A/N: This chapter takes place after the movie. I'm not going to bother naming a specific length of time lest I screw it up somehow. Let's just say it's "Years Later …"
Disclaimer: I do not own Sabertooth or any of the X-Men characters in any universe that I'm aware of.
I'm not making one red cent from this story. I'm just havin' some fun.
Years Later …
For the most part Tessa only went to town once a month for supplies, but when winter approached she went twice as often to stock up before the first blizzard struck and cut her off from civilization altogether. These supply runs were the only times she drove. When Dan, her last husband, died, he among his worldly possessions a huge 4x4 with an engine that growled like a constipated grizzly. Tessa had to admit to a certain glee whenever she pulled up to a red stoplight and some young hothead revved his engine in an immature attempt to get her attention—
Grrrooowwwwlllllll!
—and she would just smile sweetly and press down on the gas in her truck.
GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
She could actually see their egos deflate.
Her good mood didn't last long. It seemed every other conversation she overheard was about the "mutant menace." She remembered such talk throughout her life. Same fears, different names. Foreigners, Jews, blacks, homosexuals. Mutants. Crosses would burn, bodies would swing from trees, rocks would shatter windows, children would run home from the schoolyard in tears from the hateful taunts. It was one of the reasons Tessa chose to live in isolation.
She did her best to ignore the bigotry and took solace in the music of the trees scattered throughout the town. The song went on, though muted by the fact that the plantlife lay dormant for the season. Still, some part remained aware, as if in a half-dream.
Tessa loaded the last of her supplies, thanked the store clerk who helped her ("See ya next year!"), then hopped into the truck and headed for home. She fiddled with the radio; most of the stations seemed to be on the same wavelength as the people back in town. Mutants were all anyone wanted to talk about, and what to do about them. Opinions ranged from mandatory registration to isolating them in internment camps to outright extermination. The bluster of the frightened drowned out the voices of the sane few who took a live-and-let-live outlook. Tessa twisted the dial until she finally came across a station that was just playing music. It was country. She turned the volume down to an acceptable drone, tapped to the beat with her fingers against the steering wheel.
The deejay paused for a moment to warn of an incoming snowstorm. Whiteout conditions.
"Looks like I finished my shopping none too soon." Even as she said this the first snowflakes flattened themselves against the windscreen. Tessa switched on the wipers. It wasn't long before the snowfall was so thick she almost missed her turnoff into the woods; an easy thing to overlook even on a clear day. The 4x4 plowed through the inches-thick drifts already spanning the rudimentary path. The headlights barely revealed anything more than five feet ahead, but Tessa didn't worry. She could never get lost in her forest.
The snow accumulation was a tad less severe in the clearing thanks to the natural barrier provided by the woods. Tessa brought the truck to a halt a short distance away from the cabin's door, killed the engine, and set about transferring the supplies to the house. Her winter boots crunched against the snow. Tessa hated putting anything on her feet, but she hated icy toes even more.
A change in the wood's song made her pause halfway to the door, a box of cleaning supplies in her arms. It was faint, at the very edge of her range of perception. She picked it up intermittently like a staticky radio station. A group of men in the forest … chasing. There was rage in their heavy footfalls. They stopped running. Turmoil … blood on the snow … something liquid, caustic spattered on the ground … then fire.
"What …?" Tessa frowned in the direction these impressions came from. Something violent was happening. She shivered in her fleece-lined coat.
This last hit was so ridiculously easy even a half-assed amateur could've done it. Normally Victor would have turned it down and waited for something that was more of a challenge, but then he realized the trip to and from the target's location would take him near the area where he'd encountered the female mutant years ago; the one with the familiar green eyes. He decided to take it as a sign that the time had come for his revenge on that bitch. So he did the job (yawn) and made a slight detour on the return trip. Along the way he passed through a town, decided to stop a while at what passed for a bar in this place. What the hell, he might even pick a fight with the locals to spice up the evening. Judging from the looks he got when he sauntered through the doors, that wouldn't be difficult.
