Being in a small room with two on-edge ferals was the last place Rae wanted to be, but she also wasn't willing to leave them alone, not knowing the damage they were capable of inflicting on each other. The encounter in the subbasement was still fresh in her mind a few months later, enough that she dreamt about it and woke up in a cold sweat; she kept trying to stop it and it kept happening, over and over again.
Logan gestured for her to take the only comfortable seat, a worn recliner with a crocheted blanket thrown across the back that she pulled off, wrapping it around her shoulders and curling up in the chair; she'd made the blanket herself a few years ago, the yarn in shades of green and brown. At least there was a fire going, she knew Logan wasn't exactly averse to being cold.
The adrenaline rush was just now fading, leaving her shaky and a little nauseated. Her immediate thought when Victor had taken off was to go after him, but she'd realized she at least needed to do something about the wounds before heading out. Because she'd had a pretty good idea where he was going to end up.
He hadn't cut her deeply, just shallow surface wounds that stung more than anything, especially when she moved and the skin pulled, even covered with antibiotic ointment and a big gauze pad. She'd had worse as a child from her grandmother's barn cats.
She wondered if there was something wrong with her, that her initial urge had been to go after him, to make sure he was okay. Somehow she'd known he wasn't completely in control of himself, wasn't sure how she knew since there was no hesitation in the way he touched her, the way he accepted that she was willing.
She hadn't been afraid until she'd tried to stop him, needed him to slow down because as much as she wanted to keep going? Things were moving too fast for her. Her body went where her affections went, where her heart went; she recognized that things had slowly been shifting between them, the sharpest turn happening that afternoon when he'd stayed in the medbay and then the lounge with her, kept an eye on her and made sure she ate.
She'd had another panic attack at one point in the evening, hadn't been able to do anything but focus on his touch, his voice telling her to breathe with him. By the end she'd been exhausted, wanted to sleep for a week, and her headache was coming back.
Victor hadn't complained when she'd stayed curled up in his lap. He'd just stretched out on the couch and told her he'd wake her up in a little while to check on her concussion.
After dozing for a bit she'd gone deeper into sleep, deep enough to dream, though all she could remember was something about a purring cat. It didn't take a psychologist to figure out that bit of symbolism.
He'd been stroking her back when she surfaced, and she'd wanted him to keep doing that but she could feel how tense he was.
And when he'd kissed her… Every argument she'd had with herself about not letting the lines blur just faded, gone like they didn't matter, not with his heavy body pressing her down, his big hands on her, the slightest brush of his talons fraying her senses…
Logan slamming the door on the refrigerator made her jerk back to the present. He handed off a beer to Victor, didn't bother giving Rae one since she didn't drink, and she was pretty sure there was nothing non-alcoholic within a couple miles of the boathouse at the moment.
He looked worse than she'd seen him in a while, ragged like all the humanity he clung to had fled. And it wasn't just his hair and sideburns growing longer, he moved differently, more like his namesake.
"What the fuck has been goin' on with you?" The question was directed at Victor, who was leaning up against the mantle with his arms crossed. His clothes were torn and bloodstained, his hair a tangled mess that he was picking leaves out of.
Victor growled, but it didn't sound angry, just frustrated. "Why d'you even care? You're the one caused this in the first place."
Logan laughed, a harsh bark of sound. "It'd be easier if you were dead, yeah, but here you are in my fuckin' woods with some kinda death wish."
Rae felt her stomach drop. "What?" she asked, but was ignored.
"So like I asked: what the fuck is goin' on with you?"
"If I knew that it wouldn't be a problem." Victor shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Been workin' with Xavier, lookin' through my memories, tryin' to figure out if who I used t' be is still there."
"He's been having nightmares and migraines," Rae put in.
"How d'you know that?" Victor asked.
She rolled her eyes. "I know cats like to hide when they're hurting, but I get migraines, too, I know the signs. And even if you hadn't already told me about the nightmares, you're not exactly quiet when you have one."
"She tellin' the truth?" Logan asked.
Victor glared for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, happens after every session. Figured it was just a side effect of all the psychic shit. "
"I mean, that's true the first few times, but that should've faded by-"
"Rae." Logan's voice was sharp but he didn't sound angry with her. "Shut your mouth for a minu-"
Victor's snarl cut him off. "Don't fuckin' snap at her," he said, standing up to his full height.
"Calm the fuck down," Logan shot back. His expression was weird, like he'd eaten something that disagreed with him. "You had any violence issues afterwards?"
Victor shook his head and took a long pull off his beer. "Nothin'."
"Then what made you hurt Rae?"
The bigger feral hunched his shoulders, eyes on the floor, body language screaming he didn't want to answer.
"Maybe it was doing something physical instead of just-"
"Rae." This time, there was anger. "I need him to tell me, not you."
