Warning: Okay, there is a sex scene at the end of this chapter that I suppose could be labeled semi-con. I'll leave it up to you to decide if it was rape or not.


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

The brothers flourished under Tessa's and Josiah's care. Both put on much needed weight and the constant worries that haunted their young faces began to fade. Jimmy especially benefited from the stability offered by the isolated home. He was soon acting like a regular boy, lively and precocious. Victor was grateful to the two adults for that.

Mornings were spent doing chores around the house. Nothing too strenuous; helping Josiah with his traps or curing hides, clearing snow away from the door, collecting firewood. (It was odd that at times wandering through the forest a dead branch would suddenly drop from a nearby tree, almost as if waiting for the boys to gather it up for the woodpile.) Josiah never abused the boys' willingness to work, and when evening rolled around he immediately turned them over to his wife who put them to other tasks, such as reading and writing.

Jimmy fell into the lessons easily, having been tutored at the family manor. Victor, however …

"It's stupid," he groused, "What 'm I ever gonna need to know this stuff for?" He glared at the open book before him. The words might as well have been in Chinese for all the sense he could make of them.

He, Jimmy, and Tessa were all seated together on the bearskin rug before the fireplace. This had surprised the boys initially, but Tessa's reasoning was if they had to endure her lessons, they might as well be comfortable.

Tessa lifted a thin length of wood from the fire, one end charred black. "Do you know your ABC's?"

Victor gave a sullen half-shrug. He watched as the woman ran the charred end of the stick on the hearthstones, leaving behind a series of black marks. The marks were letters.

"Every letter has a sound," Tessa explained patiently, "A sound very similar to the letter's name." She held up the stick. "Kindling. Kuh-indling. What's the first letter of that word."

Jimmy spoke up, "It's—"

"Let your brother answer, James," she chided gently. Her green eyes regarded the elder brother, the corners of her mouth upturned in a faint smile of encouragement.

Another half-shrug. "That's easy. K." He glanced at her sidelong.

Tessa nodded. "That's right." Victor feigned indifference, even as he felt his heart speed up a little at her smile.

She pointed to the marks on the stones. "Can you tell me what this says? Take your time. Sound out each letter."

Victor fidgeted, self-conscious under her and his brother's scrutiny. "Sss … muh … ayy … arr … tuh."

"Say it a little faster now."

"Smuh-ar-tuh. Smart."

Tessa grinned. "Congratulations." There was none of the condescension or disdain Victor had come to expect from educated people. It made him think he might actually stand a chance.

"Hmph," he grunted, "That's not so hard."

The woman chuckled. "Well, since you've become confident, let's try something a little tougher. What does this one say?" And on the lessons went as the weeks passed until Victor found he could read almost as well as his brother.

Weeks rapidly slid into months. Victor and Jimmy grew ever more comfortable in this place that began to feel like home. Only rarely did the nightmares that plagued them both occur now, and when they did Tessa was always there to reassure them, no matter how late in the night they woke.

Neither she nor Josiah ever questioned them on their past, where they were from, why they'd been running. The brothers were glad, for they weren't comfortable with the idea of lying to them. The truth was never considered an option. Yet in the end, the truth, or a big part of it, made itself known anyway.

That day the cabin's walls seemed especially close, so the four of them bundled up and went outside for some fresh air. Somewhere along the line a snowball fight broke out. There was laughter and running, missiles that exploded into glittering flakes, red faces and blue fingertips. Then a lumbering Josiah startled a rabbit from it's hiding place. Its winter coat was as white as the snow around it. The sight of the frightened animal streaking by brought Victor's predatory instincts surging to the forefront. He bared his sharp teeth and bounded after it. The rabbit swerved to avoid him. He dropped to all fours, bare hands sinking into the packed snow, leaping gracefully. His claws, which he kept so carefully trimmed back, extended from his fingertips. The panicked rabbit turned again, headed back the way it originally came. Jimmy was there, his own teeth bared in a feral grin as the skin at the back of each hand twitched ominously. He darted forward to intercept their prey. Snikt! Long spikes of hard bone burst through the skin, stabbed downwards. The rabbit uttered a single scream and fell silent, its snowy coat now stained bright red. Victor reared up. Both boys stared at each other, panting, as the bloodlust receded from their wide eyes. Blood dripped from Jimmy's bone claws.