Victor took in his surroundings: Dim lights, smokey haze, men in jeans and flannel shirts, potbellies sagging above oversized belt buckles, sweat-stained caps with tattered brims, tattoos on both the men and the handful of women scattered throughout the place, the women middle-aged with saggy breasts threatening to burst out of too-tight halter tops. His sensitive nose deciphered the range of odors: Watery beer, whiskey that could cut through varnish, cigarettes (both tobacco and other), sweat, vomit, piss. Victor grinned. "My kinda place."
Despite the poor lighting and pervasive haze, the more sharp-eyed patrons noticed Victor's claws and murmured this fact to their neighbors. Soon the entire bar was abuzz with quiet yet persistent mumbling. Victor knew all too well that a murmuring crowd of drunken rednecks was just a riotous mob in potentia. Oh yes, things were definitely looking up. He strolled over to the bar; the stools emptied in record time. The bartender was a red-faced fat man whose neck was obscured beneath a massive flap of fat that draped over the collar of his shirt. Victor seated himself on one of the abandoned stools; it creaked under his weight. "Gimme a beer."
The fat man somehow managed to cross his arms. "We don't serve your kind here."
Victor quirked an eyebrow, feigning ignorance. "Is that so?"
"Cancha read?" The barkeep pointed at a sign tacked to the wall behind him, a piece of cardboard with sloppy words written in black marker.
This establishmant is for Humans Only! No dogs, cats, hogs, monkeys, goats, or MUTANTS allowed!
"Mutants" was in all caps and underlined three times to ensure they got their point across.
The fat man glared at him. "Well?"
"You misspelled 'establishment.'"
"You deaf, freak?" A sweaty guy with a tattoo of a rose on his neck took a threatening step towards him. "Get th' fuck outta here!"
Others began to throw in their own comments. "Yeah!" "—don't want no muties 'round here!" "Freak!" "Mutie!"
Victor rolled his eyes. All the epithets and racial slurs people have hurled at each other throughout history and the best they could come up with for mutants was "muties?"
He rose from his seat to loom over the first speaker. "You gonna try and make me leave, slick?"
A bottle shattered against the back of his head. The woman who'd swung it at him shrieked at Drunk #1 "Kick that mutie's ass, baby!" just before a backhand from Victor sent her crashing into the wall. And then the chaos of a good ol' fashioned barfight ensued. There was plenty of blood and screams. Victor was careful not to kill anybody, however. With his connections the cops would never be able to hold him, but he didn't want to go through the hassle.
There was a lull as those who remained upright entertained second thoughts. In that silence (apart from the groans and sobbing, of course), the bartender yelled, "I'm callin' the fucking cops!"
The feral laughed. "Don't bother. I've had my fun." He winked, strode through the debris and semi-conscious bodies, and swaggered out the door.
Outside, he blinked the bar's gloom from his eyes. The late afternoon air was crisp with the promise of snow. Victor took a deep breath. Man! That was invigorating. More than enough to whet his appetite for what he had planned for the frail. He climbed into his car, started the engine, and pulled out into the meager traffic. Radio said a snowstorm was on the way. Victor didn't worry. He'd either finish with the woman before the worst of it hit or wait it out at her cabin. Hell, he might even consider spending the winter there. Communing with nature. Victor laughed.
He relied on memory to guide him to the area where he'd entered the woods last time. The pale sun sank towards the horizon as he drove. Snow began to fall from the clouded sky. Night set in quickly. Victor turned on the headlights, much good they did him in this weather. He sped on, fishtailing around each turn. Everything was blackness save the blazing white illuminated by the headlights. The rest of the world was just barely noticed shadows. No noise beyond the crunch of the tires on the snow, the laboring engine, and the steady moan of the blustery wind. It was like being trapped inside the TV while it was tuned to white noise.
