A/N: We're beginning to look at the characters more in depth now, discovering new things about each set. Please review, it feeds the muse. Even if you don't think its any good, some constructive criticism would be nice.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything to do with the X-men or Marvel comics, this is all non-profit.
CHAPTER THREE: Beauty and the Beast
As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy; to do nothing that would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.
London was a lot of things: smart, old, loyal and whole load of other shit. But he wasn't patient. He was known for coming up with amazing plans and then not sticking to them because the side of him that was a wild animal just didn't sit well with waiting. Heh, wild animal. He almost laughed. Not so wild anymore, are we, mate? Been tamed. Kept on a leash. Can't do some things, won't do others. He shook his head. Bullshit – this was where he belonged, this was who he was now, and he liked it. Liked it a hell of a lot more that who he used to be.
He switched off all the lights on the bottom floor of the flat he shared with Kinessa then sat back and put his feet up on the kitchen table. For the first time in thirty-two hours he took off his sunglasses and blinked. His head was pounding and he wished he could just sleep, but jet lag and a first class healing factor would do that to you. Fucking insomnia. Bloody, fucking insomnia. He hated it. With a violent passion. He wanted to beat the living daylights out of it, but that wasn't gonna happen. That was the thing with being an animal: when shit got annoying, you killed it. Only, he couldn't kill his own not-so-physical problems.
He threw his head back and scented the air. Three women. One was honey and magnolias, he was gonna guess the little southern girl, with the white stripes. Another was rosy perfume and coffee, must be the Kitty one. Third was... What was that…? Peaches? Yeah, peaches and fireworks. What the fuck? Must be the happy one. Last of all was his favorite. He drew in a lungful of air... Ah, there it was - the ocean and jasmine at midnight with summer rain. Kinessa. His Kinessa. His eyes snapped open.
On quick, quiet steps he flew upstairs, slipped through their bedroom door and closed it silently behind him. The moonlight coming through the two glass walls lit up her shape in their black sheets, not that he needed it. His night vision was good enough that he could shoot someone at a hundred yards on a cloudy, moonless night and not miss. He'd tried. It worked.
His feet made no sound on the black wooden floor and when he reached the carpet he took a moment to feel the threads work through his toes. If he was honest with himself, which he tried to be, he had missed home. Normally he would have said home was wherever she was, after all: home is where the heart is, isn't it? But he'd actually missed the flat, the house, all of it. Weird. Bloody weird. He'd lived here for nearly ten years, and it was only in the past two or three he'd begun to call it home.
Her chest rose and fell slowly, she was asleep. Not deeply, but asleep. He knelt beside her and bathed himself in her scent. He caught his other side wanting to roll around in the sheets, cover himself in her, mark himself, so everywhere he went she would be all over him. But that would wake her, and he was almost loath to do so. One long, gentle finger moved a lock of brown hair from her face.
"You gonna kiss me, or just sit there?" He jumped a little when her eyes opened; he hadn't realized she'd woken. Although, why wouldn't she? She slept almost as lightly as he did.
"Yeah, lover, I'm gonna kiss you." His lips touched hers and he felt the spark. Literally. Her skin was covered with electricity, it was who she was. If he hadn't been able to heal fast enough, she could have killed him, but as it was, he just loved the rush. She sat up, put her feet on the floor and he knelt between them, trailing his lips down her throat. "Been gone too long, pet." One kiss on her shoulder. "Missed you." Collar bone. "Wanted to kiss you when I came in, but there was kiddies, couldn't." The top her left breast, his tongue flicked out to taste her. "Want to touch you, luv. Can I touch you?" He looked up into her eyes, rich, brown, full of love. Love for him. Love he didn't really deserve.
"Yeah. Yeah you can." He still asked permission. He didn't need to, she'd even told him not to before, but he still did. She was something sacred, precious, heaven sent. He always felt honored to be with her, blessed somehow. Tentatively, he placed his hands on her waist, feeling smooth warm skin through one of his shirts. That made him happy. He growled, smelling him all over her. This was how it was supposed to be. He smelled like her, and she smelled like him. Because she was his.
The animal inside his head spoke up. Mine, it said, she's mine. Need to make her mine! And he did. He lay her down on their bed and both pieces of him made love to her, the man and the animal. Once, twice, three times.
…
When Kinessa woke the first thing she noticed was warmth. She was warm. That could only mean one thing: London was home. There was an arm wrapped around her waist and a leg flung over both of hers. She tried wriggle out when she remembered they had people staying with them, but he wouldn't have any of it.
"Nuh-uh," He growled and she felt the vibrations of it through her back. "Stayin' right here, luv, keepin' me warm." His chest rumbled when he spoke and she loved it.
