It's all about the chase
Lara was running. This was nothing new of course, it was like a game they played; a sick and twisted game but one they both got too much enjoyment out of to actually stop.
She knew the relationship wasn't healthy, the warning signs were slapping her in the face long before they even got married but she ignored them because she couldn't imagine her life without him.
Her lungs were burned, She'd been almost sprinting for at least thirty minutes by her guess. After a while the long dark corridors all started to look the same, but she'd been playing for way too long to get lost in the rat maze that was their home city. She didn't exactly have a game plan but at least she knew she wouldn't run into a dead end.
Behind the oxygen recycling pipes, she panted catching her breath in short, sharp gasps. By her estimation he would be on her arse soon. She had only shot him in the kneecap and his healing factor would make short work of the damage.
With a large intake of breath she steadied her breathing, her head peeked around the side, straining her eyes in the gloom to see if he had caught up yet. All she could see was the corridor and the encroaching darkness; the small flickering street lights which did very little to illuminate the area.
There was no point staying here, he'd catch her in no time. That damn nose of his made him like a bloodhound once he caught the scent he never stopped. Lara never admitted it but his persistent nature was a quality she loved in him, though it made him a pain sometimes as well.
With one last glance down the corridor she saw nothing, but sensed he was there, knew he was watching her because the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end. She never got over how he managed to hide when he was six foot six inches tall and yet here she was knowing he was near and not being able to see him.
Turning to her left she saw what she was looking for, a ventilation shaft was perfect. He was too big to follow her in there. She made a run for the panel, they were all loose because no one could be bothered to fix them on properly. Maintenance only ripped them off again to get in and fix things anyway so there was no real point to them. She was almost sure he'd miss her.
With one yank she dislodged the grate, and heaved the cold metal over her shoulder, and she started crawling in. It was claustrophobically small, the air stagnant and warm, she couldn't even see her hand in front of her face but she didn't care.
So long as she got one up on him she'd do it. As she squeezed herself in she couldn't help but ponder how pissed he would be when he caught her. There was no doubt in her mind that he would catch her eventually, just like he always did.
She was almost in when she felt a hand encircle her ankle and tug her back. It was surprisingly gentle compared to what she usually had from him but she still uttered a curse at him. He heard it as well, the bastard could hear everything baar the thoughts in her head.
Laughter bubble up from his chest knowing he had won the game again. That was when he decided to give her leg a sharper tug, pulling her out of the vent. Lara tried to fight it, jamming her elbows into the corners of the small space in a pointless attempt to stop him. His talon like nails were starting to bite into her skin as she fought against the momentum of his actions.
Finally she gave up and allowed herself to be dragged out. His claw like hand grabbed her by the material of her now filthy green jumpsuit and slammed her against the wall, making her vision blur for a moment.
When they refocused they were looking at amber eyes. Her booted feet were dangling off the floor limply as he held up all her weight and invaded her personal space to the point she could feel his body heat emanating through her clothes.
"You're getting faster." He didn't even sound out of breath but she was practically panting to regain hers.
"Next time, I'll shoot you in the head, that will give me plenty of a head start." He just laughed at her in response to her outburst.
They both knew what would happen if she did try that, and it never ended well, better to stick with knees.
"Fuck you." He let her punch him breaking his nose, though he could have stopped her if he really wanted to. Truth was, smelling blood, even his own, always got his blood pumping.
"That's the plan." He enjoyed teasing her, he felt like a cat with a mouse when they played, both of them knew what the outcome would be but they played nonetheless. He had to confess he was enjoying this far more than usual, her sharp gray eyes were watching his every move, daring him to try something.
Forcing her head to the side with his own he inhaled deeply; his nose had already healed from her punch. He remembered the first time he's caught her scent all those years ago, it hadn't changed.
He barely noticed her legs coiling around his hips, pulling him closer and pressing her further into the wall. She'd already started biting down on the arch of his neck with practiced ease, her teeth were dull compared to his but the familiarity was welcomed.
Truth be told he was being gentle with her, she'd only been out of the hospital a week and he had been clawing the walls throughout her stay there. His temper flaring to the point he'd managed to wreck their small living quarters but that was his own fault for slipping one of her discs out of her back again.
Sometimes he forgot that she was a bit like glass; pretty but easily broken. Lara didn't seem to care, she just went about salvaging what she could and throwing out what she couldn't like it was completely normal.
"Victor..." Hearing his name jarred him out of his thoughts. "I'm not fucking you in the streets. Can we go home?" Idle hands were indeed the devil's plaything; he'd already started stripping her of clothes but with a frustrated growl he stopped. She didn't even know what a street was or at least that's what he'd tell her. He'd been alive far longer than her, he never aged much.
