Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except some random extras; everything else is Marvel's only.
10. 1919, February
The pond was peaceful and not even a ripple distorted the water mirror. Rose was leaning in to watch herself, and her red locks fell towards her face in the loveliest fashion. A sudden impulse threw him onto her side then, and she turned around smiling. Her green eyes shone cheerfully, and her red lips invited him closer. Gently, almost afraid to break the spell, he put out his hand for her. She lowered her eyes and blushed, her hand softly finding its place amidst his.
"Rose?" She looked away, her hand sliding unconsciously away from his. "Rose!"
Without a sound, she answered and ran away. Away to James's side, grinning lordly at him, standing by the pond, his hand empty, but still warm from Rose's. He clenched it.
"Go home, Dog. I got no more use for you."
He grinned, taunting him. Rose was busy wrapping something around the sickly creature. The soon to be dead creature.
He'd have what was his.
But James grew, always grinning, always scowling and snarling.
"Ain't ya heard me, Dog?"
And suddenly, James wasn't there anymore. Suddenly, there was nothing but the table with the picture of that dark haired lady, who looked so much like Mistress Elizabeth, and Pa's belt securely clasped on his monstrous hand.
"What did I tell you, boy? What did I tell you!"
He curled up without thinking, and the belt hit him like a barbed wire cat for an eternity.
It was a short eternity, though. It took as long as it took him to remember he was a man. He was free. Big and strong. And that no one could stand against him. Roaring, he grabbed the belt and lashed against his drunken old man. Only he was James, too. The man in front of him was both; and before the belt could descend on the hated figure, James had grown three claw-like spikes and punched him down. Blood was running freely, but it was OK, because he knew it would heal quite soon. All his wounds did.
James was transforming away from the shape of his Pa into that of a half-animal, with fangs and snout-like face. Howling, the morphed James turned his back on him and killed Rose, who had just entered the cabin, looking at her killer with dread.
No! NO!
He leaped at James, but the thief slid away from his avenging claws, newly emerged, and ran to the marble fireplace.
NOOO!
But it was too late, because no matter how much he ran, he was unable to keep James from reaching the crest and recovering the will, hidden behind it.
"It's all mine, now!" He chanted to a childish tune.
NO
"Bow and kneel in front of me, Dog!…"
NO
"…As it was ordered to you by your Master."
NO
"Now, you're Dog…
no
…and I'm Mister Logan…
NO
…and …
NO NO NO
And he just laughed, again and again, hopping around like he used to when he was a child.
NO!
STOP IT!
He did.
All grown up, red flannel shirt and a glass of beer in his hand, leaning on the bar counter. He stopped and looked straight at him, all serious faced. Looking so much like his Pa. His eyes so clearly James's. And yet… those annoying blue eyes looked at him as if they had never met in their lives.
And maybe they hadn't.
He tried to think, and he did remember that Dog was dead and buried. Yes, Logan… no… he wasn't for real. And yet… They were alike. They were, but not for long.
Logan Logan Logan Logan Logan
"Hey!"
"Ya want somethin'? Runt." And he didn't recognize him. Even if he had just taken his beer. James, or Logan, or whatever, just clenched his jaws and asked for his horse. It was right there next to the whiskey.
"Ya got yerself mixed up, boy." Because that would-be Logan was a boy, when compared to all his height, and strength, and greatness. "That's my horse. Go ahead: ask everyone ya want… they'll testify (and wasn't that word thick with the scent of leather and legalities and Old Mister Howlett) they've seen ME ridin' it over and over again."
Logan Logan Logan
My life when you could take from me at will is gone; now's my turn.
Everything.
Everything you've taken… I'll take everything from you, too. Until we're one and the same.
No
We ain't ever gonna be the same
'Cause yer small and weak and I ain't
I'm big and strong, and there's no one ever gonna be big enough ta hurt me
"I promise you, luv… I promise…"
That's right lady
And whoever tries ta will die
Right Silver Fox?
Ya thought ya could shovel me away didn't ya?
"I promise you, luv… I promise…"
Ya snivelling piece o' trash
No better than all the rest o' the trash livin' 'round everywhere
Didn't I tell ya ya couldn't get away?
Ya couldn't hurt me?
"I promise…"
Well now ya know ya're mine and ya can't get away can ya?
Ya knows what happens when ya try ta hurt me
When ya hurts me
Don't ya?
Dirty whore of a squaw!
SCREAM FOR ME!
SCREAAAAM!
Creed woke up howling in pain and anger, hurt and frustration; his burning body unaware of the Alberta winter night.