The realization of what they'd done brought with it a stab of dread. Victor's legs tensed, his clawed fingers flexed, ready to run or fight. He saw Jimmy take a similar stance. A long, tense silence fell. Tessa was the first to break it.

"Guess we're having rabbit for dinner."

Josiah bellowed a laugh of delighted wonder. "You see how fast those boys were? If I'd a known they could do all that I'd 've taken' them huntin' with me."

This was not the reaction they'd expected.

"You're not mad?" Jimmy asked in a small voice. His expression was a heartbreaking mixture of anxiety and hopefulness.

Tessa went to him, pulling off one of her mittens to take his hand in her own. She didn't seem troubled by the blood. Her fingertips gently traced the areas between his knuckles where the claws emerged through the skin. "That looks painful," she said in a voice tinged with sympathy.

"It only hurts when they come out," the boy hurried to assure her. He let them withdraw into his arm. The wounds they left immediately healed themselves. Tessa smiled and have his hand a light squeeze.

"Come on." She released his hand, bent down to pick up the dead rabbit. "Let's go inside and clean this."

Josiah clapped Victor on the shoulder. "C'mon, boy. Say, you ever try takin' down a full grown deer with them claws o' yours?"

Later, while Josiah regaled Jimmy with some of his own hunting exploits, Victor slipped away and went into the kitchen where Tessa was preparing the meat. She'd already skinned the rabbit and removed its entrails. She was in the process of removing the head and feet and cutting the body into quarters. She glanced at the boy hovering in the doorway.

"Something on your mind, Victor?"

"Why aren't you mad?" he demanded. He'd been quiet ever since it happened, a brooding silence that Tessa knew by now he could not be coaxed from. She could only wait for him to bring up whatever was bothering him.

"For what?" she asked, placing the meat in a roasting pan, "Killing a rabbit?"

"For these." He held up his hands. The claws at the ends of his fingers lengthened to deadly talons.

Tessa stared at them levelly, wiping her hands on her apron. "They don't bother me. They're part of you."

"The bad part."

"No," she said firmly, "There's nothing wrong with you or James."

"Yes there is! Everybody says so. Anybody who finds out." Victor didn't know why he was trying so hard to convince her of something he desperately wanted not to be true. He and Jimmy had been called monsters, freaks, abominations. One man, a preacher, said they were demons and tried to have them burned at the stake. The brothers had to hurt a lot of people before they got away that time.

Tessa was saddened by his words, but unsurprised. "Those are small-minded people who never see past their own fears." She stepped closer to him, laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. Victor tensed, but didn't pull away. "Do you know what I saw?" she asked, "I saw children embracing their natures. You and James are just wilder than most others. Josiah and I don't think any less of you for that. You're good boys who've led a hard life." She gave his shoulder a light squeeze. "You don't have to hide yourselves from us. I promise."

Victor stared up into her deep green eyes. He knew she meant it, every word. Words of gratitude lodged in his throat, unspoken. Instead, he asked, "Need any help?"

Tessa smiled. "You could give me a hand peeling the potatoes."

"Sure." Victor held up a claw. "Don't even need a knife."

Tessa laughed, a high, musical sound which made the boy's heart stutter in his chest.


NOW

Days and nights blurred together, one into the other. Victor continued to sleep on the floor; the sofa wasn't long enough. Tessa offered him her bed while she took the couch, but he refused. "Never let it be said I'm not a gentleman," he said with his typical smirk. The truth was, he never would've gotten to sleep in a bed saturated with her scent.

Victor hated this. It was like all the painful adolescent longing had resurfaced. It was an aspect of himself he thought he'd expunged long ago. Victor fucked who he wanted, when he wanted. Random girls he passed on the street, women he picked up in seedy bars, even the occasional prostitute. They screamed and begged, fought back, surrendered, and bled. So easily. Tessa would have been just another faceless conquest, but then she had to go and tell him who she was. None of the frails he took had names. He didn't want to know them. They were nothing but toys; distracting, enjoyable, and ultimately disposable. Now he was stranded in the middle of a fucking blizzard with a woman he found more attractive the longer he was around her, and he couldn't bring himself to do anything to her because he knew her. Karma biting him in the ass.