"He's just gonna lie or obfuscate-"
Logan crossed the room, dropped a hand on her shoulder. "I still need to hear it from him. You had a shitty day, go lay down in my room, try to get some sleep."
"Logan…"
His hand squeezed. "I ain't gonna hurt him, not now." He pulled her to her feet, tucked the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "You trust me?"
She wanted to say no, because she still felt like Victor was her responsibility, her charge. Hell, just hers, to protect and worry about.
She knew the two ferals could smell her anxiety, her need to stay, but she finally nodded. "Yeah, Logan, I trust you. Please, help him. I can't do it."
"I got this." He leaned up, kissed her forehead and tucked her hair back behind her ear. "Go sleep, you can't get yourself into trouble doin' that."
That got a small laugh from her. "You'd be surprised."
Victor watched Rae go, shutting the door to the bedroom behind her after looking at him for a moment. He'd heard every word she said despite her talking softly, her tone possessive in a way he didn't understand.
He wanted to tell her he wasn't worth it.
"Of all the girls," Logan said, pulling a fresh six pack of beer out of the fridge, "you just had to go an' imprint on that one, didn't you?"
Victor finished off his beer and caught the new one Logan tossed to him. "You pissed 'cause she's yours?"
Logan snorted. "Nah, 'cause she's obnoxiously stubborn." He snagged a beat up wooden chair from the equally-worn two-seater dining table, turned it backwards and sat in it. "Ain't no one better to have in your corner, but she tends to listen to her heart over everything else."
"Not gonna tell me to keep my hands off her?"
"No point," Logan said, twisting the top off his beer and taking a long swallow. "Girl's decided you're worth protectin', I ain't got the kind of energy it takes to pry her loose."
"After everything I did, I don't get her."
"Welcome to havin' someone give a fuck about you even if you think you ain't earned it. Feels like a noose sometimes."
Victor rolled the bottle between his big palms, tried to ignore the churning in his gut. "It ever get easier?"
"Fuck, no. At least not for us. Maybe not for them, either, but most of 'em ain't gonna live as long as us."
Victor felt exposed, like someone was aiming a gun at the back of his head. It made him want to lash out in preemptive defense, or run somewhere he knew he'd be alone.
"So, like I asked before Rae decided to butt in - what made you hurt her?"
Of course he was gonna push that. "Felt like a flashback or somethin', a memory I didn't know was there. Wasn't like anything Xavier pulled out." He shrugged like that would ease the weight he felt in his shoulders.
"What kinda shit is he pullin' out?"
"Seems like he's lookin' for specific things, wants me to feel remorse, but all I feel is numb. Like those are someone else's memories."
Logan tapped his fingers on his thigh. "So he's just… diggin' around, hopin' you'll react to it?"
"Sounds about right."
Logan growled. "So he's treatin' you like a normal person."
"Uh." Victor frowned. "Yeah, ain't that what he's supposed to be doin'?"
The shorter feral rolled his eyes. "Either of us look like normal people?" He got up to pace. "We're ferals, you can't just ignore that and hope we'll play nice with others."
The confusion Victor felt must have been apparent on his face because Logan sighed.
"We ain't like other people. We don't run on logic, on rational shit; if we don't feel it in our gut it may as well not exist. Doesn't mean we have to let it control us, but we can't just cut it out, either."
Something about the end of that sentence felt familiar, like he'd heard it before. It took him a moment to place it. "Rae said almost the same thing about what drove me to kill. Said it was a cancer that needed to be cut out."
"How the hell did she come so close to truth while still bein' a mile away?"
The question sounded rhetorical so Victor didn't answer it. "Meanin' what?"
"Can't completely cut out the bloodlust without cuttin' out what makes us what we are."
Victor thought he felt a headache forming behind his eyes. "Then what's the point?"
"It's kinda like trainin' a dog: you gotta redirect the animal instinct because that ain't goin' nowhere. Give it somethin' else to focus on until you're in control again."
Logan sat down again. "Fuckin' explains why all the shit Chuck tried on me didn't work, just didn't pick up on it 'til he tried it on someone else."
Victor thought maybe he should be pissed. Instead he just felt tired and guilty, like his bones were heavier than they should be. "Why are you helpin' me when you've always wanted me dead?"
"Because Rae was right about somethin' else: if I just let them fuck you up without steppin' in, I'm a fuckin' hypocrite." Logan chuckled. "An' if you go native again, I'll be there to put you down."
"Ain't no one else who could do it." That was the closest he'd come to saying thank you, and he knew Logan understood that.
Silence fell for several long minutes, until Logan broke it. "You're gonna need Rae's help."
"She's already done enough and paid the price for it." Victor shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. "She don't need to get dragged in further."
Logan snorted. "You say that like she'd give you a choice. She ain't gonna let you do this alone. Might as well accept that like you accept the theory of gravity. 'Cause she's just as inevitable."
