Title: "...to make a man reconsider."
Author: Unanon
Fandom: X-Men Comicverse: AoA/Exiles
Characters: Sabretooth & Blink
Notes: 7 x 100, a love story in 700 words.
He remembers how small she was when he first found her. Her tiny body latched onto his side when he scooped her up, fingers gripping, arms and legs curling around his torso. He marveled at how fiercely she clung as they escaped. She may have been a ragged, reeking skeleton, but her survival instincts were strong.
The X-Men brought her up, passing on skills to keep her alive. They would have kept her untainted, untouched by their battle, but her talent was too useful. She became the group mascot bringing up the rear, everyone's little sister turned warrior too soon.
Victor left her once without letting her know where he was going. It was two weeks after he'd brought her back to the hideout, cleaned her up, and trickled a bit of nourishment into her shrunken belly. She hadn't spoken much yet and she was still clinging to the walls and shadows despite gentle coaxing. He figured she wouldn't even notice he was gone.
They told him that she'd howled for three hours after she discovered his absence. Pietro tried to comfort her but gained only a bitten finger for his pains. From that day on Victor always said goodbye.
His role in her life was unspoken but real. The team deferred to his will regarding Clarice, sensing their bond, perhaps even understanding it.
He'd leave if he had to, and she'd come willingly. Magneto and Rogue wove their illusions of familial trust, but everyone knew where the division lines would really fall if everything turned to shit. Carice'd wheedle and moan, arguing with his conscience 'til they were both disgusted, but she'd stick to his side. She wasn't bonded to him like Kyle; there was no need for chains. Their trust was tethered by something stronger, if less tangible.
She was his. He'd held her at the end of their world, pink head on his shoulder, and he'd been satisfied with death.
Survival was a nasty shock; knowing he'd lost her worse.
He'd look for her in the realities Weapon X visited, hoping for a glimpse of lavender flesh and green eyes. He followed the Tallus' orders despite their brutality while her phantom whispered words of doubt into his heart.
Even if he believed the Timebroker's empty promises, Victor knew the bombs had destroyed everything. There was nowhere he could call home, and without her there never could be.
He collects details of her alternate lives from those who had known her. Clarice had been a victim of the Brood, a fallen leader of a Generation X team, a faceless casualty of mutant concentration camps. A sneering Weapon X teammate remembers her as a brutally slain runaway while he pointedly eyes Victor's claws.
On this world Creed listens silently while a weeping Jubilation Lee recounts her memory of a frightened teenager, unsure of her powers, who tore her body apart to save the lives of strangers; to save an undeserving version of himself.
All he finds are alternate deaths.
When their teams tripped across each other, outcasts from every reality, slaves to a collective whim, Victor couldn't have been more astonished. Clarice was alive and strong, HIS Clarice, not some half-forgotten dead child from an alternate world.
They fell into familiar patterns; she demonstrated affection through her eagerness to please while he grunted approval grudgingly, hesitant to show his pride. She'd become softer than he'd expected, but she was still firm in her resolve.
Choices always seemed clearer with Clarice. She brought him back to himself, preserved his heart, his soul. She protected his conscience.
She always saved him.
Clarice appeared again, years after he had chosen exile on that alien planet. She seemed astonished that so much time had passed since they'd last met; she hadn't aged. She embraced him and wept, joy at their reunion mingling with the sorrow of grief. Her love and her team were lost to her now, another family gone.
She adapted well to his world, to the existence that he'd made there. So well that he almost didn't notice when his interest in her altered subtly, dangerously.
When the Tallus took her from him a third time it was almost a relief.