Sabretooth and others belong to Marvel, the rest are mine.
Comments welcome.
Collier was still dozing in his bed when Emma arrived home just after 3:30am. Victor was still awake but was back in bed, watching her as she came in and prepared for bed again. At length, he raise up his arm, inviting her to curl up beside him for comfort. She didn't have any strength to fight it and she sobbed into his chest the minute his arm draped over her.
"Car accident?" Creed inquired when she had calmed down.
"Jumped at a party." She replied, wiping her eyes.
"He okay?"
"He's alive." Emma borrowed the reply from Alex. "We're bringing him home this afternoon."
Without much concern, Victor closed his eyes and fell asleep holding his wife against him.
oooo
"I'll do it!" Freddy yelled as Alex approached the foot of the stairs to the porch with his wheelchair. Stubbornly, he stood and used the banister for support as he hobbled up one stair at a time, his right arm in a cast and sling, his right foot wrapped in gauze.
The front door kicked open and Creed stood angrily in the doorway.
"What the hell is goin' on?" The question was directed at Emma, who was pulling bags out of the trunk of her car.
"I told you I was bringing Freddy home this afternoon." She pushed past him and dropped two suitcases down in the foyer before returning to help him make the last step while Alex carried the wheelchair over the threshold.
"You didn't say this home." He growled.
Instead of arguing, Emma looked at him with heartbreak and disappointment. It was a trick up her sleeve that she didn't know she had to make Creed melt into compliance. In frustration, he ran his fingers through his hair and roared, startling Collier who stood in the doorway of he kitchen, the swinging door resting against his back.
"Where the hell is he gonna sleep? He can't very well get up and down them stairs easily."
"Yes I can." Freddy interjected irritably, his left eye still swollen shut. Creed growled at him.
Emma moved to the staircase and let her burden sit down on the bottom. Collier was moving closer to the foyer, little hands clasping the banister railings. She gave her son a brief smile then pulled Victor into the kitchen for a heated talk.
Alex stood awkwardly in the doorway, trying to ignore the yelling in the next room, not sure if he should go back to the car for the last bag. Freddy was swaying on the steps lightly, the painkillers having the desired effect he was looking for finally. He shouldn't have been on any pills, but no one had told the doctors that he was an addict.
A loud crash came from the kitchen but no one moved, Emma cried out angrily. There was some rhythmic pounding that no one dared to check in on until finally another roar echoed back to them followed by a resounding slap.
Freddy was too far gone to understand the noises and Collier too young. Alex stood frozen, unsure of what he should do. For a while there was silence until Emma emerged looking a bit harried, and as the door to the kitchen swung open, Creed was seen doing up his belt while leaving through the sliding patio door. Alex opened his mouth and then shut it again.
"Let's get you settled upstairs." She lifted a bag, not even catching that Freddy was stoned.
oooo
The mansion had a different feeling to him than when he was three. He was still scared to be alone in it, but for different reasons this time. Alex sat on the floor of Freddy's room while Emma sat with his brother, trying to distract him from his pain. She had found the bottle of painkillers the doctor had sent him home with, and dumped them down the toilet.
"Are you okay?" Alex finally blurted out, done fiddling with his over-sized flannel shirt.
"I'm fine." She replied, distracted by Freddy's squirming.
"Should we go?"
"Of course not." Freddy was squeezing her hand incredibly tight, making her grimace and gasp. Alex got up and tried to extricate her from his brother's death grip and replaced his own hand for hers.
"I've got it. Why don't you go take a nap with Collie?"
Emma nodded and told him she would just be in the next room if he needed anything. After she disappeared, Alex tried to pay attention to Freddy, but he heard someone else walking through the house and his fear crept up on him. Slowly, foot steps made their way up the staircase. Freddy had finally relaxed and fallen asleep but it was Alex who was gripping his hand tightly this time. The foot steps stopped right outside the door and waited silently looming.
Finally, Creed took another step and crossed the path in front of the door way. He looked in on Alex and his brother with a frown and then asked, "Are you cryin'?"
Alex's hand went up to his face and it was indeed wet. His stomach was in knots and he was absolutely terrified of who was coming up the stairs that he hadn't noticed he had been crying. Creed gave him a strange look and walked on to the next room where his son and wife were sleeping. Instead of entering, he continued past and disappeared somewhere else in the house, much to Alex's relief.
oooo
Gren stayed another week in their apartment because they were still paying the rent and he needed the peace and quiet to study. But once the month was up, he packed up the remaining items that belonged to them in the furnished apartment and drove his rust-bucket car to the Creeds.
He stared at the mansion through his windshield as he slowly drove up the drive, not sure if this was a good idea. He parked the car and turned off the engine as Emma emerged from the front door to welcome him, her little boy in her arms.
"Morning." Gren gave a half wave and slammed the car door shut.
"Come on inside, it's cold out here." Emma beckoned smiling. "Victor wants to speak to all of you individually in his study. Alex is in with him now."
Gren hesitated. She showed him down an off-shoot of the main hallway and offered him some tea, to which he declined. Freddy sat on a wooden bench in the middle of the hall, waiting his turn. She left them to get caught up and start lunch while the brothers sat quietly together. Freddy's face had healed for the most part. A bandage still stuck on the bridge of his nose and some healing cuts on his forehead and lip, arm still in a sling. But he was getting on better now that the pain has dissipated.
"I feel like I'm waiting at the principal's office." Freddy muttered.
"You would know." Gren replied dryly.
"Shut up out there!" Came a roar from the closed office. "You were saying?" Creed prompted Alex, who was taking a long time to answer his question.
"Well, I want to become a police officer to help people who have been hurt." Alex finally spoke.
"Hurt like you?" Creed inferred.
The boy's mouth opened and closed without words. "Any kind of hurt."
"You got a lot o' work to do before the police will hire you." Victor wrote something down on the ledger he had in front of him on his desk.
"Like what?" Alex sat up and looked concerned.
"Well for starters, your interviewing skills suck. Also, you have no confidence. And you're scrawny."
Alex stared into his lap, playing with his hands, trying to avoid looking up or else he might start to cry.
"But," Creed sighed, not enjoying crushing the boy's dreams as much as he thought he would, "these are all things you can work on. Now send in the cripple - and Alex, don't call me Monster in front of my boy, you understand?"