At my
door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind has come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone
I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
because I still miss someone
Oh, no I never got over those blues eyes
I see them every where
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there
I wonder if she's sorry
For leavin' what we'd begun
There's someone for me somewhere
And I still miss someone
"I don't want you going on that mission next week with Sabretooth."
Logan rolled over, looking at the man lying beside her in the bed. "Why not?"
"Because whenever you go on a mission without the whole team, you go with him."
"Well, he is my partner."
Silver Fox took a deep breath. "I should be your partner."
"You're my lover. It's a different thing."
"Well it shouldn't be! You have a connection with him that you don't have with me."
Logan sighed. "We kill people together. I don't think you can exactly call that a 'connection.'"
"But you have that mutant thing, too—with the sniffing."
"Sniffing?!"
"Yeah. And the healing."
"Where is this going?"
"I think you should ask Wraith for different assignments—ones that don't always involve him."
"No fucking way!"
"Why not?"
"Because we work well together! I'm not going to compromise the team over your petty jealousy!"
"It isn't petty! For all I know you're fucking him behind my back."
Logan jumped out of the bed, grabbing her clothes and putting them on haphazardly. "I can't believe you'd accuse me of that," she snapped.
"It's a valid concern, Logan. How many men were there before me?"
"You're being a dick."
"How many?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does."
Logan threw her arms up in the air. "Why are you suddenly being so possessive?"
"I just want to know what kind of woman I'm dealing with."
Logan glared at him. "How many women for you?"
He met her eyes. "Three."
She blanched. "That's it?"
"I don't take these things lightly."
"Are you implying that I take us lightly?"
Silver Fox sighed. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm just sex to you."
"Then why do I keep coming back, huh?"
"Because you can't have Sabretooth?"
"Drop it with him! Dammit, why do you do this? Why can't you just live in the day, accept what it is that we have for what it is?"
"Because I want a life past this! I want a wife—a mother for my children—not a woman who falls into bed with every man she can get her claws into."
Logan turned around, slamming the door behind her.
Wraith was in the hallway. She glared at him. "I'm fucking him. Got a problem with that?" Wraith started to say something, but decided against it. Logan stormed down to her room, slamming the door behind her.
She fell on her own bed, unable to stop the tears from coming. What if Silver Fox was right? What if she was that kind of woman? She didn't want to be. Even with all her lovers, she wanted something more than one-night stands.
"Ya in there, runt?"
Logan groaned. That's just what she needed, him seeing her like this. "Go away, Sabretooth."
Victor came in anyway. "You know, if you want people to stay out, you should really try locking your door."
"Fuck off."
"No." He sat down beside her on the bed. "What did he say to you?"
"None of your goddam business."
"Want me to smack him around?"
"No." She paused for a moment. "But thanks."
She sat up, her eyes still red and puffy. Victor froze. He didn't know how to handle a woman when she cried. "Uh, you need a hug or something?"
The idea of Sabretooth offering her a hug was so absurd that Logan had to laugh. "I think I'm okay."
"The offer to smack him around still stands."
"I know."
Victor took a deep breath. He was out of his element. Women were for sex, not consoling. He looked over at her. She was disheveled, and her face was splotchy from tears. "You're beautiful."
Logan's head snapped up, and he realized he'd said that out loud. Victor's eyes grew wide. "I…um…I…"
Logan laughed. "I look like shit."
"Nah, you don't. I've woken up next to women much less attractive." Logan glared. "Um, that came out wrong."
"I've never seen this side of you before, Victor. You're almost sweet."
He looked offended. "Sweet! Ha! I'm just trying to charm you outta those tight pants of yours."
Logan rolled her eyes. "You're impossible."
"It's what makes you want me so much."
"I do not want you!"
"Oh yeah?" Victor grabbed her, pulling her into a crushing kiss. Logan grabbed his hair, kissing him back harder. He pushed her back on the bed, his hands roaming her body freely.
Logan moaned, her body responding almost on instinct. She wanted him more than she had wanted anyone in a long time. But she couldn't. Silver Fox…
She pressed on Victor's chest. "No."
That was the one word he didn't want to hear. From her, it meant something. She was his partner. "He isn't good enough for you."
Logan looked away. "He's too good for me."
Victor got up, knowing he had to leave before he did what every bit of him was screaming to do. "A false sense of honor doesn't make you worthy, darlin'."
