A/N: This chappie jumps back and forth between 19th Century Canada and the present. I'm labeling these segments as THEN and NOW. Real original, I know.
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.
THEN
Victor wouldn't let Jimmy blame himself for the situation they were in. It was that blacksmith's fault.
After months of drifting the two boys found dubious sanctuary in a small town's smithy. Victor helped at the forge while Jimmy tended the livery. In return they got an empty stable to sleep in and just enough food to keep them working. It wasn't long before Victor noticed they way the blacksmith kept staring at his little brother. Every time the man's eyes were on the younger boy a disturbing smell emanated from him. Victor wasn't sure what it meant, but he knew he didn't like it. He tried to keep Jimmy as far away from the smith as possible.
One evening the blacksmith gave Victor some work that he knew would occupy him well into the night. The boy seethed at the injustice of it even as he bent to the task. Some time later his keen ears picked up a sound no ordinary human would have heard; the faint cries of his brother. Victor immediately ran out to the livery and saw what the smith was trying to do to Jimmy. The older boy roared and raked his claws across the man's face. The smith bellowed in pain, released his hold on the younger brother, and turned his attention to Victor. The fight was brutal. Victor had the quicker reflexes, but the blacksmith was powerfully built. They bloodied each other until Victor was able to slip away and, grabbing his little brother, ran out into the night. He always regretted not killing that bastard.
The boys knew they would find no safety with the townspeople; they were, after all, only orphans and drifters to boot. So, despite it being the dead of winter, Victor led them into the woods in hopes of finding shelter away from humans and the dangers they always brought. They wandered throughout the night and well into the day. Then a snowstorm struck.
"Here, Jimmy," Victor removed his coat, draped it over the smaller boy's shoulders, "Put my coat on."
Jimmy shivered under the heavy garment. "But what about you?"
"I'm not cold." It wasn't a total lie. The effort of breaking the trail made him sweat.
They slogged on through waist-high drifts. Their sense of time stretched and distorted. How long they walked, hours, days, an eternity, neither could tell. The continual snowfall and bitter wind only added to their misery. Victor knew he'd led them both to their doom. They should have toughed it out back in town. Now they were gonna freeze to death and their bodies frozen under a mountain of snow until spring came along and the scavengers ate up whatever was left. He should've gutted that fat blacksmith when he had the ch—
Victor stopped so abruptly that Jimmy slammed into him. "Hey! What—"
"Shh!" the older boy hissed. His eyes scanned the surrounding woods. He nudged his brother. "Start back the way we came," he whispered, "Real slow."
Eyes wide, Jimmy nodded and did what he said. He only got a few steps when Victor grabbed his arm. "Damn. They got behind us, too."
"Who?"
Victor inhaled. "Cancha smell 'em?"
And suddenly Jimmy could. A smell like wet dog, but in some indefinable way wilder. A tremor ran through the younger boy which had nothing to do with the cold.
As if given an unseen signal, the wolves leapt from their cover and rushed towards the boys. Winter had not been kind to this pack. They were gaunt creatures, desperate for prey. Victor grabbed his brother and half shoved, half threw him towards the nearest tree. "Climb up! Go! Go!"
Jimmy scrabbled up the trunk, driving splinters under his nails. His brother's coat slipped from his shoulders and fell to the ground. Victor spun to face their attackers, teeth bared and claws extended. The first animal collided with him and they rolled in the snow, snapping and clawing. Their snarls filled with visceral rage. Blood flew, stark against the white landscape. Victor sank his teeth into the wolf's throat. Hot blood sprayed his face, clotted his throat. He reveled in the metal taste. The first wolf fell only to be replaced by several more. Victor fought bravely, but in the end he was still just a boy and greatly outnumbered. He was distantly aware of his brother's screams overhead as the growling pack overwhelmed him.
An explosive sound ripped the air. A wolf yowled, dropped to the ground, blood flowing from its side. The rest of the pack fled, vanishing into the forest like ghosts.
Covered in blood, his clothes in tatters, Victor rolled onto his side and stared blearily at the massive, hairy figure clutching a rifle in its paws. A bear with a gun? As the figure neared his eyes blinked into focus. Not a bear, but a huge man swathed in thick furs. Most of his exposed face was concealed behind a thick beard, thus adding to his bearlike appearance. The beard split into a white-toothed grin. "Well, now. That was somethin'!"