Victor remembered what it was like to live on the surface. No one here had seen a real tree, hunted a wild animal or felt the sunlight on their skin. It had been a lifetime since he had seen and done these things, it made his skin itch, and his teeth ached but the memories were as fresh as if they'd happened yesterday.
He'd already started walking back, his feet seeming to know the way back without actually engaging with his mind; which was fine with him. Victor was quite content trying to ignore the unseen eyes that were following their progress back home and ignoring the whispers that they thought he couldn't hear.
...Monster, Beast, Murderer...
All titles he had been given and accepted gladly. They needed to give him more credit though, he wasn't stupid but he was happy to let them think he was, after all a predator always did its best working whilst living with its prey. They all knew to be scared of him, at least they had common sense.
Holding her in place with his left arm he opened the door to their living space. It was small and cramped but there were people living in smaller areas. If you were single you'd end up living in the singles block where all you had was a bedroom. Kitchen, bathroom and living area were all communal areas that you'd have to share with the others living on the same floor as you. Living space was only given to those likely to start a family so only married couples were eligible for the larger apartments; but in Victor's mind they weren't nearly big enough.
Lara's head was still resting on his shoulder; he didn't flinch when her teeth finally drew blood. He sat on the sofa making sure her knee didn't get trapped between him and the arm rest. He could feel her tongue gliding into the fresh wound stopping his mutation from doing it's job properly, until she moved away to look at his face. His eyes took in the face that looked at him.
Her long wavy silver hair made her complexion look paler than she really was and after she met him she had taken to shaving the left side of her head. When he asked why she said she liked the look after needing stitches there when they'd fought and his claw had managed to make a deep cut. It did work well at highlighting her sharp cheekbones that he had on more than one occasion accidentally cracked.
His blood seeped from her lips and down her chin highlighting the bite he'd marked her with. He had a special fondness for that bite, it was just underneath her lip, a line of now small circles where his teeth hand sunk right through the tender flesh.
She'd even kept the two at the center of her lip open as piercings. Of course they were too big to have regular lip stud so she'd used two small black flesh tunnels. She watched him, watching her tying the long tresses back out of the way, her thin lips expressionless as she tried to gage what her husband was thinking.
Victor continued pulling the sleeves of the jumpsuit off revealing the black tank top underneath and the patchwork of scars from his scratches and bites. The pad of his forefinger tracing the freshest wound; which happened to be on her elbows from him trying to yank her out of the ventilation.
Lara didn't flinch away like she used to when they had first started this odd relationship. She found the more she showed the pain the worse he got, in the beginning he could smell it but now it was different. Her mind associating this with what was to come, rather than what was happening in the here and now.
Creed wasn't sure whether to be flattered or frustrated with her for that. On the one hand he was grateful at the sign of trust; but on the other it was agonizingly frustrating because he used it to try and bring out her more passive mutant ability. Since she usually seemed to shy away from using it, he decided she needed encouragement.
When his fingertip brushed across the raw wound again it drew her back to the present and his motivation was crystal clear. Drawing away from him she climbed out of his lap hastily, tripping over her own feet clumsily. Lara would have ended up in a pile on the floor if it wasn't for Victor's quick reflexes. His large hand grasped at her delicate wrist, his body acting as a counter weight.
"Don't fight me." His voice hardly masked the threat that he seemed to use to implore her. He purposefully kept her off balance to make his argument more persuasive.
"Don't make me fight you." She begged him, knowing that this was also part of their game, that she would lose. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered going through the motions at all.
Lara could hear the snarl building in his chest as she defied him, his grip did not falter, it only tightened around her wrist. She hardly noticed as she started to lose herself in those eyes of his. They reminded her of when she was a child and her stepmother would hold up her amber pendant to the light, allowing it to refract through the fossilized tree resin. Victor's eyes even had the darker patches that amber commonly had, if one chose to look closely enough.
"You know I'm only trying to help." Lara knew he was, and believed him when he said it. However, she knew her talents were not always controllable. Although instinctively she knew what others feared and loved sometimes she could not always choose which to project as an illusion.
The only time she was able to keep an illusion in place was to hide the scars. Most would come to the conclusion she hid them out of shame, they were wrong. Lara always justified hiding them because of the deep seated prejudices that seemed to run rampant in the mutant community. They truly would never understand, and so to avoid conflict she concentrated on hiding them. For some reason this was one of the few times she had complete control but she could never figure out why that was the case.
"...Yeah I know..." With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach Lara felt her resolve weaken. Now she could feel the memory push against her mind, it felt so cold and alien but she allowed it entry, gently lowering her mental defences for easier access and less discomfort.