He didn't hear the other car until that fraction of a second before it struck. It came at him from the side, its front end struck the driver's side of his car. An explosion of sound, and the world began to tumble. It was only the car that tumbled, of course, as it was knocked of the road and rolled down the steep shoulder into a ditch. Victor's body rattled like a ball bearing inside the vehicle; he never bothered with a seatbelt. The next thing he knew he was lying on the ceiling while his fractured bones knitted themselves. Above the noise of the snowstorm he made out the garbled voices of men. A sudden flare of light as the other vehicle switched on its front lights. Stupid sunovabitch! Victor cursed himself. He'd run into a goddamned ambush. Some of the drunks must have decided to even the score. They could've noted which direction he was headed then taken a shortcut to head him off, which wouldn't have been too hard for people who lived in the area and were familiar with its terrain. Victor dragged himself towards the shattered window, a tight squeeze given that the top of the car partially collapsed from the weight. Still, he managed to get out and get to his feet before his attackers finished skidding their way down the incline. There were eight of them, all bundled in thick layers to protect from the cold. Victor was sure most if not all were from the bar. Some of them had flashlights which they shone in his face. He wondered if they were shocked by the light reflected by his eyes.
Victor roared a challenge and lunged, only to stagger back as what felt like a battering ram slammed into his chest. They'd brought their shotguns along, loaded with buckshot. No sooner did his healing factor kick in than another of the faceless attackers fired on him, then another. A relentless barrage that his healing factor could not keep up with. That was when Victor realized this wasn't a simple mutie bashing; this was a lynch mob.
He needed to put some distance between them, give himself a chance to recover. The forest's edge was not far behind him. He could try to lose them in there, heal up, then pick off these bastards one by one. Victor ran. The mob chased after him, still firing their guns. It was more from luck than skill when a round took out Victor's right knee. He collapsed into the bloody snow, struggled up onto his one good leg only to be knocked down by the continued volleys. He roared defiance and slashed with his claws, but his enemies maintained their distance while they shot at him.
Victor could not die, but he could sustain serious enough damage to put him out of commission for a while. By the time the last shot rang out the mutant looked like a hamburger sculpture. Even so, the gathered men saw the ragged wounds begin to pull themselves together. One of them, the drunk with the rose tattoo on his neck who'd confronted Victor at the bar, turned to his companions with a vicious grin. "Now for the real fun."
Victor never totally lost consciousness. Sounds and impressions filtered through the numb haze. " … real tight, now …" " … -e that sledgehammer …" " … got the matches?"
Awareness gradually returned. Everything ached. His skin was still covered in healing red scars. He lay spreadeagled on his back beneath the cover of the trees where the snow wasn't as thick, his wrists and ankles tied with steel cable that bit into his flesh, the other ends secured to metal spikes driven deep into the frozen ground. A circle of hostile faces glared down at him.
"You with us, freak?" One of them reached down to slap his cheek. Victor lunged, his fangs sank into the man's outstretched hand, piercing glove and flesh. "Fuck!" The man yanked free and staggered back. His comrades laughed.
"Got yerself a love bite there, Hank," someone jeered.
"Fuckin' mutie!" The man's boot slammed into Victor's side.
The man with the rose tattoo loomed over the snarling feral. "We wanted you t' be awake for this, mutie. Got somethin' special planned for you." He gestured to another man who hefted a plastic gas can. The sharp stink of gasoline assaulted Victor's nostrils and foul liquid splashed onto him. It was then that he felt a tremor deep within him, an inkling of fear.
His long life spent in violence left him intimately familiar with all sorts of physical pain. He learned to endure it, to use it as fuel for his rage. But there were some types of pain that even he dreaded; of those, the worst was burning. The way it made the nerve endings sing until his vision turned white, never abating until the nerves themselves were destroyed and offered a few minutes of blissful respite. Then the nerves would start to regenerate and the anguish would flare up anew. Victor was burned several times throughout his life, the most severe when he sustained second and third degree burns to his arm during WWI. Pain that was about to be eclipsed by what this mob had planned.
He snarled in defiance. "I'm gonna hunt down every one of you cocksuckers and make you watch while I kill the thing you love most. I will gut your families and rape your wives and daughters. I'll castrate your sons and tear their heads off. Then I'll do the same to you."
The man with the rose tattoo smirked. In his hand was a book of matches. He struck one and used it to light the rest at once. "Here's a little taste of what's waitin' for you on th' other side, freak." And he tossed the flaming matches onto Victor's gas-soaked chest.
