-Okay a new chapter after...an eon and a half...dunno how muh I like it, but ah well, at least it's an update, right kiddies?-
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Over the years he grew numb to the killing. He had to. What was left of that little kid from the dirty streets of London just wouldn't have been able to deal with the things the man known as Toad did everyday. So he stopped feeling. Stop feeling everything, but a detached amusement, and the darker emotions of hate and jealousy and anger.
A lifetime of torture and abuse will do that to you. Especially when all that's nurtured are the more perverse emotions. It was all Magneto wanted nurtured, to further his cause. He neither saw nor cared what became of the young boy as long as the assassin flourished. And Toad did flourish.
The hate was all that drove him. Mission after mission, life after life that he cut short, it only fueled his determination to punish them all. The odd habits of talking to himself and the practice dummies all but disappeared, but he still laughed when he killed. It became a trademark that anyone who knew him did well to fear.
He enjoyed the slaughter in a way neither Mystique nor Sabretooth fully comprehended. Sabretooth liked a good fight, it was bestial, primal, it was what Sabretooth lived for, but for Toad it was a Vendetta. He couldn't seem to separate those who might wrong him from those who already had. He could not see that there might be exceptions to Magneto's rule.
It worried Mystique. It always had. She'd seen a little of herself in the young boy she'd helped train. The frightened girl, just looking for a place in life. But she'd known joy in her life, albeit borrowed. Her powers would allow her normalcy now if she craved it. She could imagine how depraving it was to never be allowed a single day, a single moment of peace. Toad had no happy memories to look back on, and his future was equally bleak, he fought everyday just to survive.
She's seen his mask break down only a few times in her life with him. Something that would finally reach him and force it to slip, and the helplessness there was terrifying. She didn't know what was worse: the fact that he'd braced himself against feeling anything, or the fact that if he didn't, he would be a broken shell.
He was nineteen when he started using. He'd come across it somewhere. Some normal he'd killed, or maybe one of the dives he frequented to drink. Sabretooth used to go with him, but lately he'd been going alone. Lately Toad avoided the others at all cost. Maybe he thought they didn't know. Hadn't seen the needles. Hadn't guessed at the track marks. Maybe he just couldn't deal with facing them.
Mystique stood in his doorway, leaning on the frame and watching him sit on the edge of his bed, bent over his arm injecting himself with something. Whatever it was he sighed in relief when he'd finished, and tossed the syringe in a growing pile with disregard. He glanced up at her, knowing she'd been there all along. It hadn't done anything to dissuade him from that spike.
"Does it help?" She kept her voice free of the contempt she felt. Contempt would make matters worse.
"Yeh," He breathed, "Makes everything…nice and numb."
Mystique smiled at the honesty that came with being high. Magneto would beat his ass if he knew. If Magneto cared enough to notice. It hadn't affected Toad's work yet, so Magneto hadn't bothered to notice, but if he realized what a loose tongue this stuff would make. She shook her head. Toad wouldn't notice if she looked at him with open disgust right now. The thought disgusted her even more.
She approached him, and knelt in front of where he swayed back and forth on his bed, and captured his chin in a firm grip, forcing him to meet her gaze.
"Where is it?" She demanded, keeping her voice flat from all emotion.
He pointed at his dresser drawer, too out of it to argue with her. He probably thought she wanted some. Maybe a long time ago, she would have, now she valued a sharp mind and an able body. She released her grip, letting him fall backward on the bed with a soft thump and went to abscond with his supply.
She left him there, disposed of his stash and went about her day. It was time someone did something about him, and though she hated it, she felt responsible. She was not this boy's mother. She was barely even his friend. She couldn't remember the last time they'd had a real conversation. But something had to be done, or Magneto would dispose of Toad as easily as she had his drugs. Magneto did not tolerate weakness.
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It was evening and Mystique and Sabretooth were in the living area watching the news when Toad appeared; face pale, eyes bloodshot, hands shaking to throw a heavy book at Mystique on the couch. She ducked it easily and was turned and on her feet to approach him before he recovered from the throw.