Jimmy scrambled down from the tree and knelt beside his brother. "Victor! You killed a wolf!" Indeed, one of the two dead animals lay with its guts spilled out on the snow.
"He surely did," the stranger agreed, "Laid into 'em proper." Gun cradled in the crook of his elbow, he regarded the boys with mellow brown eyes. "You alright, son?" he asked Victor.
The older boy rose unsteadily to his feet, one hand on his brother's shoulder for support. "I'm alright. Don't need any help." His wounds had already healed themselves, though his clothes were beyond saving.
The bearlike man shook his head. "First part might be true, but two young-uns alone in the woods in the dead o' winter, even boys as tough as you, are in definite need of aid. Now, I ain't much of a churchgoin' man, but I'm still Christian enough to offer you fellas a stay at my home, least till you're both better able to take care o' yourselves out here."
There was no mistaking the distrust in their expressions. In their experience, help was never offered for free. Question was how high a cost this man would want them to pay.
"Your choice of course," the man assured them, "But if I was you I wouldn't wanna spent any more time out in the cold without at least a hot supper in my belly and some warmer clothes."
The thought of a house with a fire, hot food, and thick coats only made the boys' shivers more pronounced. Victor especially, clad in blood-soaked rags in the process of freezing to his skin, understood the truth of the man's words. What choice did they have? He nodded.
Again, that ear-spanning grin. "Alright then. C'mon." He turned and started to backtrack his own footprints, partially blurred by the falling snow. The two boys reluctantly followed. "Name's Josiah, by the by," he said over his shoulder, "Didn't catch your names."
Jimmy glanced at his older brother. At the other boy's nod, he answered, "I'm James. This is my brother, Victor."
"Glad t' meet you both," Josiah replied amiably. He led them to where a large travois waited, hitched to a dun-colored mule. The travois was loaded with a variety of animal pelts. Victor could smell the blood on them.
"Lucky for you I was out checkin' the traps. Shame we had t' leave them wolf pelts behind, but I'm guessin' you'll wanna get warmed up soon as possible," said Josiah. "You boys can ride on top o' the fur pile. Daisy won't mind the extra load, willya, darlin'?"
The mule snorted indifferently.
The brothers climbed atop the pile where they huddled together. Josiah picked up a bearhide he was lucky to get before the unsuspecting bear managed to fully wake from its disturbed winter's sleep and draped over both boys, fur-side in. He then went to pick up the mule's tether, gave it a light tug, and clicked his tongue. "C'mon, darlin'. Let's head on home."
The travois lurched forward.
Jimmy whispered to his brother, "He seems nice."
Victor murmured grimly, "So did the blacksmith."
The snowfall let up as they traveled. Snow drifts did not seem to hinder the stoic Daisy, and Josiah wore a pair of snowshoes. They made good time, all things considered. Eventually they reached a small clearing that held an equally small cabin. Smoke rose invitingly from the chimney. Josiah hitched the mule to a convenient fencepost and led his young charges to the house. "Woman!" he bellowed cheerfully, removing the snowshoes and stamping the snow from his boots, "We got company."
Victor and Jimmy could not help but stare at the approaching woman. In an era when desirable women were petite and round, Josiah's wife stood as tall as most men and willow-thin. Her long, dark hair hung loose down her back, her dress simple homespun dyed forest green, and her feet were bare. She smiled at the two shivering strays, unsurprised by their arrival. And why would she be, when it was she who'd observed their wandering through the forest and advised her husband to go meet them, checking his fur traps along the way so he'd have a plausible excuse for being out there?
"Fellas," Josiah slung a beefy arm around the woman's slender waist, drawing her against him, "meet the missus. Tessa, this here's Victor and James. Seems they had a run-in with some hungry wolves."
Tessa's brow furrowed in concern. "Are either of you hurt?" Her speech was surprisingly cultured, compared to her husband's.
"We're fine," Victor said hastily, despite his bloodied clothes. He curled his hands into fists to hide the claws.
Tessa smiled, stepped out of her husband's hold and extended her own hands. "Come on. Let's get you both cleaned up and get something hot in your bellies."