When Victor left, Logan began to cry again.
"Logan?" Silver Fox entered her room long after lights out." Logan had been staring at her wall for hours, wide awake.
"Go away."
"I will…I just need to, well, apologize." Logan rolled over.
"What?"
"I was…uh…well…"
"A jerkoff," Logan mumbled.
"For lack of a better word. I didn't meant to imply that…"
Logan sat up. "That what? That I'm no better than a common whore?"
Silver Fox turned red. "No, I didn't mean that." He knelt down in front of her, taking her hands in his. "Logan, I didn't mean what I said. I'm just, well, insecure. You seem to share something with Sabretooth that you don't have with me. I don't want to lose you, Logan." He looked into her eyes. "I love you."
Logan started. "No man's ever told me that before."
"It's the truth. You mean so much to me. Look, I have a cabin up north. We both have some leave time coming up. Let's take it together, spend some time as I real couple. I want to show you what you mean to me."
Logan smiled. "I'd like that."
"Good." Silver Fox stood up and kissed her forehead. "You get some rest. You look like you could use it. I'll see you in the morning."
"Silver Fox?" Logan said softly.
He turned in the doorway. "Yes?"
"I…I love you, too."
He smiled before leaving her alone.
The next morning Logan was packing a jeep with camping supplies when she smelled a presence behind her. "Hey, Victor."
"Don't go with him."
She didn't look at him. "Why? Because I almost had sex with you? That was a mistake, a vulnerable moment."
"No. Don't go with him because he's an asshole. Look, I know I may not be the best guy in the world, but…"
Logan turned around. "Don't, Creed. You and I, we'd don't work like that. We can kill together, fine, but I know how to be something more than an animal from time to time."
Victor narrowed his eyes. "You know, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are the kinda bitch that prick needs."
"Fuck you, Creed."
"Yeah, fuck you, Logan." He started to leave, but then turn back around. "You're a lot more fragile than you let on, runt. You aren't unbreakable, and he's going to be the one to break you. But when he does, don't come cryin' to me. I don't give a flyin' fuck about what happens to you." He sneered. "Animals don't care about partners or anyone else."
"Well I guess we're about equal then, since I don't care about you either!" Logan yelled.
Victor just rolled his eyes. "Have fun fucking his brains out this weekend. Hope for your sake he's still there in the morning to start building the white picket fence."
"At least he could give me a life, a family. You never could."
"Yeah, who would really want to." Victor walked away as Logan angrily stuffed the last of the supplies in the jeep.
Logan lay curled up next to Silver Fox as she watched the dying embers of the fire. She sighed happily, relishing the one moment of peace in her life.
Silver Fox kissed the top of her head. "The fire's dying, baby."
She sat up. "I'll get some more firewood."
"No, let me, baby. I'm the man after all."
Logan kissed him. "Don't be silly. You got it last time. It's my turn."
Silver Fox knew there was no point in arguing with her. "All right, but hurry back. I'll worry about you if you're gone too long. It's dangerous out there, you know."
"I'm a big girl, I can get firewood and come back in one piece."
Silver Fox gave her hands a light squeeze. "I know, but I still worry about my baby."
She kissed him. "I'll be home soon. I love you."
"I love you, too."
In the Team X compound, Victor restlessly stalked the halls, playing his last conversation with Logan over and over in his head. How dare she treat him like that? Hadn't he proven he was capable of being more than a vicious predator?
Victor wondered why he even cared, but the answer was obvious. There was no denying his desire for Logan went way beyond a partnership. Victor let out a growl and ran his sharp talons along the cement walls, flaking off paint. He could have any woman, anywhere and yet the one that was right in front of him was unreachable. Wasn't that just his rotten luck.
He ended up in the rec area. The compound was deathly silent—Maverick was off somewhere cleaning his guns, and Wraith and Chasen had gone home. Unlike the Team X operatives, they could actually go somewhere other than this rabbit hole.
So what's stoppin' you, Creed? he said to himself. He should just go out, find a couple hookers and fuck Logan off his mind. He sighed as he paced. It wasn't that simple…he didn't want some sixteen year old who looked like her, he wanted her. Her smell, her face, her skin under his hands.
Victor let out a snarl of frustration and swept an abandoned game of checkers off the rec table. His eyes lit on the small liquor cabinet in the corner—just enough booze to allow the team to relax, but not enough to get them into trouble. Victor yanked open the doors and gathered up the bottles. It wasn't enough to overcome his healing factor, but it was a start. If he could numb himself enough, he could forget about Logan for tonight.