Victor watched his victory unfold before him with ease. Her eyes glazing over slightly like they did every time she allowed one of his memories through. Gently he tugged her forward, relaxing his grip now he knew she wouldn't flee or lose her balance. There had been a moment when he thought she might attempt it, he was glad she wasn't that stupid.
He smelt it first, and knew she was easing him into an illusion, it appeared today she was in a good mood indeed; more than once in her temper she had thrown him, and others into illusions with interesting effects. Now he released her wrist entirely, blinking rapidly to rid himself of the blurry eyesight.
He no longer sat down, he stood in the cold snow near a plain brick building. The metallic copperish tang of blood coating his tongue and wafting up his nose, mingled in with the corpses at his feet and the unmistakable smell of fresh urine.
A cursory glance told him they were soviet, the cheap green material of their familiar uniforms quickly absorbing the spilt blood and staining the snow. Mingled in he could smell someone else as well, one he had not smelt in years but could never forget. His ears perked and his heart beat sped up gearing him up for the fight.
His keen eyes roving the area, seeking out what the rest of his senses were screaming at him. From the corner of his eye a flash of red. He spun on the spot drawing out the pistol he knew was at his side. The metal was cold in the freezing temperatures, and the weight still familiar as the day he was given it. The small click of him cocking back the pistols hammer and removing the safety. The noise sounded as loud as a gunshot to his ears as he focused.
The muscles in his abdomen tensed, ready for the punch that never came. The blonde man that stood before him didn't get the chance as he squeezed the trigger of his pistol three times, all the bullets clustered at his target's heart.
Victor didn't hesitate charging his foe down. The other blonde man stopping to laugh at his obvious futility, his red eyes squinting slightly as the mirth consumed him, his lips twisted into a mocking sneer of a smile. Both Victor and he knew bullets would not penetrate the red armour that he bore.
As Victor advanced Omega Red's tin toy tendrils began snaking their way towards him, clearing the space between them, his feet danced around them swiftly; it slowed his momentum but only slightly as his bulky frame collided with Omega's slightly taller one.
Creed barely registered his own animalistic snarl through the howl of the wind and the grinding strain of their bodies fighting for dominance. Inhaling deeply through his nose Victor could smell the rot of decay, death and Carbonadium that was Omega's natural scent.
"You can't win." Omega's mockingly superior voice was thick with a Russian accent, although Victor was hard pressed to put a place of origin to it as far as birth went.
Before Victor could retort one of the Carbonadium tentacles managed to sneak its way around his ankle, tripping him and throwing him back bodily into the brick wall behind him with an audible crack that would have made most people break bones. As swiftly as he could he pulled himself from the rubble growling as his anger went from a simmer to a rolling boil.
Lara stood in their small living room apartment watching Victor as he stood stock still, snarling and twitching for the past ten minutes. His pupils like saucer dishes now as his brain fully accepted the illusion as reality. She could hardly breathe as she watched him, she dared not blink just in case he pounced on her; after a few moments observation she tentatively took a step closer and waited for him to lash out.
Everyone was different when under her illusions, some people didn't move at all, some acted out every action as if they were real. Victor was an in between, she never really knew what would set him off she only prayed she could pull him back before he hospitalised or killed her. Taking another step forward she saw him react to her scent when he inhaled; silently she prayed that would be enough to pull him out.
Taking a deep breath in slowly letting it out again she stepped closer, now she was so close she wasn't even at arms length away. Her mouth suddenly as dry and arid as the outside world above them.
Steeling her resolve her hand she gently and as slowly as possible reached out and slid into his. Her head inclined upward to meet his eyes and gently as she could she started to tug him out of the illusion. If she was lucky he wouldn't lash out at her or even notice anything had happened, it would be as if he had just been lost in thought for a moment and been dragged back to reality again.
"...Victor?" Her voice sounded as loud as a mouse, her heart beat hammered in her chest as she felt his fingers twitch around her hand.
With no warning his body sprung into action. Her arm twisted around her back as he manipulated her around and pressed her into the closest cold metal wall. The harsh impact knocked the wind out of her chest, she could hear the wheezing of her own breathing as she tried to catch her breath once more. Victor's weight pressed into her chest making the process more difficult and her arm pinned between them started to grind painfully at the pressure he was exerting on it.
Lara could feel the warm deep panting breaths he took on the nape of her neck but he only held her there. The moments seemed to drag as Victor finally found himself where he should be again.
Omega Red was no more, like many he was probably dust now, no more a threat to him as a memory. His grip loosened slowly as he regained his composure once more and noted the small trembling body he'd pushed against the wall.
He smelt her fear permeating the small room in waves as he watched her shoulders move up and down taking in anxious breaths and knowing it would be a long while before she'd use her power on him again.