Jimmy let the woman's hand rest on his shoulder. Victor, however, shied away from her touch. If this bothered her, it didn't show. Still smiling, she gestured for him to follow, leading the two boys deeper into the house.
After a thorough wash—in which she noticed no sign of injury on either child, though their ribs stood out alarmingly—Tessa dressed each of them in one of Josiah's sweaters. The garments were large enough for the sleeves to have to be rolled up several times and the hems to hang well below their knees. She then sat them at the table and ladled them two generous helpings of stew from the large pot that simmered on the stove.
"Take your time," she admonished gently, "If you eat too fast it'll all come back up again."
A loaf of some sort of bread sat on the table. Tessa cut them each a slice. While neither boy cared much for bread most times, they were both so hungry they accepted them without hesitation.
Victor sniffed his bread slice. It had a nutty scent that was vaguely familiar. He took a cautious bite, chewed thoughtfully. "What kinda bread's this?"
"Acorn bread."
Both boys looked surprised. "Aren't acorns real bitter?" Jimmy asked.
"Not if you prepare them right," Tessa explained, "Many of the Indian tribes lived mostly on acorns. You can grind them up as flour, just like corn or wheat, and they're plentiful in this area." She smiled. "You don't need to farm as long as there's oak trees around."
Josiah brought two more bowls of stew for himself and his wife. This startled the boys, who were accustomed to women serving the food. They kept silent, though, not wanting to risk angering their hosts. The four of them ate in relative silence. The brothers, despite their attempts to take it slow, still finished their meals well ahead of the adults. Naturally, after a long ordeal and with food in their stomachs, exhaustion quickly followed. Jimmy laid his head on the table and began to snore softly. Victor, less trustful of their situation, nevertheless felt his head grow heavy. He nodded, struggling to stay awake.
The adult couple exchanged looks, then rose from their seats. Josiah carefully lifted Jimmy into his powerful arms. The smaller boy hardly even stirred as he was carried to a different room. Tessa gently took Victor by the shoulders. This time, he was too tired to flinch at her touch.
"Come on. Let's get you to bed."
The boy slowly stood and let her guide him through a door into a cozy room dominated by a wide bed. Jimmy was already tucked into one side. Victor lay down beside his brother, eyes already closed, as he felt a heavy blanket pulled over him. The pillow held the woman's scent; forest greenery and acorn bread. He felt gentle fingers brush the hair from his brow.
"Good night, Victor."
Victor sighed and slipped into a deep, restful sleep.
NOW
Over a century later, Victor once again fought the desire to sleep. This time, it was brought on by the cold rather than warmth and safety.
He hadn't gone far when he stormed out of Tessa's cabin. The blizzard seemed to swallow him up as soon as he was a few paces from the door. The stumbled around until his outstretched hand encountered the cold bricks of the outdoor oven and maneuvered himself beneath its overhang. There he huddled, slowly freezing to death. Well, perhaps not actual death, but certainly hypothermia. He still wore only the borrowed clothes of Tessa's deceased husband, not even boots to protect his feet. Victor knew he was stupid to have rushed out into this horrific weather, but at the time he thought if he didn't get out of that cabin he might suffocate on memories of better times, when he had a brother who still loved him and fewer demons to haunt him. Before he learned the hard way that nothing could ever last.
Victor and Jimmy grew up. They tried to channel their natural aggressions in ways that might do some good, fighting in war after war. At first, they really tried to fight for the side they both believed was right. In the United States' Civil War they fought for the Union to end slavery. In World War I—at the time known only as the Great War—they fought in the trenches of France to hold off the invading Hun. In World War II, they stormed the beaches at Normandy. By then, for Victor at least, it was less about righteousness and more about his increasing desire for bloodshed. In war he was free to unleash his animal side, to slash and tear, to watch enemy after enemy fall beneath his claws. They were all going to die anyway, he reasoned. Humans were born for it. They got sick, they aged, they got in car accidents or slipped in the fucking bathtub. They were frail. What difference did it make if they died by Victor's actions or nature's?
