Sabretooth belongs to Marvel, the rest are mine.
Comment and constructive criticism welcome.
Fall was fast approaching as the trees were letting their leaves drop. It was deceiving because the temperatures were still warm enough after the sun went down at night to continue to sit outside on the porch.
Creed stood outside the outhouse in the dead of night, watching the stars above him until the door opened slowly and Emma came out, her face washed with tears and her head bent in shame. He had smelled the blood and knew without asking that she was not pregnant. He took her hand and they walked back to the cabin in silence, Emma sniffling slightly and using the back of her hand to wipe her face.
It was no bother to him if they had to wait longer for a baby, but it seemed to him that having a child defined her as a person and she would not be completely happy until she was able to have something to coo over. He put her back into bed and crawled in next to her, falling asleep nearly immediately.
ooooo
It was like nothing had happened. Emma was resilient, and currently preparing a lunch from leftovers as Creed sat at the kitchen table, scrawling the alphabet on to a piece of paper with a pencil.
"Don't over think it." She adjusted his writing hand and set down a plate next to him.
"What's this?" He sniffed at it, concerned at how green everything looked.
"It's a salad."
"What the hell makes you think I'll eat a salad?"
"I put meat in it." She twisted a hand towel between her hands looking on the verge of tears. Creed ran his free hand through his hair, biting down an angry bark and slammed the pencil down.
"You tryin' t' starve me?"
"But I made you lunch." She replied confused and concerned for her safety.
"You call that lunch?" The force of his roar made her hair fly back from her forehead.
"I don't understand what I did wrong." Emma hid her face in her hands, her seventeen-year-old body shaking from both tears and fear in front of her husband. He grabbed her by the hair, making her cry out, and forced her to look at him.
He gave her a shake before throwing her down to the ground and stalking off into the woods.
Emma waited a moment before picking herself up off her behind and made her way back slowly to the kitchen table. She was so confused and so alone. The salad no longer looked appealing, but for the sake of not letting food go to waste, she lifted a fork and started to pick at it. She was beginning to suspect that something was horribly wrong with her husband, but she didn't know what. He flew off the handle frequently and at the smallest of issues, while on the other hand laughing at things that irritated her. At least this time he hadn't hit her.
The salad slowly disappeared as she munched on it while looking over his writing from earlier. The orange and white cat was twisting itself around her legs, startling her. They liked to keep the front door to the cabin open while the weather was warm and she hadn't noticed the cat enter.
"Get out, you don't belong here." Emma grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and tossed it outside, enjoying being aggressive toward something smaller than herself. The cat meowed back at her as it landed on the lawn and walked a few feet before settling back down in the grass with its back to her.
The cat suddenly perked up and began running and meowing off in the direction of the river. Unexpectedly, Creed walked up from the back of the cabin carrying fish with the animal at his heels, begging for scraps. Wordlessly he forcibly handed her the small school of fish he had caught, a disgruntled scowl on his face.
"I need meat, lady. Every meal."
"What about breakfast?" She asked, her ire rising at his return.
"Don't make me hit you." He threatened, stalking back into the cabin.
ooooo
Emma didn't speak again to him all night, instead she sat in bed and darned his pants, simmering in her anger. Little did she know, Creed was watching her through the window as he stood leaning against a tree with a cold beer in his hand. The fish had made for both lunch and dinner with enough left over to feed the cat with.
He hadn't told her about the abuse he had endured at the hands of his parents, locked away in a cellar for the better part of his childhood. The loneliness, the hunger, the pain and emptiness he had come to form his whole life around was something he lived with everyday, part of him ashamed at having been too weak to fight back, another part of him hoping this young thing in his bed could fix him and show him a new life.
His first instinct was always self preservation, him above anything else. If there was anything to be thankful for from his old man, it was the the need to fight and survive. A selfish being such as himself had no capacity to love, a monstrous being such as himself did not deserve to be given love.
And yet, Emma was trying.
Creed approached the window and leaned in against it, startling her enough to prick her finger with her needle.
"You makin' me muffins?" He sniffed the air, ignoring the blood beading up on her finger.
"I'm not making you anything." She sucked on it, trying to staunch the flow, her back still turned away from him.
"Really? Cuz I smell muffins."
"I saved a fish for your breakfast, the muffins are for me." Emma adjusted her position away from him and continued to darn, knowing full and well he loved her muffins.
Creed rubbed his forehead irritably. "Rabbit, I'm a grown man. As my wife you gotta keep me well fed so I can do my job."
"Victor, if you don't want to tell me what's going on, that's fine, but you can't just expect me to know things." She huffed. He wasn't fooling her, she knew there was something else, something painful and buried that he was hiding from her. It took one to know one.
"Fine. Can I have a muffin now?" Creed conceded, arms propped up on the window sill.
"They're not done yet." Emma broke the thread and tossed his finished slacks on to his recliner and picked up her book, crushing herself into the pillows with a pout.