TITLE: The Price Of Survival
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe ||^_^||
DISCLAIMER: i don't own 'em, i just play with 'em!!! :) i would really appriciate it if you could send me feedback, thank you!!!

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Metallica: Poor Twisted Me

Where do I take this pain of mine
I run, but it stays right by my side

So tear me open, pour me out
There's things inside that scream and shout
And the pain still hates me
So hold me, until it sleeps

Just like the curse, just like the stray
You feed it once, and now it stays

~*~

The Price of Survival CHAPTER .1 - Incubus

*present*

Breathing…

Bleeding…

Screaming…

"No!" Logan roared viciously as he snapped straight up in the medical bed, unleashing the nine-inch claws of unbreakable adamantium at the soft flesh between his knuckles from one hand. He tore away the dampened covers from his body and pivoted his clawed hand sideways to catch something, anything on their deadly blades to ease the nightmare.

But suddenly, having been ripped away from his life-support's, he collapsed back into the bed, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. Sweat and blood became a vile stench in the tiny room; filling their nostrils and making them gag.

Jean Grey and her fiancé Scott "Cyclops" Summers rushed to replace the IV's and tubing that had been torn away from his body, but his violent trembling made it extremely difficult for both of them. Small streams of blood spilled from where his IV's and lines had been inserted.

He was fighting something or someone in his sleep, like a nightmare. His head flipped from side to side, mumbling words and grunting as if to talk to the nightmare. His body moved only slightly besides his trembling, the pain not making him able to move much otherwise.

"Help me strap him down before he hurts himself," Jean yelled over to her fiancé, beginning to pull loose the straps on the side of the bed. "You mean before he hurts us..." Scott said under his breath, preparing to catch the straps that Jean were throwing over Logan's body with her mind. Scott made sure to secure them as tight across his shoulders as he dared.

But Logan's claws swept upward to pull off the newly secured strap at his shoulders, barely missing Scott's throat by half an inch, close enough that Scott could feel the air rush behind them. Logan's strength was unbelievable, making Scott have to do everything short of climbing on top of his arm to get it back down and strapped tightly to the bed.

"Get inside of his head and shut him off!" Scott yelled over Logan's roar, flashing an upward glance to his fiancée before snapping back down to try and control his clawed hand from swiping up again.

"I can't!" Jean placed her hand to the side of her head to steadily direct herself into Logan's mind. But for the second time, she came up short of penetration. "He's blocking me out! We'll just have to do our best..."

"Easier said than done..." Scott mumbled. Then he cursed wickedly under his breath as Logan's hand got free and one of his claws nicked him on the arm, drawing a trickle of blood. Scott immediately forgot about his wound and pushed with all his might on Logan's wrist. "Give me another strap!" Scott bellowed, breaking Jean's intense concentration to get inside Logan's head again.

"It's no use!" Jean threw more straps over Logan's body like flying serpents, directing them to land perfectly into Scott's outstretched hand. Then with fluid motion, Scott clicked in the belt and tightened it as tight as he could.

Finally, within an eternity of fighting, grunting, and sheer muscle power, they had successfully gotten Logan completely strapped down and all his IV's replaced. Jean was just about to inject Logan with diazepam when his shuddering suddenly quieted then stopped. His head rolled to the side and his body relaxed as if nothing had happened at all, and in a moment, he was just sleeping.

Scott shot a confused look to Jean before collapsing back into a chair, kicking out his feet so he was spread across the seat and back of the chair. The ruby-quartz lens in his blue visor suddenly went dark as he closed his eyes, sighing deeply. His chest heaved from beneath his plaid shirt as he tried to recollect himself.

"I'm bushed..." Scott said, lazily rolling his head back up to his fiancée who seemed as eager as ever to check over Logan's vital statistics and pull a new blanket over his body. She swept all her attention up to Logan's head, slowly working her way down, reconnecting broken lines and checking reopened wounds.

"I wonder what happened..." Jean said to herself, but loud enough that Scott heard. She was completely oblivious to Scott's comment, too engaged with Logan to notice. "What do you think they did to him?"

"I don't know," Scott said simply, too tired to think about it. He watched as Logan's extended claws slowly retracted back into his arm and the flesh between his knuckles coupled as the piercing ends of the claws retreated beneath, leaving his hand as if nothing was there in the first place. "Maybe we should sleep on it."

"Maybe you're right, I mean, we have been up for almost seventy-two hours..." Jean admitted, walking toward her fiancé and falling across his lap, she wrapped her arms about his neck and rested her head against his shoulder, breathing into his ear. "I love you..."