But Jimmy didn't see it that way. Whereas Victor reveled in the violence, his brother wearied of it, and the more time passed the more they became strangers to each other. Then one day, not long after they shipped out to Vietnam, Victor looked into his brother's eyes and knew. It was like a chasm opened up beneath him and swallowed him whole; Jimmy was thinking of leaving him. His brother, the only thing in his life that offered permanence and stability, whom he believed felt the same about him. The realization terrified Victor. But by then he was too steeped in his own volatile nature. When confronted with the prospect of abandonment, instead of trying to work it out with Jimmy, he threw himself into the fighting with increased fervor. The viciousness of his attacks made even his fellow soldiers leery of him. The more violence Victor perpetrated, the more he drove his brother away, the more frightened he became and so turned to even more violence. On and on in a vicious, self-fulfilling prophesy. Victor knew what he did was self-destructive, but couldn't bring himself to stop. He couldn't allow himself to show weakness, even at the cost of the one person in this whole wretched world that he loved.
Victor thought nothing could be worse than the day Jimmy walked out on him. Not even when, after they defeated Deadpool together, Jimmy said to him, "This doesn't change anything between us, Victor. We're done." Thus rejecting him a second time. But Victor was wrong. Something far worse did happen years later when the two brothers encountered each other again. Victor had looked into Jimmy's eyes and saw … nothing. No recognition. Somehow, Jimmy had forgotten all about him. All their years together, fighting side by side, protecting each other. All forgotten as if none of it ever happened. It was as if his brother had died.
In anguish, Victor tried to make his brother remember him the only way he knew how; by attacking him. All he succeeded in doing was making Jimmy, now simply Logan, see him as a hated enemy.
His brother abandoned him. Victor was alone. He couldn't even mourn; his humanity was too long suppressed. Instead, he embraced the monster everyone always told him he was.
Everyone but her. Tessa. A woman who should have been long dead, bones in the ground. She should never have seen what Victor had become.
"Victor!" The voice was faint, garbled by the rushing wind. Still, it could only be one person.
Victor's eyelashes were caked with ice. He had to scrub at them to open his eyes. A blurry figure emerged from the surrounding white; Tessa clad in her fur-lined parka. How the hell did she find him? Did her tree buddies tell her? She crouched down beside him. A mittened hand reached out, but hesitated to touch him. "Please come back inside," she shouted over the storm.
Victor pretended not to notice her, even though she was less than a foot away. He couldn't muster the energy at this point to do anything more. If he thought she'd take the hint, he was soon disappointed. She actually took hold of his arm and tried to pull him up. He jerked away with a snarl.
"You can ignore me just as easily indoors," she reasoned, grabbing his arm again. Still, the larger mutant refused to budge. Tessa sighed in exasperation, the sound lost to the howling wind. "I'm not leaving till you come with me."
Stubborn bitch. Victor tried to swat her, but his arm felt like a block of ice. Tessa's persistence and his increasing numbness finally succeeded in eroding his resolve. Victor rose, then followed the woman who clutched his frozen wrist in one hand, her other hand gripping a length of rope which led from the brick oven to the house.
Inside, the heat made his frozen extremities scream. The shivers which had ceased minutes before now returned with a vengeance.
Tessa stripped out of her parka and mittens, kicked off her boots. "Take off your clothes. They're all wet."
Normally such an order would have earned her a leer, but Victor just wasn't in the mood. He managed to get out of the soaked clothes despite the tremors that wracked his body. Tessa wrapped him in a blanket and told him to lie down in front of the woodstove. The sleeping bag was still spread out on the floor. Victor lay down on it. His body curled into a fetal position and he continued to shiver.
Tessa stood over him. "You okay?"
"Fuckin' great," he growled.
She lowered herself to the floor a few feet away from him, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around her legs. She wiggled her bare toes. Didn't the woman ever wear socks?
"What happened to your brother?" she asked.
Victor ground his teeth. He surprised himself by answering, "Nothin'. Ran off to join this private school for freaks. Buncha do-gooders out saving the world."
Tessa shook her head. "The nerve of some people."
Victor snorted, amused in spite of himself. He sat up, the blanket still wrapped around him. The shivers had subsided a little to where he could talk without his teeth chattering. Tessa tensed a little, then relaxed when he made no further moves. They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Tessa asked the question Victor knew she wanted to ask all along.
"Why did you and your brother leave?"
Victor shrugged. His nose began to run. He carelessly wiped it on the edge of the blanket. "Told you we'd go when spring came."
"And Josiah and I said you could both stay as long as you wanted."