He wasn't about to let her know all that, of course. Victor continued to behave in his usual brazen manner, sneering at her friendly remarks, leering at her, keeping her at a distance with his careless attitude and wry sarcasm. It was difficult to maintain; after talking to her for a few minutes he would find himself letting his guard down. He tried to keep his distance, but what the hell else was there to do? Without electricity there was no television, no internet. He couldn't go outside until the storm passed. He didn't have the patience for reading. All he could do was try to keep the subject off himself.

"So, tell me about Dan."

Tessa looked up from the book she was reading. She and Victor were seated on opposite ends of the couch, he with his feet propped up on the coffee table, she with her legs curled against her. Victor had an urge to reach out and grasp her bare ankle, his long fingers encircling it like a manacle. These random desires for physical contact were getting harder to deny. Victor wondered why he fought them at all, and why they troubled him so.

"Why do you wanna know about him?" she asked.

"Well, I am wearin' the guy's clothes."

She shrugged, hugged the open book against her stomach like a security pillow. "Well, he was a webmaster. Made a fortune off of a social networking site he came up with."

Victor thought about the man he'd seen in the most recent pictures; the guy looked more like a lumberjack than a computer nerd.

"Right around the time he sold his company the government decided to sell off a large portion of the land that for the last fifty years or so has been part of a national park," Tessa continued, "I worked as a ranger then, and I was pissed about this decision. I just knew the forest was gonna be bought up by a lumber company or some real estate tycoon who wanted to put up a dozen new condos. When I found out the majority of the available forest was being bought up by this web tycoon, I went right up to him and gave him a piece of my mind. I must've ranted a good twenty minutes at the poor guy. He just stared at me the whole time with this gobsmacked look on his face and when I finally ran out of steam he just kind of shook his head like he was rousing from a daydream and said, 'Sorry, I didn't catch your name. You wanna have dinner with me?'" Tessa laughed her musical laugh and shook her head.

Victor maintained an air of boredom as he asked (obviously just to humor her), "So d' you take him up on it?"

"Not right away. I was still mad at him. But then he told me he had no intention of cutting down the trees. Turns out, even though he had a natural talent for the internet, Dan never enjoyed modern life. For him it was just a means of accumulating enough money to take an early retirement and live the way he wanted to." She indicated their surroundings. "We figured it all out together. No electricity; just a small generator to power the deep freeze during the warmer times of the year and the clothes dryer in the winter. Water's from an artesian well. There's a large propane tank for the hot water heater and the stove, and when the fuel runs out there's still plenty of dead wood to burn."

"Wait a sec," Victor straightened, "Are you tellin' me you own this whole forest?"

Tessa smiled. "We were married for five years when Dan was diagnosed with lymphoma. He died almost two years ago." She pursed her lips. Her eyes turned aside; they shone with remembered pain. "It was always a given that I'd outlive him, but I never thought our time together would be so short."

"He knew about you bein' a mutant?" Victor asked.

She nodded. "All the men I married knew. I wanted them to understand what they were getting into."

Victor frowned. He couldn't imagine that kind of trust.

"What about you?" Tessa asked, her manner cheerful again, "You ever confide in the women you were with?"

The feral man's expression darkened. "The fuck do you mean by that?"

Tessa realized she'd made a mistake, but couldn't figure out what it was. She squeezed herself into the corner of the sofa. Her fear-scent began to emanate from her skin. "I—"

Victor stood. The woman's fear spiked, but instead of attacking her the mutant started to pace, his long strides covering the distance between the walls with ease. He reminded Tessa of a caged tiger.

"Christ, you can be so dense," he snarled. He paused and faced her, a cloud of anger surrounding him. "You think any of the women I fucked ever wanted to talk? Look at me!" He held up his hands with their lethal claws, bared his razor fangs. "They fuckin' knew what I am. They couldn't get away from me fast enough. The ones who could still run when I was done with 'em, anyway."

Tessa swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "I'm sorry I upset you."