"I love you too..." Scott turned his head and kissed her on the neck, shifting to slide his hands beneath her and preparing to carry her like a little child from the room, even with his crushed hand. He was about to move out the door when Jean said something that made him stop and think.

"Who's going to watch him?" She whispered in his ear, closing her eyes and tightening her arms around his neck, feeling the full force of her exhaustion. Scott's eyebrows stitched at the question, they definitely couldn't leave him alone with the way he was acting lately.

"I will," Ororo "Storm" Monroe chimed in, walking past the two lovebirds with something short of a smile across her dark face. Her shock of snow-white hair was pulled back into a braid that sat limp between her shoulder blades. She was still wearing her torn and tattered X-Men uniform as a symbol of pride and accomplishment.

"Thank you," Jean called out over Scott's shoulder as he carried her away down the hallway, not far from the medical lab. Ororo yawned and closed the door behind her as she turned back to Logan. She, as had the others, had fought a battle that nearly killed them, but it was still far from completely over.

"Poor man," She muttered quietly under her breath, taking in his beaten and vulnerable form. Logan lay calm under the taut belts that bit into his flesh, the straps rising and falling with each of his smooth breaths. Dark bruises and still healing wounds were splashed across his bare chest and face, adding color to his otherwise pale features.

One of his arms was wound in bandaging from his palm, clear up to his elbow. Various layers of dressing were wound across his chest and shoulders and stomach, crimson blooms of blood pushing through the sterile white dressing. From beneath the blanket, Ororo saw the bulge of his cast that was secured around his broken leg.

She silently took a seat next to Logan's bedside and reached up with a shaky hand to stroke his dark hair. She was surprised at her trembling, but dismissed it as nothing more than exhaustion. He felt hot under her fingertips, as if someone was holding a flame to the other side of his skin. Ororo stood and filled a bowl with cold water, soaking a cloth in the water and returning to Logan's side.

He had begun to mumble something again, whatever it was; she couldn't make it out to the best of her advantage. His hands flinched beneath the straps and his legs shifted under the blanket and silk belts. "No... no...get away...away from me..." He mumbled a little louder, his eyes wild beneath the cover of his eyelids.

"Shush," Ororo whispered, leaning close to his face. She tried to calm him, running the dripping cloth across his sweat-dotted forehead that appeared to steam when the water touched it. Then suddenly, the unexplainable happened.

With the blink of an eye, Logan sat straight up, snapping half of the thick silk straps as if they were nothing more than wet tissue. In fluid motion, he ripped the belts at his legs with a whispered *snikt* of his claws and was up out of the bed just as swiftly. There was a strange, evil look playing in his eyes as if he were possessed.

Ororo barely had time to get to her feet before Logan was onto her, limping lightly on his broken leg as if it was nothing more than an inconvenience. "Help me! -" was the only thing she could scream before there was three blades of adamantium at her throat and a threatening fist pressed into her stomach. With the just as surprised Logan using her as a human shield, opposite the door.

Within five seconds, the door burst open and Scott was in the room, barely able to stop himself as he saw the incident happening before him. He spread his arms wide to catch and halt Jean behind him, stumbling momentarily before the room was wordless, except for the screeching of the medical equipment.

"Turn it off!" Logan bellowed over the beeps, pressing his fist harder into Ororo's stomach to show that he was not joking. Jean nodded slowly and went over to the wall, unplugging the cord, which gave the machines one last breath before dying away to an eerie silence. The only sound in the entire room was the heavy breathing of Logan, mostly due to the fact of all the medication.

"No!" Logan roared, his claws suddenly shuddered away from Ororo's neck as if he were fighting with himself and losing. The strange look in his eyes suddenly flickered before overwhelming him again and his claws snapped back against Ororo's neck. "There will be no resistance to me!" His voice suddenly dropped a pitch as he said it, deep and rumbling in his throat as if he were haunted.

"Stay there!" The crazed Logan with the deep voice commanded to Jean, who obeyed and stayed still in the corner of the room. He snapped his dark, wild eyes toward the young man before him, wearing newly thrown-on plaid sleep-trousers and a gray tee shirt. A shock of auburn hair crept up out of the top of a blue visor with a ruby-quartz lens. "Nobody move..."

