mercy to the misunderstood gunman. He squeezed hard until he heard the man's choking.
"Who do you think you are, fool?" He squeezed harder. He would not stop until the man was lifeless. "Was all that shooting necessary? What?! Do I have something you want?" The man tried to speak, but Sabretooth squeezed harder. "No!" He stammered, "You don't get to talk."
He punched the merciless gunman in the stomach as hard as he could. Blood leaked through the sides of his eyelids. Sabretooth had him three feet above the ground. "Was this all for money? You wont need my money when you're dead." Punch two. Punch three. Punch four.
Sabretooth then sliced his stomach open with his razor claws, letting all his organs spill out. The man was dead. He dropped him to the ground. "Harder than I thought," he muttered. He would never find peace in the simple life.
He saw that Sophie was gone from where he last left her and assumed she made it home. He walked the gloomy street back to her apartment. It was a walk of shame for him. He knew cops would be buzzing these streets in the morning. Someone must of heard the gunshots. He hated the police. Since they live so close, he knew he would probably seem questionable as a suspect.
He slowly made it up the steps. Each leg was getting heavier to lift with each step. He took out his spare key and unlocked the door. He didn't know what to expect when he opened the door. He desperately hoped Sophie wasn't going to leave him. He couldn't live without her. How could she live with a monster?
Opening the door, everything had seemed how they left it, except Sophie's purse was across the room instead of on the table. All the lights were off. He opened the door to the bedroom. She was under the covers crying hysterically. He quickly got his clothes off for the second time that evening, down to his underwear, and got back into the bed. Her digital clock turned 3:26 A.M.
He held her again. Her crying became more fluid and less controlled as he pulled her close. "It's okay, Sophie. It's okay." Her words were choppy and unrecognizable. "I love you, I love you, I love you," he whispered in her ear. Her whimpering made him uneasy. "I love you more than anything."
"I love you too," she whispered back to him, between sobs. He pulled her long locks out of her rubber band.
Life as Victor Creed was not easy. Proving to himself that he was capable of love and compassion was a difficult task, especially with his hostility since childhood. Intimacy was something he never had control with. It was something he thought he would never need. With Sophie here in his grasp, he knew he would never let go. He knew this was his only chance to change.
He just wasn't sure how much longer it would last.