Victor's screams ceased only when his lungs charred, long before the pain was over.
The worst of the storm had yet to reach the area. This didn't make it any less dangerous.
Tessa knew she was probably making a terrible mistake, but couldn't bring herself to ignore what she'd sensed before. Something terrible happened out at the edge of the woods. She needed to see what it was. What if those men had killed someone? She couldn't just leave the body out there to be eaten by scavengers or lost under the snow. Whoever it was might have family. It would be cruel to leave them wondering for months or even years while their loved one's remains were left to rot.
She climbed into her truck and started the engine once again. The direction she needed to go did not have a path. She had to wend the large vehicle through the densely packed forest, at times influencing the trees to lean out of her way. This provided its own risks, for the largely dormant trees were far slower to move than in warmer times and the trunks were in danger of splintering from the strain.
She didn't bother with headlights. The snowfall had thickened to the point that no amount of light would help. She would just have to rely on the song to guide her. The 4x4's powerful engine roared as it bulled its way through the deepening drifts. It wouldn't be long before even this monster vehicle was in danger of getting mired. Tessa did not want to get stranded out here. If she couldn't reach her destination before the blizzard she would turn around and head back for home. She would only risk so much for a dead stranger.
He reached a point where pain was all he knew. The anguish of charred flesh, the bone-penetrating cold. His regenerated eyes gazed blurrily up at the snow-shrouded trees and his stuttering thoughts skipped back to a different winter, a different forest.
Here, Jimmy, put my coat on. I'm not cold.
Two boys struggling through the snow, at times sinking up to their waists. Weak from cold and starvation. There was nothing to eat in this icy wasteland. Nothing but skeletal trees. They ate snow just to have something in their bellies.
Victor wouldn't stop, no matter how tired Jimmy said he was. If his little brother dropped from exhaustion he carried the smaller boy on his back until he could walk on his own again. If they stopped, they died. Victor refused to die. He would not fail his brother by giving in.
A low growl reached the adult mutant's ears. In his mind, the memory of his younger self tensed. The wolves were coming. Jimmy! Climb up that tree!
To the half starved wolves the boys looked like easy prey. They were many, and their teeth were sharp. But Victor had his claws. If only he wasn't so tired. His arms were blocks of ice; he couldn't lift them. The growling grew louder. Not long now. Then there was light and a figure loomed over him, face shadowed under a furred hood. A name rose in Victor's mind: Josiah. He and his brother were saved.
Tessa didn't want to think about how long it took her to reach him. She brought the truck to a halt alongside the motionless form sprawled on the ground, got a flashlight out of the glove compartment, and went out into the howling wind. What little skin she left exposed felt the burn of intense cold. She played the flashlight's beam over the body. It was naked, the clothing burnt away. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. Even with the thin layer of snow that covered it, Tessa could see there wasn't nearly enough damage to the corpse considering the charred circle around it. She knelt and shone the light on the face, brushing the snow away with her other hand. The skin was a mass of fresh scar tissue. Eyes open, staring. A sense of dread came over her. She moved the flashlight's beam to one of the outstretched hands, saw the blackened cable biting into the wrist, a claw at each fingertip.
Tessa gasped and scrambled away. She stood with her back against the truck, both hands clutching the flashlight as if it might protect her. He'd come back. Victor.
The body remained still. Not dead, though. Tessa knew better. Even the strongest healing factors had their limits. The massive injuries sustained, plus the intense cold, proved too much and his body simply shut down. In all likelihood he would revive come spring when the cold receded.
I could just leave him here. That would be the smart thing to do. After all, the reason he'd returned was to try and finish what he started years ago. Anyone in her situation would be justified in doing the same.
Look at him, her conscience whispered, relentless as always, Obviously tortured. Staked out and set on fire. Maybe he provoked someone, maybe he even deserved this somehow, or maybe it happened just because he's a mutant.
He was dangerous. She knew what he might do to her once he recovered. Was she really considering marooning herself for an entire winter alone with this man? She had to be out of her mind!
You took him in before. Him and his brother. Of course she did. But he was just a child then. He obviously wasn't the same person anymore.