"Well, we wanted to leave in the spring," he snapped. "What d'you care? You and Josiah probably had plenty of kids of your own later on."
Tessa frowned at his assumption. "Victor, I can't have kids."
"What about the brats in those pictures?" He waved a hand at the far wall and the numerous frames it bore.
"Some of them were adopted. Some of them were my husbands' from previous relationships. I've never gotten pregnant, and believe me, I've tried."
He stared at her, the narrow hips, the small breasts. In many ways she was built like a twelve-year-old girl on the cusp of puberty. Even her scent, now that he really thought about it, contained none of the pheromones he associated with fully mature women. "So you're like a nymph."
The corner of her mouth quirked in a wry half-smile. "I used to think I was a dryad. My maternal grandparents were from Greece and my nana used to tell me the old myths about gods and magical creatures." She shrugged. "Maybe that's how some of the myths got started. Maybe all those creatures and demigods were really mutants."
Victor never had much use for deep thought. "'Kay, now I've got a question for you."
She tilted her head. "Oh?"
He leaned towards her, his gaze intense. "Why'd you come after me?"
The question seemed to trouble her. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, eyes averted in thought. Finally, she looked at him. "I don't know."
"Yeah, you do," he retorted, "You just don't wanna say."
Tessa sighed. "You'll think it's foolish."
"Probably."
"I can't believe there isn't some part of you that's still that boy I took in a century ago. I thought maybe … maybe I could help bring it out of you."
His face took on that closed-off look again. She knew she'd hit a nerve. "So, what?" he asked coldly, "You wanna save me? Is that it?"
"Victor—"
"I don't want your goddamned pity," he spat the word out like it left a bitter taste, "I'm not some weak frail who needs somebody to hug me and tell me everything's gonna be okay. I've done without that shit my whole life!"
He could smell her nervousness, but her voice remained steady. "Okay. I was just being honest."
No apology. Perhaps she understood that saying she was sorry would be perceived by him as a weakness, which might provoke him into more aggressive action. Or maybe she just wasn't the apologizing sort. Victor couldn't recall her using the word sorry very often when he was a boy, only when she truly believed herself in the wrong.
He suddenly stood, letting the blanket fall. Tessa's eyes widened and her face colored a little, but she didn't turn away. The scent of her nervousness increased, mixed with a touch of arousal. Victor smirked.
"Um," Tessa stammered, "W-what're you—"
"I gotta take a leak."
"Oh. Er, the water closet's through the bedroom." She pointed.
The naked man strode past her. Tessa stared at the discarded blanket, chewing her lip. "Certainly not a boy anymore," she muttered to herself. Her hand went to her mouth to suppress a laugh.
Once Victor's bladder was empty he nosed around the woman's bedroom. A king sized bed with a wooden headboard that contained a couple of bookshelves, all crammed with paperbacks. An oil lamp on the nightstand; apparently she didn't get electricity out here. The closet door was open and he saw the overhead shelf contained a number of cardboard boxes, one of which was labeled "Dan's Clothes." He pulled that one down and opened it.
Victor returned to the den dressed in a sweatshirt and cargo pants. Tessa was gone. His nose detected the scent of cooking meat and spices. He went to the kitchen, found her standing over a pot on the stove. She glanced at him.
"I'm heating up some canned chili. Figured you wouldn't want to wait." He was still too thin from is ordeal the day before.
Victor grunted. It was as close to a thank you as she'd get. He noticed a loaf of homemade bread on the counter. He moved closer and the familiar scent of acorn bread reached his nostrils.
Of all the body's senses, scent is most closely linked to memory. Smelling the bread, Victor recalled the day Tessa spent showing him and Jimmy how to make the bread, from preparing the raw acorns, to grinding the flour, all the way to the finished loaf. Victor mostly watched, thinking it women's work. Jimmy was not so disinclined. Victor remembered his younger brother kneading a ball of raw dough, and how proud he was of the lopsided loaf that came out of the oven. They ate it with their dinner that evening, and everyone told Jimmy it was the best they'd ever tasted.
Victor felt a strange tightness in his throat at the thought of him and his brother as children, back when they knew they'd always be together. He reached out, broke off the end of the loaf, and brought it to his mouth. The taste was just as he remembered.