Still wrapped within the dream's agonising pain, his ember eyes opened to the sight of the Indian woman's dead body, blood once more oozing onto the boarded floor as she moaned for him, for her dreaded 'Tooth', to stop, please.
But she wasn't there.
Shivering, he sat down and pulled his knees to his chest, holding them tightly. His breathing was a short step away from heaves, but he didn't notice it, just like he didn't notice the tears that burnt his eyes.
He sat there, staring ahead of him and seeing nothing for a long time. His mind refused to conjure a thought, and his heart struggled to lock away the painful emotions that the dream had released.
Finally, he stood up and wandered out.
He hadn't met a soul for two years. And all the souls he had met before that, entering the grounds of his Estate, were now either in Hell or Heaven. Whichever. However, almost every night plagued his own soul with dreams that sometimes had him wondering if he hadn't died and gone to Hell himself.
Gazing lazily at the starscape that met the wooded horizon, a memory of harsh, unquestionable authority broke the silence of the night:
"You are not a stray dog anymore. You're MY dog. You do no one's bidding but mine, and you do everything exactly as I say the moment I tell you to. Can you understand this much, boy?"
He looked around himself.
The Estate hadn't been inhabited since that far away winter, when he had cleansed the place of all the trash in it. That had been six winters ago.
Wolves sometimes roamed what once had been painstakingly kept rose gardens. The roses were gone.
All dead, his subconscious quipped in, holding the image of the young looking Rose, red hair flowing in the warm summer breeze, a smile that had been just for him.
Or maybe it had never been for him.
Whichever.
Stronger bushes had overcome them, the roses. It was almost as if they had never even existed.
Like Rose. Like Ethel. Like…
The dirt roads were all but gone, too, under the grass that the snow had covered; and a few scattered shrubs made one wonder where the original paths had stood. The maze was now an almost solid mass of naturally intertwined twigs, although there were a couple of young trees peeking above their edge whose seeds had probably taken root in a wider way of the path and thwarted the bushes' whim. Generations and generations of rabbits, hares and hedgehogs went about their lives without ever leaving that less and less square sanctuary.
The apple tree orchard still stood. It would take many years for those trees to be completely overcome, but some pines were already growing amidst them in their steady, patient fashion. The fields around the stables and the corn fields, on the other hand, were being quickly transformed into a dwarfed soon-to-be forest.
It would take a lot of money to put the whole estate back in place, he knew; and the Bank knew it, too. That was why they didn't send anyone here, anymore; nor did they bother with sending Mounties. That piece of land was as protected as if the Lord Himself had drawn a line around it with His own finger.
"You are not a stray dog anymore. You're MY dog."
"But you're dead, sir"
He frowned at himself. He was a grown man. He had more than twenty years. Five or six and twenty. He was no one's dog.
He stood up, defiantly.
"You're dead, Mister Howlett. I'm not your dog. I'm free."
stray, the idea seemed to reverberate throughout the air.
"I may be stray," he told the ghosts around him, "but I ain't no dog. Not ever again."
But the sense of being a stray dog still remained, haunting him.
"I'm FREEEEEEE!" He howled at the stars, and he hadn't yet finished it when it hit him.
How could he claim to be free, if he was living under the tutelage of the dead Mister Howlett? When he was still doing his bidding? Free! He had been acting as the dog of a dead man for the last six years.
But he was free! He could up and leave everything behind. That estate was the last thing tying him down to his past. Both as Dog and as Logan. But he was neither, now. He was Victor Creed. And he was free.
The weight of the past still pulled him down, though, and he knew there was one last thing tying him down.
Slowly, he took the leather pouch he still kept around his neck and emptied it. A tooth… no, it was a true fang, curving as shapely as those sabre swords of the adventure books Mister Howlett sometimes gave him leave to read.
Silver Fox.
For a moment, he fancied he could still smell her and her blood; could still hear her screams. Ethel hadn't screamed. Even if she was now no more substantial than a half-remembered dream.
Silver Fox.
"Go away, 'Tooth'. Logan will kill you."
"Logan? Hah! He's nuthin' but sloppy seconds, ya dirty squaw. He don't even deserve ta be called Logan. He's nuthin' but an animal. A dead animal."
He played with the heavy fang. It was the last thing tying him to the past.
Silver Fox was dead. Logan… the fake Logan, even if he looked like Thomas Logan. In a vague way, he quickly corrected the thought. And only because of the dark hair, and runt size, and… and generally stupidity and… Whatever! And why shouldn't they look alike, dammit? He hated both of them just as much, so why shouldn't they even look exactly the same? And they were both dead, too. So what did it matter if they were alike and he wasn't? He was better than all of them! "That's right," he told himself once more, "I'm glad I don't look like 'im; like the Old Man. Thomas Logan. I'm glad I ain't nuthin' like those blasted losers. Logan! Who even wants ta hold the same name as those losers? "
He clenched the fang in his hand.