"Babe, your core body temperature is a constant 105 degrees, you don't need me to keep you warm."
"Want you to, though." She laughed and got out of bed, stretching. She spotted the shirt she'd gone to be in last night on the floor and smiled. The alarm clock said 7:00 am, so she stood and shut the blinds before it could get any lighter. London's wolf-eyes were sensitive.
Kinessa dressed in sweats, a t-shirt and a pair of opera gloves. Normally, she would forgo them completely: all of Larmes du Soleil knew about her mutation and avoided skin on skin contact, but their guests didn't, so for safety's sake she covered up. Killing X-men with a touch wouldn't be good for business…
Downstairs, she met Rogue in the kitchen and they had cereal for breakfast.
"I would make pancakes," she said, "but we've been gone for eight weeks, so there's no perishable food except milk. I have to go grocery shopping." Rogue nodded and smiled.
"Where have y'all been?"
"I was in Russia, London was in the UK. Business, you know?"
"Do you not work together?"
"We do a lot of the time, but sometimes it just isn't necessary." She watched Rogue eat. "Do you wear gloves because of your mutation?" The girl retreated into herself and didn't say a word. "It's okay. I understand."
"No you don't. Nobody does…" Kinessa just smiled.
"I can't touch anyone either - except London. He heals fast enough that I don't kill him." Rogue's eyes widened. "Yeah, I electrocute people. I kinda have it under control, but not always. It slips sometimes and just one slip could kill. I don't usually wear gloves, people wise up quick, but your people don't know, so: protection it is." She wiggled gloved fingers.
"Wow… You have control. How?"
"When I found out I could touch London, he just let me keep doing it until I figured out how it worked." She shrugged. "After that it was easy."
"Yeah, well, I can't find anyone like that."
"I was thirty-six when I met him." Rogue's brows shot up again. "Yeah, I'm older than I look." She winked. "You never know. Someone might come along, right?"
"Right…"
Eventually, Kitty and Jubilee came down too and they all chatted at the table till there was a knock on the door. Johnny, Bobby and Piotr were invited in and joined the conversation quickly.
At eight thirty, London dragged his massive body into the kitchen, wearing just sweatpants - even his feet here bare. He had his eyes shut tight. Kinessa immediately grabbed his glasses from the counter and handed them to him. He slipped them on and stared at them all.
"If I'd known you were all comin', I'd have baked a bloody cake!" He was glaring, but one couldn't really tell behind the shades. "It half eight in the morning! Can't a bloke get some sleep?" Kinessa held back a laugh, seeing the wide eyes of the girls and the terror on the boy's faces. She imagined London looked pretty scary to them. When no one answered him he growled and mooched over to the coffee machine. When his back turned to them, she heard all six of the teens gasp.
On his back, across the top of his shoulder blades was her name. It had been carved into his skin as part of a traditional shapeshifter mating ritual. They were funny like that, shapeshifters; it was all about blood and forever. Because of his healing factor, they had needed to use a red-hot blade and rub salt in the wound. She remembered every cut. He bore it with pride though. It was a symbol of their love. Yeah, they were funny like that.
Then of course, there were his tattoos. Each one about the size of her palm, they sat in a line below her name. On the far left was a four-pointed crown within a circle, a symbol for his pack: The Four-Pointed Crown Toldare. When a child went through their first change in the pack, they were given this tattoo. To the right of that was a dagger within another circle, it was the symbol of a pack soldier, a male tasked with being a member of the force that protected the pack. Third was a circle with a flame inside, they symbol or a pack's enforcer: someone who did the dirty work for the leader. Fourth was a circle within a circle: the symbol for the Wolf-King's bodyguard, and last was a circle with a square, the symbol for second in command of a wolf pack.
When he turned back around, Kinessa could just see the tattoo on the inside of his forearm. Enimpack, Enimsanguinem, Enimterra, Enimlibertatem. For pack, For blood, for land, for freedom. It was another tattoo given to pack soldiers.
His shaded eyes met hers and she gave him a behave look. He just shrugged and sipped his coffee.
"So who are you all, anyways?" He grumbled. The three boys introduced themselves and he snickered. "Bobby and Johnny? That's so original!" They scowled. "Piotr's a nice name though." He probably would have kept going I there hadn't been another knock at the door. He grumbled and swore and Kinessa had to hide another smile and he marched to the door.
He came back with Logan following close behind and giving his scars and tattoos a doubtful look.
"Good morning, Logan." Kinessa greeted.
"Why's he in such a shitty mood?" London growled at him.
"He's nocturnal." She replied.
"And jet-lagged. Don't forget jet-lagged!" London added.
"Jet-lagged too."