Logan brought the axe down hard into the block of wood. She'd been enjoying her time alone with Silver Fox, but she couldn't get her mind completely off Victor. She thought about what she'd said to him before she'd left and felt guilty. She hadn't had any room at all to call him an animal. He wasn't any less human than she was herself.
She set the axe down for a moment, wiping her hair away from her face. What did she want in life anyway? She loved Silver Fox. He gave her a sense of stability that no other man ever had before.
But Victor… She couldn't deny her attraction to him, no matter how hard she tried. Silver Fox had been right in one respect—there was a connection with Victor that she didn't have with him. But what was that connection? Was it the type that led to something long-term, something real?
No, it couldn't be. Victor wouldn't love her the way Silver Fox did, and that's what she really needed.
She picked the axe back up and drove it through another block of wood.
The room swirled slowly around Victor as he let the last bottle drop out of his hands. He had searched the entire compound until he'd found Chasen's private stash in his office. More bottles of single-malt scotch than he could count, Victor was in a blurry area between reality and unconsciousness.
In this state, he was only mildly surprised when Chasen's office door swung open and a small, white rabbit stuck its head in. It had large pink eyes and floppy ears.
"How'd ya get in?" Victor slurred. The rabbit hopped around his chair once, and then went back to the door, looking back at Victor as if to say, 'are you coming?'
It suddenly became perfectly clear to Victor what the rabbit wanted. What he wanted. He had to go get Logan back, get her away from Silver Fox, make her his…any way he could.
Victor parked his jeep crookedly downwind of Silver Fox's cabin. It hadn't been hard to find. He sat in the perfect dark, aware that the rabbit was still with him. Presently the cabin door swung open and he saw Logan go out, down a path away from him. Victor watched her disappear into the tree line, then looked at his traveling companion. "Whaddaya think? Should we go in?"
The rabbit twitched its nose. Victor took that as a yes.
Victor burst into the cabin, finding Silver Fox sitting in front of the fire. Silver Fox jumped up. "What are you doing here?"
"I've come to get my woman," Victor growled.
"Who are you talking about?" Silver Fox asked. "Logan?"
"Damn straight." Victor lunged at Silver Fox, knocking him down and pinning him to the floor. "She should've been mine, pretty boy. She's my kinda woman—not yours."
"She's too good for the likes of you. Your kind of woman lives in a cave somewhere."
Victor roared, swiping his claws down on Silver Fox's face. Silver Fox screamed in pain, his vision blurred from the blood running into his eyes. "You'll…you'll never have her…" he stuttered from between slashed lips. "Even if you kill me, you can't have her."
"We'll see about that, punk." Victor raised his claws and brought them down again and again, until the man once known as Silver Fox no longer looked like a man at all.
Logan was halfway back to the cabin when she heard Silver Fox scream. She dropped the firewood and ran at a dead sprint back to the small dwelling.
"Silver Fox?!" Logan saw him as soon as she skidded to a stop in the doorway—or what was left of him. "Oh dear god…" Logan's stomach bucked and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Next to Silver Fox's flayed body she saw the form of Victor Creed, passed out face down on her floor but very much alive. Hot tears began to gush from Logan's eyes, the scene before her simply too much to process.
"Why…" she said from between her fingers. "WHY!" she screamed at Victor's prone form. But she was rooted to the spot, all her instincts that demanded she take revenge for her lover's death deserting her. Logan turned and ran from the cabin, going anywhere where she wouldn't have to see any more.
"Logan, I understand you've very upset by this whole affair," said General Chasen. Behind him, a janitor was sweeping up broken glass from liquor bottles. "But you have my personal assurance that every step will be taken to discipline the party available." Logan barely looked up from her cupped hands in her lap.
"I want out."
"Team X was scheduled to disband at the end of six months anyway," said Chasen. "However, you have proven yourself an asset time and time again. If you are interested…"
"I just wanna go somewhere else, General."
"Department H is beginning a new mutant program, one which you would be ideal for. Top secret. Are you interested?"
"Would Sabretooth be involved?"
"Of course not," Chasen assured her.
"Then I'll do it."
Chasen grinned, a rare event. He leaned across the table, shaking Logan's hand. "Then welcome to the Weapon X Project."