Besides, he had avenged himself, from all the harm all those losers – everyone – had ever done him. He had killed all of them. Pa and James, and Soft John, too. And Ethel… Silver Fox… everyone, everyone else.
He had long known it was because of him his Old Man had gone to the big house on the Hill to kill the Howletts; so it had been because of him he had died, and it had been because of him that Soft John had died, too. Just as surely as if he had done the deeds himself. And even if James had tried to kill him – twice! – by attacking him with his claws and by leaving him behind for the Law, he had managed to survive.
Because he was a survivor. He was a… he almost said Logan, but he had risen above that name, thanks to Mister Howlett. He was a Victor. The true and only. And James, Logan, Wolverine, whatever he called himself, he was nothing but a loser.
A dead loser.
"It ends when one of us is dead."
How right the runt had been. That weak boy who had never even once used his claws, even in his pitiful attempt to avenge the squaw he'd stolen.
"No matter what it takes or how long."
Well, the boy had lasted longer than he had expected, and had even managed to die like a man, instead of like the defeated dog he truly was, panting on his belly, beaten and defeated. Running away from the fight. Frightened. So cowardly frightened.
Dog, he might have been called, in the very distant past, but never had he been a defeated dog. Not once! Now the runt… True, he had managed to push himself up on his feet and charge. Dumb luck had even helped the blasted boy, so that the cliff was in the right place for him to throw himself down, pulling him behind. But the truth was also that it hadn't been the boy's guts that had worked up that last attack; it had been his desperation, his realization that he could never win… that he was dead.
"Quod sum eris" indeed! The words were on Soft John's tomb, even if they wouldn't be on his finally dead son's. Yet, they couldn't be truer: "I am what you will be", Mister Howlett had explained to him. Dead! And James or Logan or whatever was certainly as dead as Soft John. But not him. Oh, no: there would be no 'quod sum eris' for himself; not while he could count on his fast healing. After all, if the boy was dead and he wasn't, it was only because he healed fast, and the boy didn't.
No 'quod sum eris'. No 'R.I.P.'. Not for him. For him, there had been only going back to his then destroyed village, his then destroyed home, his then destroyed life… and see to it that they would get appropriate burials.
"For pity's sake, Logan… she's just an Indian!"
How could those stupid folks try to protect the boy? How could they try over and over again to calm the stupid amnesiac boy whenever he found a new way to provoke him? Why did everyone just naturally side with the runt? It was his town, dammit! So why did they try to support the one man who kept robbing him of everything good he managed to pull together? Why!
"For pity's sake…"
"The whole world ain't big enough for the pair of us."
It wasn't. He had known it that day he had arrived and seen Silver Fox welcoming the boy into her cabin. He would always show up to destroy his life. Always. But he had controlled his basest instincts, that night, he had not succumbed to the raging redness that took over his sight. No. That stupid boy would have to feel the pain he had felt all his life: the pain of having everything taken away from him.
It was why it had been a shame, that he had died right away. The boy hadn't hurt half as much as he had. Hadn't lost half as much. But there could be no other ending.
"There's nowhere you can hide from me, not when I know your scent."
Now, so many years after losing his last home, that was the only memory that mattered. The boy's scent, thick with his own blood, and fear, and desperation at having lost everything. He would not forget that treacherous scent if he lived a hundred years.
With a determined scowl, he marched resolutely towards the overgrown maze and threw the fang into its middle.
There.
All gone.
He didn't feel empty at the idea, though. The boy's scent still lingered, but he was not letting go of that. It would forever keep him on his toes against other little thieves who tried to play the friendly part with him.
Still, there was a slight sense of loss.
He had never started from scratch, before. Not really, he hadn't. But he would now. He would purposefully forget everything before that day, that night. Well, everything but the boy's scent and his death. That was the only thing he needed, to make sure that no one would ever be either too strong or too smart to hurt him in any way. Like Silver Fox and Logan had.
He looked up at the starscape, feeling pacified.
I promise
strong and big
an' no one will ever be able ta hurt me
The memory of those ancient words echoed like a shapeless ghost through the night, and Victor Creed could swear it was his own voice that echoed the promise he vaguely remembered repeating since he was a little boy.
Averting his gaze from the stars, he stared at the Eastern horizon. The sun would rise soon enough.
"Well, then. Let's get this show on the road."
I promise luv