"Logan?" Jean whispered quietly from the corner, when Logan did nothing more than turn to face her straight on, she continued. But the look of evil in his eyes kept her from moving towards him or protection. "We're your friends, you have nothing to fear." Logan cocked his head and his eyebrows dropped as if what she had said confused him.

"Friends?" Logan spat as if the words were acid to his throat and tongue. "I have no friends," Suddenly, he began sniffing the air like a dog, taking in a scent that no one else in the room seemed to notice. He slowly leaned forward, taking a long sniff into Ororo's hair, which made her draw in a sharp breath and close her eyes.

"You have nowhere to go..." Scott thought quickly, finding something else for the man to think about. Logan repositioned his clawed hand so it was off of Ororo's neck and pointed toward the door with glinting metal. He kept his face buried in Ororo's hair as if to protect himself from Scott if he decided to do something.

"That's where you're wrong, bub." Logan pushed his leg into the back of Ororo's knee, making her stumble forward, Logan still using her to protect himself. Even through her tight leather suit, Ororo could feel Logan's clenched fingers drum against his palms and suddenly begin to tremble.

Jean began to approach him when Scott grabbed her wrist, holding her back. She turned to him; a confused and frightened look overcame her face. Scott shrugged and shook his head, trying to keep his fiancée safely close to him.

Logan's hand slowly retracted from Ororo's stomach, moving up to reach for his head as if it hurt terribly, and began to roar in pain. "Jean! Please help me!" Logan screamed in the middle of the roar, the berserker look flickering from his eyes again. Ororo took this moment to pivot quickly out of his reach, backing away towards Scott and Jean who stood helpless in the corner, watching the man suffer.

Logan howled and dropped to his knees, the pain in his head feeling as if someone was beating on his brain with an ice pick. Then, with a loud thump, he lay sprawled facedown on the carpeted floor and his claws slid silently back into his hand.

~*~

After Ororo, Jean, and Scott had gathered themselves, they summoned up enough courage to move Logan into the twenty-four hour watch and heavily alarmed medical lab down the hall. While there, they hooked him up to everything he needed and were careful to strap his arms and legs individually and securely with numerous silk straps and an occasional steel clamp.

When they were done, Logan looked more like a mechanical Houdini set to do his latest miracle escape than a mutant that was misunderstood and of suspicious behavior. Sensors were placed at his temples, recording and displaying every REM as a spiky red line glowing across an otherwise black screen beside Logan's bedside.

Another sensor was placed across his forehead and connected with long green wires down to crucial areas along his body, reading his brainwaves and psychoneurotic signals. But despite all the expensive equipment, extensive medical research, and the technical expertise, there was still no answer to Logan's problem.

An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose to help his breathing; the plastic bubble was fogged with the heat from his breath. As another precaution, both of his hands were bound with numerous layers of silk cloth around his knuckles to restrain his claws as long as they possibly could.

They all felt sorry for making the wounded man look like a science project, but they had had no choice. They had not told either Professor Xavier or the children in the school, keeping it silent among conversations. But most importantly, they had not told Rogue who would have come looking for him. He just couldn't be trusted, no matter what had happened to him and how badly he was hurt, or may be.

Jean sat silently in the surveillance room, leaning forward over the orderly desk with her chin supported on her knuckles. She had gotten some sleep that night, but not enough to fully restore her body to its prime, but she didn't really care.

She was too caught up in Logan's behavior that her sleeping was almost as reckless as Logan's had been. She didn't want to wake Scott, who had been snoring loudly in exhaustion, so she had quietly crept off to the surveillance lab to think and watch.

Her eyes stayed glued to Logan who lay sleeping about thirteen feet below the glass observation bubble that jutted from the wall above. No movement in the entire room could be missed by either the video cameras or the person sitting in the bubble, which made Jean feel somewhat more comfortable.

All things were controlled up in the observation bubble, everything from the doors to the lighting, which was relatively dim at the moment. If someone were to turn off all the lights, the glass bubble would then drop an infrared scanner to show every warm thing in the room with vibrant colors.

~*~

Scott yawned and rolled over, throwing his arm over to the lump at the other side of his bed, but the lump turned out as nothing more than the twisted covers. He lazily sat up, checking that his visor was securely strapped to his face, and got to his feet.

He looked around the room, only half expecting to find her in a chair thinking or something. But with a sigh, he stretched his arms above his head and twisted his body until he heard the hollow crack of his spine realigning.

He padded barefoot out into the hall, welcoming the cold, smooth tiles of the floor at his bare feet. He reached up to scratch the back of his head, taking his time to figure out where his fiancée could have run off to, then he kind of figured. Which made him sigh in frustration and shake his head.