Victor scoffed. He turned away from her, gazed out the nearest window. The storm was far less violent at this point.

"It should be over by tomorrow," Tessa quietly volunteered. Victor grunted. Tessa stared at his back, the thickening growth of hair on his head, the broad shoulders, the powerful hands loose at his sides, fingers curled like they wanted to shred something. Every time she found herself growing comfortable with him, his mercurial temper would flare up again, reminding her that he was no longer a troubled, yet mostly innocent, child. He was a predator, and his prey were other human beings.

"One of these days it'll finally get through to you," he murmured, sounding almost as if he spoke to himself, "I'm an animal."

The wise thing would have been to keep silent. Tessa wasn't always wise, despite her age. "You've killed and tortured others, not for survival, but because you enjoyed it. Sounds awful human to me."

Victor's back remained turned, though his hands slowly curled into fists. Tessa rose from the couch, still clutching her book. "It's late. I'm going to bed." Then, after a moment's hesitation, "Good night, Victor."

He heard the door shut behind her.


THEN

Victor had his first erotic dream when he still lived with his father. He'd woken to the slap of Logan's free hand—the other clutching a mostly empty bottle—with the evidence of his wayward subconscious soaking his bed. His father let him know on no uncertain terms what a disgusting creature he was. The dreams didn't end, of course; they brought him the only pleasure he'd ever experienced. They only subsided when he and Jimmy went on the run, bare survival being a great suppressor of one's libido. Now his new found sense of safety marked the return of the dreams, only instead of faceless, voiceless abstracts he found himself dreaming of one specific woman.

Each morning he woke to soiled bedclothes and a deep sense of shame. He insisted on washing his own things in order to hide the evidence from the others, especially from her, but he knew from the sympathetic looks she gave him that she was aware of his young body's betrayal. The fact that she wasn't at all disgusted somehow only worsened Victor's self-loathing. Tessa took him and Jimmy in and cared for them like a mother. Victor should not be repaying her kindness with such tainted dreams.

But it wasn't just dreams. When awake, all Victor wanted to do was get closer to her, to breathe in her forest scent, feel the touch of her gentle hands. He died a little each time she smiled at him. Her musical laugh made his heart ache in a way he wished would never end. He knew these feelings were wrong, but he couldn't think of a way to make them stop. He wasn't sure he even wanted them to.

Victor hoped that time would make his desires fade, but as the winter progressed they only became stronger. He began to spend more and more time out in the wilderness, sometimes with Josiah or Jimmy, more often alone. Sometimes he returned with game. He knew the others worried about him, especially Jimmy, but confinement in the cabin with Tessa was too much for the young man to bear. All he had to do was look at his hands to know that even if she weren't already married, even if they were both the same age, Tessa would never feel the same way for him. She was kind and loving, but she was still human, and Victor, despite all Tessa's protests to the contrary, wasn't.

The daylight hours gradually lengthened. The breezes held the promise of warmth. The spring thaw was on its way.

"There's somethin' we've been wantin' to ask you boys," Josiah said one evening at the table.

Jimmy and Victor looked up from their plates, the former curious, the latter wary.

"Even though you said you'd leave come spring," the burly man continued, smiling as always, "The missus and I talked it over and, well, we'd like you boys to consider stayin' on."

"This place has become as much your home as ours," Tessa added, also smiling.

Jimmy's face lit up. "You really mean that?"

"Absolutely," Tessa replied warmly.

Jimmy turned to his older brother, his expression ecstatic. "We can stay, Victor!"

Victor's own face was an inscrutable mask. He pursed his lips. "We gotta decide right now?"

"Course not," Josiah hastened to assure him, "There's plenty o' time for you t' make up your minds."

"Also," Tessa met her husband's eyes, "there's something we'd like to show you after the thaw once you do decide."

The look both adults shared spoke of secrecy. Neither boy thought to wonder at this, however, each distracted for different reasons.

The snow began to melt days later. Jimmy was awakened one night after the first patches of muddy ground were bared. He gazed sleepily up at his brother, the faintest light enhanced by his keen eyes. He saw that Victor was dressed and carried a pack on his shoulder. "What're you doin'?" the younger boy asked groggily.