He gestured at the closed bedroom door. "Go sit with her until she wakes up. Get used to bein' close to her, we can figure the rest of it out later."
The sun was well over the horizon when Rae stirred. Her entire body hurt the way it usually did the day after a fight of some kind; she was used to that happening after a mission, not after an assault in her civilian life.
She stretched carefully, jerking in surprise when her hand touched something warm and solid at the side of the bed.
"Hey." Victor turned his head to look at her where he sat on the floor with his back against the bed. He'd gotten his hair under control and put it in a messy bun.
"Hey," she replied. Before she could stop herself she was touching his shoulder, just to be sure he was real and not a hallucination. She'd had the nightmare again of Logan successfully killing him.
He reached up to cover her hand with his, fingers loosely circling her wrist. "Sorry."
She scooted a little closer when he turned his body towards her, lying on her side. "I'm fine, Victor. And I don't think I'm the one who needs to be worried about right now."
"I don't get you."
"You don't have to, I'll just keep being me." She could see the confusion in his eyes. "I know enough about ferals to know that you need someone who has your back. I wanna be that person."
"Gonna step in a lotta shit." He hadn't let go of her wrist; she turned her hand so she could twine her fingers with his.
"Lucky for you I was raised on a farm."
That startled a laugh out of him. His free hand lifted to touch her cheek, brushing back some of her hair that had come loose from her braid. The swelling around her eye had gone down but the bruising had spread further and she could feel the ache of it down to her jaw.
"I'm surprised you and Logan made it through the night intact."
"I think he's annoyed with me and pissed at Xavier for fuckin' things up in my head."
It made sense when she thought about it, and it bothered her that she hadn't figured it out herself.
"Ain't your fault."
Rae looked up, startled. "You telepathic now?"
Victor laughed softly. "Scent changed. Almost as good as telepathy for figurin' out someone's mood."
"That's not fair," she said, not entirely serious.
"Says the girl who can make people do shit with her pheromones."
She jerked away from him, wincing when the abrupt movement made her heart beat faster, her face throbbing painfully. "I wasn't doing that back in the lounge, I swe-"
"Hey." He grabbed her wrist and squeezed. "That never crossed my mind."
Rae blinked back tears.
"Some asshole blamed you for what they decided to do on their own, didn't they?"
She nodded, regretting the movement when it made her head hurt worse. "It's happened a few times," she confessed, eyes downcast. "Worst was a guy in undergrad. He tried to claim it was my fault he wanted to…" She shuddered, couldn't get the words out.
"Goddammit." Victor got to his feet only to sit down next to her. His heavy weight made her tip over but he caught her, one hand on her bicep. "No wonder you freaked out when I didn't stop at first."
"That wasn't the same, it didn't feel the same." She pulled his hand down and felt him stiffen for a moment when she scooted closer and pulled his arm around her. "I didn't feel as unsafe."
He made a disagreeing sort of sound but relaxed anyway, turning his head to bump his nose against her temple. After the way he'd reacted when she called attention to him purring she felt reluctant to say anything about the catlike gesture, so she let it be.
"So Logan thinks Xavier was wrong about how to help you?"
"Yeah. Somethin' about us bein' different, needin' a different approach. You mighta been right about physical triggers but I can't figure out how the fuck to work with that."
Rae reached for his free hand, deadly claws and all, just to keep touching him. "We'll figure it out together." His fingers twitched against hers but he didn't pull away. "Can I ask you something?"
"Might not answer, but go ahead."
She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to say it, at least until she realized he'd prefer blunt honesty.
"You sought out Logan hoping he'd kill you. Not just months ago, but last night, too."
Victor sighed. "Yeah."
"Will you promise me that you'll trust that we can get through this, without you trying suicide by Wolverine again? "
She felt him tense again, almost regretted asking, but it had to be asked.
"Yeah, I can promise that."
"Thank you." She reached for his sleeve then, pushing it up so she could get at the tracking bracelet she'd put on him months ago. Her fingers found the slight indentations on the outside, pressed for a second until the bracelet beeped and then clicked open.
"I thought only Xavier or the doc could turn it off."
Rae shoved it in her pocket and then leaned into him again. "I added my biometric signature when Hank gave it to me." She shook her head. "I wasn't okay with putting it on you in the first place if we weren't going to tell you the truth about any of it."
"You trust me enough to turn it off." It wasn't a question, the words so soft she barely understood them.
"Trust has to start somewhere. I'm gonna catch fifty kinds of hell for doing it but I really couldn't care less right now." She turned her head, leaning up to press a kiss to his chin.
Startled amber eyes stared at her for a long moment, and she remembered that people never touched him with affection. She couldn't imagine what that was like.
"You can tell me to not do things like that if it bothers you."
A fine tremor ran through him, eyes closing for a second before he leaned in and kissed her forehead.
"Nah. I don't mind gettin' used to that."