"Wot th'fuck did you do wif it?" He snarled, the most he'd spoken to her in the last few months.
"Got rid of it," She answered calmly, Sabretooth appearing at her side to break him down with nothing but a look. She hadn't told the bigger mutant what she'd done, but he caught on easily enough.
"FUCKING BITCH," Toad screamed, and turned on his heel to storm down the hall toward the hanger. Planning, no doubt, to just replenish his stock.
Sabretooth's large heavily clawed hand caught him by the collar and lifted him to dangle in the air and look him in the eye. He didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. That look conveyed enough. Toad was not leaving.
Toad swung in his grip impatiently, attempting to squirm his way free or beat back the older man if he could. The drugs had made him sloppy and Sabretooth laughed with scorn, throwing him at the wall hard enough to knock him out. A quick thud and Toad was slumped on the ground, Mystique bending over him, checking his pulse.
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When he came to again he was in his own bathroom, a cold washcloth on his head and Sabretooth sitting against the door and reading a magazine. Toad was trembling all over, a thin layer of sweat covering his whole body. He retched, and wrapped an arm around his middle, barely able to even hold himself up as he leaned over the toilet. Tears streamed down his face as he got sick too many times to keep track of, and then curled up on the cold tiles shivering.
Sabretooth made no move to help him. He'd just have to make it on his own. He was there to make sure Toad didn't go anywhere and that was all. He flipped the page of his magazine and glanced up to see glazed eyes looking up at him with pure hatred.
He chuckled and shook his head, amused. Addicts were amusing. Pathetic. Toad would get over this or he'd die. There was no alternative.
Toad retched long into the night, long after anything had stopped coming up. He could no longer hold himself up but he cried and he screamed and he cursed, and Sabretooth did nothing. He didn't sleep, couldn't sleep, wide, terrified eyes jumping at every imagined shadow.
When sunlight streamed through the tiny window near the ceiling, Sabretooth yawned and stretched and looked over at the huddled mass on the floor.
"Get in the shower," He ordered, to which he received no response.
Toad was still awake, shivering and burning with fever, curled into the fetal position on an undoubtedly disgusting bathroom floor.
"Now Toad," Sabretooth gave him one last attempt at dignity, which was ignored, before getting up and turning on the water himself.
He yanked the young man to his feet, though he could barely stand on them, and pulled off his shirt. He stood back expecting Toad to do the rest, but he swayed and nearly crashed to the floor again. Sabretooth made a grim face and caught him by the shoulder.
"Take off your pants, Mortimer," his tone left no room for argument. In fact, if Toad had been coherent enough for thought, he would have realized that it was the first time Sabretooth had ever called him by his real name, and that probably would have scared him.
Toad fumbled with the fly, taking forever but finally slipping out of his clothes and attempting to do as he was ordered. He couldn't stand in the shower, but crouched at the bottom of the tub, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring at the water rushing down the drain.
After awhile he started to look a little better. His eyes, though still bloodshot and exhausted, had lost the dazed look to them. The trembling was still there, but it was more controlled. He'd stopped retching every few minutes.
Sabretooth watched him until that point and leaning on the countertop, stared down at the young man.
"You ever do this shit again, and Magneto will have me kill you. You understand that, runt?" There was no amusement in his voice now; he was deadly serious.
Toad didn't move for a moment and then he nodded.
Sabretooth didn't mince any more words, but opened the bathroom door and let himself out. He'd done his part. If the kid fucked up again it would be on his own head. Fond of him or not, if he became a liability, Vic would kill Toad without a second thought.
Well, Sabretooth amended his thoughts, maybe not without a second thought, which was about as high in his esteem as anyone but Mystique got. He'd done most of this babysitting for her. Didn't like to admit it, but he hated to see her upset, and he had a feeling he knew what she felt for Toad, but tried to hide. It had been difficult for her to give away her child...their child, he reminded himself. But it had been human. And Sabretooth was full aware the repercussions of that.
Still, Toad was a grown man now, and if he didn't stop making mistakes, he wasn't going to grow much older.