Victor answered in a whisper, "I'm leavin', Jimmy."

He sat up, frowning in puzzlement. "Leaving?"

"We said we'd only stay till winter was over."

"But that was before Tessa 'n' Josiah said we could stay," Jimmy's voice began to rise in distress. His brother shushed him.

"I know it's been great here. Josiah and Tessa 've been better to us than anyone. But I still hafta go. You," he hesitated, the next words painful to say, "You can stay on, if you want."

Jimmy's eyes widened. He knew better than to ask Victor why he had to leave and in the dead of night while the adults slept. Victor seldom answered the "why" questions, especially in regards to his own motives. All Jimmy had to know was that he needed to make a decision; to stay or to go. He looked the older boy in the eye. "We're brothers. And brothers protect each other."

Victor couldn't quite hide his relief. "Alright. Get dressed 'n' pack your stuff."

Jimmy took the time to write a note using one of the precious sheets of paper Tessa kept in a drawer. He wrote that he and Victor were alright, that they had somewhere to go. A kind lie. Then he shouldered his pack and followed his brother out the door. Outside it was cold. The puddles left by the melted snow were frozen over. Jimmy paused to look back at the cabin one last time. A lump formed in his throat.

"C'mon," Victor said brusquely, but not unkindly, waiting for his brother to catch up. The two boys entered the forest and began the journey to a long and turbulent future. Victor never once looked back.


NOW

Velvet softness enveloped him. Gentle hands caressed. Soft lips explored the contours of his body. A sweet whisper, Victor …

Victor's eyes flew open. An involuntary gasp escaped. He lay on the sleeping bag, his skin feverish and damp with sweat. He couldn't remember the last time he had a sex dream that intense that left him so unfulfilled. He still had a raging hard-on that tented the blanket. It throbbed painfully in time to his pounding heart. It wouldn't take more than a few strokes with his hand to finish off, but he made no move to do so.

He remembered every detail of the dream-lover's face. The same face he'd been looking at every day he was stuck in this godforsaken cabin. The bitch. Padding around with her bare feet, teasing him with her easy smiles, forcing him to confront the thing he'd spent the last century running from. Now she was invading his dreams just like when he was a hormonal kid. Victor clenched his fists around wads of the sleeping bag's fabric. His claws ripped through the material.

The pain of his erection heightened his senses. Beyond the walls of the house was stillness; the wind finally died. His ears detected the faint crackle of coals in the woodstove, the groan of the cabin settling, and also, just at the very edge of his hearing, the sound of Tessa's breathing from within her bedroom. Her scent was everywhere, on the furniture, the walls. On him. It was too much. Victor flung the blanket off him and shot to his feet. He needed to get away, clear his head. The winter air on his naked skin would do that.

His oversensitized ears picked up the creak of bedsprings; Tessa shifting in her sleep. His erection twitched painfully. He needed … he needed … His feet carried him to the door.

Tessa woke to the sound of her bedroom door opening. She blinked groggily; everything was shadows, dawn still hours ahead. She thought she could make out a vague silhouette. "Victor?"

It all happened too fast for her to react. She felt a presence loom over her, heard his ragged breathing. The covers were yanked aside. Tessa found herself flipped onto her stomach. Rough hands grabbed her hips, lifted them until her knees supported her lower body. Her pajama bottoms were pulled down so violently she heard something rip. Tessa gasped, too startled to do anything else, and then she felt something hard and hot inside her. Clawed hands grasped her hips as her body was rocked by hard, fast thrusts. She heard loud, animal grunts. Felt her heart race and a familiar tingle start to build between her legs. The pillow pressed against her face, stifling the small cries that escaped her. A final, brutal thrust and a low, very human groan, and it ended as abruptly as it began. The softened member withdrew from her. Her pajama bottoms were pulled back up. She let herself fall onto her side and felt the blankets drawn over her. The sound of retreating footsteps and a door closing. A few minutes later she heard another door—the front door, to judge from the squeaky hinge—open and shut. Then silence.

Hours later, dawn's first rays filtered through the bedroom window. Tessa lay awake the entire time, confused and unfulfilled.