Tessa switched off the flashlight and got back into the truck. The warmth from the heater made the numbed skin on her face tingle painfully. The wipers swished across the windscreen to clear away the snow. Hardly worth it since it was pitch black outside and the headlights would only reveal a wall of white. Should head back now before the storm buried her. That thought brought the image of Victor as a child flailing helplessly as the snow piled over him. Something hitched in her chest. "I must be insane."
She turned in her seat, found her late husband's rusty toolbox behind her. She dug around in it until she found a pair of cutters, then hefted the flashlight once again and went outside.
"This is crazy. Totally nuts," she muttered to herself as she struggled to cut through the steel cables. When all four limbs were freed, she hurried to the truck where she found that old sleeping bag she'd been meaning to get rid of and spread it out in the back. Then she stepped back and focused her mind on the nearest trees. It was hard to make trees move in winter; to force them out of dormancy for even a few minutes could harm them. As before, years ago, thick roots emerged from the frozen ground. They moved with agonizing slowness, lifting the unconscious mutant and maneuvering him to the back of the truck, laying him down on the sleeping bag. Then they withdrew into the earth and the trees resumed their interrupted slumber. Tessa shut the back of the truck, hurried back to the cab, and drove.
They almost didn't make it. The brunt of the storm struck with brutal force. The 4x4 battled raging winds as it struggled through drifts almost deep enough to reach the hood. Tessa hunched over the steering wheel, praying they didn't get stuck. She doubted exposure would kill her; more likely she'd slip into hibernation like Victor and wake in the spring. Didn't mean she was anxious to give it a try.
Whether by luck or divine intervention, they made it to the clearing. Tessa brought the truck to a halt by the door. She got out, opened the back, grabbed the edge of the sleeping bag. This wasn't going to be pretty. She yanked and pulled until Victor's body slid out of the truck and struck the ground with a thump. Tessa winced. As she dragged the heavy body to the cabin's door, she wished she had a bit more muscle to go along with her height. She paused to open the door before she dragged the laden sleeping bag inside. Then she hurried back outside to move the truck into the garage. She had to use the guide rope strung between the garage and the house to find her way back. In whiteouts, a person could easily get lost just a few feet from their door.
As far as she could tell, Victor hadn't moved the few minutes she was away. It was dark inside the cabin. Tessa stripped off her heavy coat and gloves, kicked off her boots. She crept over to the mantle where she kept an oil lamp and a box of matches. Struck a match, lit the wick. A dim flicker pushed back some of the dark. She moved to light the other lamps situated throughout the room. At the woodstove, she uncovered a few coals and coaxed them into a flame. Fed it fuel from the woodbox until heat radiated throughout the cabin. Tessa dragged Victor a little closer to the stove, got a blanket and throw pillow from the couch. She tucked the pillow beneath his head and covered him with the blanket. He looked unchanged; eyes still staring up at nothing, flesh still red and raw. Yet as she watched it seemed the scars got a little less awful. Maybe the warmth helped.
She sat on the couch, elbows on her knees, chin propped in her hands. She stared at the motionless form and felt her anxiety rise. "I must be insane," she repeated. What the hell was she supposed to do with him once he woke? Should she tie him up? Lock him in the basement? Even if she did either of those things, she knew it would only be a matter of time before he got loose. She couldn't trust him, couldn't protect herself like before. Why was she putting herself through this?
"Because I'm a sentimental idiot," she muttered.
She rose and went to the kitchen. Might as well try to eat something while she waited. By the time she returned, Victor's skin looked almost normal. His eyes were now closed, his chest visibly rose and fell. At some point he'd slid from dormancy into normal sleep. His hair had yet to grow back. Without the facial hair, his resemblance to the boy he used to be was more obvious. Tessa felt a pang of sadness at this. As the night wore on, Victor showed no signs of waking. Tessa didn't think she'd be able to sleep, so she curled up on the sofa with a book to read. After a while, though, she caught herself nodding off. With great reluctance, she left the den with its slumbering occupant and went to her bedroom. She made sure to push the dresser up against the door before going to bed.
