Part VII

For his part, the passage of time was the least of Sabretooth's concerns. He had had his sight taken from him near the start, but wasn't like there was much to see anyway. Definately nothing he could have judged time by. Maybe he'd been here for days or weeks. Since he'd started playing dead, felt like years.

At least the time for playing dead was finally over. While he didn't know much about the life span of spiders - especially not of a man-sized spider - he did know that the one that he'd been keeping company with unwillingly had reached the end of its. His nose could tell that much for him.

His nose had also noted something considerable closer and, by process of elimination, he figured it was bound to be an egg sac. One that he was hoping would be able to provide him with some desperately needed protein.

Working his way free of the clinging webbing was far from easy, but he was finally able to lay his hands on the egg sac. As hoped, large spider, large egg sac. Well, relatively large - about the size of a watermelon. Ripping it open carefully, he began shoveling the contents into his mouth. Nearly pure protein. As he ate, he noted that the timing was close. The eggs hadn't been far from hatching. If he had had to wait much longer for the adult to die, they would have hatched and swarmed him.

He felt a little sick after eating all of the sac. How long had it been since he'd eaten? No matter now. He needed to finish getting free of the web, find water, then find his way back to the group. After some consideration, he left the webbing alone that was around the top of his head. He knew his eyes were in a bad way and figure the silk made as good a bandage as anything else would. His clothing wasn't fitting well, probably torn up pretty badly. Eh - again, not worth worrying about.

Making his way out, he lifted his face to the falling rain. It felt good and he was tempted just to stand there and enjoy it for awhile, but no. He had to get back.

Spring was drawing to a close when Kitty and Bobby were hunting together for mushrooms in the early morning dews. A rustling noise nearby drew their attention, but they weren't alarmed. At least not until they got a look at the skeletally thin figure that had some sort of nasty cloth covering the upper part of his head. Kitty gave an involuntary gasp and the figure stopped - and sniffed the air.

Bobby's eyes grew wide as it suddenly hit him.

"Oh my god........ Kitty, that's Sabes."

Running over to Sabaretooth, they quickly noticed his eyes were covered, but considering he hadn't removed the,,, whatever it was himself, they left it alone. Bobby stayed with him while Kitty ran back to get Hank. For Sabretooth's part, now that he had found the colony, he could rest. Under Bobby's worried gaze, he lowered himself to the ground, curled up and went to sleep. Bobby started pacing and sincerely hoped Kitty would return with Hank before Logan caught Sabes' scent and came looking. Then he saw the sight he'd been looking for - blue fur coming fast.

"Oh my stars and garters....."

Hank knew Kitty wasn't prone to overstatement, but he had hoped she had been exaggerating a little to hurry him along. But if anything, she'd understated Victor's condition. Quickly checking the vital signs, Hank judged that moving him wouldn't cause any additional damage. Picking him up, Hank winced a bit at just how much weight Victor had lost.

"I'm not going to jostle him more than necessary. Kitty, find Logan. Bobby? Make sure a clean bed is ready and tell whoever is handy to start heating some water. He's filthy. He's also starved... get someone to start some food as well."

As he walked, Hank's frown got deeper. Even if Victor hadn't eaten much while he'd been gone, he shouldn't look this way. The wasted look was something he associated more with long-term depravation. Then he took a closer look at the material clinging her and there to Victor's clothes. Webbing?

Despite his urge to hurry, Hank stopped and lowered Victor back to the ground, carefully undoing and moving his clothing to get a better look. The entire torso was discolored and numerous puncture marks in various stages of healing were still evident everywhere. No wonder he looked so wasted – something had been feeding on him. And if he wasn't mistaken from the tones of some of the discoloration, Victor had been injected with poison as well.

"McCoy?"

The voice was raspy. Hank noted that among many other things, Victor was dehydrated. But he made his voice upbeat as he quickly redressed his patient.

"One hundred percent correct, Victor. Let me get you back up and we'll go get you cleaned up a bit. Might I assume the other party involved looks worse than you do?"

"Totally dead? Yeh, she is that."

"Female?"

"Never heard o' a guy anything that laid eggs, so assumin' female."

Hank didn't question any more. There would be plenty of time for that later. Hefting Victor back up, he started on his way again.

"I'd prefer not t' get gawked at."

"I will do my humble best to fend off your admirers, but honestly – groupies are so hard to contain."

A snort was the only response back to that before his severely overtaxed healing factor nudged him back into sleep.