The grip on her arm loosened and then left when he was sure he hadn't broken anything. Her scent of fear was still strong the small room, hitting his nose in strong waves, if it was anyone else he would find the scent irritating but because it was him that had caused it he felt a pang of guilt hit his stomach like a lead weight. When his hands rested on her hips he felt her trembling, there were many things he thought himself well versed in; comforting women was really not on that list.
Once his grip finally fell away Lara's breathing evened out, and the adrenaline coursing through her blood started to slowly ebb away when she felt his head rest silently in the crook of her neck. She was still shuddering but she couldn't control that, even her hands made small convulsive shudders as she clenched her fists in an attempt to calm herself. She took deep breaths in a futile attempt to speed the process along.
Victor's ears didn't require much straining to hear the beating of her heart, at first it was faster than a rabbit's but as time passed it began to eventually slow and even out. The palpable silence between them was broken by the soft purr issuing from his chest, and the shifting of his weight behind her. With no warning Lara was spun around and felt his hands around her waist, before she could speak she was being carried to the bedroom they shared; idly she wondered if he realised he was purring at all.
It wasn't like he would listen to her if she objected, he took what he wanted even if the other wasn't willing to part with it. This was a part of his nature she knew she could never break; not that she had been successful in breaking any of his 'bad' habits.
The next morning came too soon for Lara's liking, she always awoke before the alarm clock went off now. If she didn't Victor would only throw them against the wall in an attempt to shut it off. The expense of either attempting repair or replacing it was become too much, like all things they were not innumerable any more.
Rising up from the bed, she ghosted her way to the shower, almost fearful of waking her husband; his temper flared considerably quicker first thing in the morning. As she moved she felt the wetness between her legs begin the familiar journey down her inner thigh; the gift Victor left there last night. The slight tickling sensation only served as a reminder of how he had ripped the remnants of her clothes away and claimed her body; she still blushed thinking of it, remembering the way his muscled form moved against her.
As always the shower was steaming hot for all of five minutes, before coughing out the lukewarm water that was usually expected. It was like a balm for her aching muscles and torn skin, soothing all it's complaints to a dull roar in the back of her mind. Leaving her just enough processing power to calculate her itinerary in her head as she went through the well rehearsed gestures of grooming.
Lara was so lost in her thoughts, she didn't even notice Victor's towering form behind her until he started washing her hair. His claw like fingers running through her wet curling hair as he left the suds to clean the tresses; gently brushing out any stray knots that had worked their way into the fine thread like tendrils.
The gesture was one of the few tender things they would share, it didn't happen often but Lara couldn't help but enjoy the attention when it came. Silently she waited for him to finish, he was always meticulous, never rushing but would not allow her to leave until he was done.
The tension in her shoulders ebbed slowly but she didn't move until he gave her silent permission. It wasn't so much an action as it was like many things with Victor a subtle movement in the air. It took time to pick up these subtleties but missing them was not as advantageous as listening to her instincts.
With her towel coiled around her she made her way back to the bedroom her fingers trying to squeeze as much of the moisture as she could out of her hair, collecting it together on the right side of her head and braiding it tightly. It never mattered how tightly she pulled it back, the stubborn silvery strands always fell into her face. With a frustrated growl she gave up, threw the damp towel in the hamper and dressed in her usual garb that was now uniform to all the inhabitants of the underground city; a green jumpsuit with black vest top underneath and durable, practical boots.
Stretching slightly she reached for her tablet, her back audibly cracking, happy to be stretched out once more after sleeping awkwardly crammed against her husband.
Entranced, she wandered through the apartment to the kitchen; tapping away at the screen downloading her patient updates as she went. Like clockwork the coffee machine was ready and full of the steaming beverage, she only let go of the tablet for just long enough to fill her mug before being swept back up again to be read.
Today was going to be a busy day it seemed, according to her updated schedule she would be taking up the slack from the sick counsellors; that was the problem with living in such confined spaces, illness spread like wildfire until it burnt itself out.
Sighing softly she slid her coffee to Victor, knowing that he would demand it and went back to make herself another cup from the perculator. Filling it into a travel mug she walked past the table only to have him pull her bodily into his embrace. Like always she stood still, allowing the embrace for as long as possible. Her arms rested on his shoulders for a brief moment before he allowed her to go one more.
"Are you going to visit him today?" Lara knew he'd been putting it off for weeks now. Victor's eyes narrowed slightly before allowing his ire to die down.
"...Yes..." She could only nod her head in acknowledgement before bending down and kissing him. It was brief, she had no more time to give him.
"Have a good day at work." Creed grunted in response before she left, allowing the door to hiss closed behind her.
A/N - Thank you for taking the time to read, constructive critiques are always welcome and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter :) - eyeofthedivine