Scott silently opened the observation bubble's door to an empty room, the dim light of the lab beneath bathing the observation bubble in a gray light. As he stepped in and shut the door behind him, shadows splashed and broke across his face and danced strange pictures about on the walls.

Slowly, he made his way to the front of the room, flinching back momentarily before leaning forward and looking over to the medical lab below. Just as he had suspected, Jean was bent over Logan, stroking his hair and what looked like to be talking to him. Then a shudder went through his spine as Jean reached down and kissed the unconscious man on the lips.

This made Scott pivot back from the desk, clenching his fists at his sides and squeezing his eyes shut. He waited until his frustration and anger passed before releasing his hands and allowing his eyes to reopen. He was surprised to find his hands tingling from the sudden loss of pressure from his fingertips digging into his palms.

He was so mad he wanted desperately to blast through something with his eyes, but he refrained. *That would be like Logan...* Scott tore away from his thought at the mention of the man's name, forcing himself to think of something not even connected to Logan, but he couldn't.

~*~

Jean jumped and whirled around on her heel to meet the almost recollected face of Scott, his lips thin and tight. Even through the ruby-quartz lens and despite her telepathic abilities, Jean could tell that Scott was or had been very mad. No doubt being something toward her and Logan.

"What are you doing?" Scott asked with forced kindness, immediately closing his mouth before anything else could escape. His hands were clasped tight behind his back, wringing nervously and angrily.

"I was just checking over his equipment, why are you up?" She tried to ignore his look and turned back to Logan, fixing a loose plug and staring at an incredibly interesting blinking light on his heart monitor.

"I should be asking you the same question." Scott shot back, a little more arrogant than what he really meant it as.

"I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake you. And your reason?" She didn't even turn back to face him, instead she busied herself by running her finger along a cut at Logan's cheek that was small enough that didn't need to be covered by bandaging, but big enough to take a while for his healing factor to take affect. And from all the drugs that had been pumped into him, his mutant powers had no doubt been slowed somewhat.

"I woke up to an empty bed, where my fiancée usually sleeps..." Scott spat, his visor glowing a brighter red as he lost a sliver of his clutched anger. His breathing was fast and shallow, as he tried unsuccessfully to calm himself down.

"And just what does that mean?"

"I want to know why Logan is so goddamned important to you!" Scott couldn't keep it in any longer, so he let it come and blindly prepared for the punishment.

"Because he is hurt..." Jean began calmly, but Scott interrupted her.

"He's always hurt! Don't you see Jean? He's using his pain to get to you! It's not safe for you to be down here..." Scott's eyes seemed to ignite the room in red light, glowing viciously from the visor that looked insufficient to control such anger.

Jean's head shot upright and she took a shaky breath before turning to bring her face three inches away from his, looking him straight in the visor where his eyes were. "I'm a grown woman Scott, and I love you very much. But don't you ever say anything about Logan like that again. That man has gone through so much shit that even you should have the decency to give him support! You have no right!"

With that, Scott was out the door and stomping angrily down the hallway to his room, slamming the door angrily behind him. He dressed in more acceptable clothes and threw on his shoes as he decided to get away from everything associated to the man and his troubles.

He stormed out of the school, making rigid turns to the garage and straight onto his motorcycle. He revved the engine as loud as he could, before blasting out of the garage in full gear, leaving a huge black tire mark across the X symbol on the floor, with nothing so much as a backwards glance.

~*~

Jean fell limp, letting her arms support her head as her face fell into her hands. She braced herself on the edge of the medical bed, the small of her back holding her upright. She wasn't sorry for what she had said, she was only speaking the truth, and she knew that Scott knew it.

In frustration she shut out everything about Scott, focussing on a comforting blank crevice in her mind. Suddenly, a picture of Logan's tortured face from earlier flashed across her mind, dissolving into Scott's enraged face that wasn't all that different.

She turned and gently lay across Logan's chest, feeling his calm breathing beneath her cheek as she gently stroked his limp hand. "Why do you have to be so difficult?" She whimpered, closing her eyes and taking in his clean smell.

Then suddenly, she was inside of him, walking through his mind like a room with two doors. One being the entrance and one at the opposite side an exit, and lying in the middle was a glowing, glittering, rotating mass of everything he was, thought, knew, and loved.

Then she had her answer...

"The Price of Survival" Is To Be Continued In The Next Chapter...