"Huh." Logan grunted. "He treating you kids well?" Kinessa tried hard not to tense. It wasn't very nice of the Wolverine to say that, in front of them both. London wasn't so good at keeping his mouth shut.
"Oh, sod you! This is my bloody house!" Logan growled, and London growled louder. Time to intervene.
"Okay, boys, enough. Put some ice on it, or I will." She put a hand on London's chest and he backed down, Logan just laughed at him.
"She take both your balls, kiddo, or just one." London ignored him. "You're completely pussy-whipped, aren't you?" London ignored him more. "You not gonna say anything?"
"I was trying really hard not to make a dig about how at least I've got someone to put me on a leash and I'm not just roaming around like a lost little puppy… but whatever, each to his own, right mate?"
"English dick."
"Canadian wanker."
"Tattooed moron."
"Cigar-chewing twat!"
"Boys, enough." Kinessa whipped of her gloves and gave them both a light shock. Logan jumped back and yelped, London who was more used to it, just tensed. "What do you want, Logan?"
"I was just making sure the girls were still alive! What the hell did you do, anyway?" He rubbed his chest.
"The girls are alive. You can go now." London didn't wait for her to tell him, he just grabbed a manila envelope from the counter were he'd put it last night, gave her a quick kiss and walked out, shirtless and barefoot.
…
Cardinal looked over the top of her glasses at London. He was shirtless and barefoot in her office, with his feet up on her desk and shades hiding his eyes. He'd just delivered his after-action report.
"There's more to this, isn't there?" She leaned back and waited for him to talk. If he hadn't wanted to discuss it, he would have just slipped it in her inbox and left. As it was, he was fidgeting. About five minutes after coming in, he'd given up pretending to be nonchalant.
"Can you hit the lights, please?" Oh, he was being polite… a rarity. She flicked the switch under her desk and the lights dimmed. Her vision wasn't as good as his, so they had to make do with a little. "Cheers." He leaned forwards and took off his glasses. Even though she'd known (and lived with) London for nine whole years, she'd only seen his eyes a handful of times, and each time they took her breath away. Wolf-eyes… beautiful.
"Tell me what happened." He rested his elbows on her carved wooden desk and sighed. London was... huge. Really huge. Not as big as Haven, but way bigger than she was. He was build like a wrestler but moved like a dancer - quick, lithe, balanced. For someone with such a big body he was remarkably graceful – but not now. Now his shoulders were slumped and he was doing his fallen-mountain impression.
"The job I was just on, it wasn't what they said it was."
"You were supposed to infiltrate a secure facility and recover a mutant named…" she peeked in the file, "Flash."
"Yeah, they said the facility was a training center for mutant soldiers."
"But it wasn't?"
"You know what happened to Illyria, in the past, right? Cause I don't wanna be - "
"I am privy to the information."
"Well, it was one of those places." She flinched, she had to. Slave compounds. "I found the Flash kid, to leave we had to go past a garbage chute… There was, ahh, a kid - little lad, only about twelve. He… he asked me to help him. Asked me to save him." He put his glasses on, then slipped them back off again. "But it was too late, they'd noticed Flash was gone, tripped the alarm. They was coming, and it was then or I was buggered. I grabbed Flash, started runnin' but this lad is screaming for me to help him. Said if I didn't they'd just put him back in the ring. He'd just have to keep fighting... said if I didn't help him, they'd… well, they'd do bad stuff." He trailed off and looked out at the dark, overcast sky.
"London, what happened?" He rubbed his hands together.
"You mind if I smoke?" She raised both eyebrows, stood, cracked a window and sat back down.
"Just this once." She had no idea where he pulled a cigarette from, but he leaned forwards, she snapped her fingers, created a flame and lit it for him.
"Cheers, pet."
"What happened? You're deflecting…" There was no humor in his chuckle.
"So this lad, he's screaming about how I've got to take him with me. Bullets is flying by now, you know? Course I'm wrapped around Flash, keeping him as safe as I can – hurt like a bitch – but I couldn't help the other kid. He got hit, the lad I mean, and they came to drag him away but he keeps screaming. I looked back at Flash, he's got cuts and bruises all over him, really fucked up." He motioned at his own face, as if maybe she would see it. "So I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled my gun and I shot him. Right between the eyes." The hand that led his cigarette tapped his forehead. "He didn't feel a thing. There one sec, gone the next."
"London…"
"I killed a boy, Cardinal, a child. Killin' kids… it's against my code of ethics, its against pack law – you don't kill that which cannot protect itself from you, especially not…" she could have sworn she saw the shine of tears in his eyes. "… especially not children."
"Have you come to ask me how to make this better?"
"I don't know…"
"May I make a suggestion?"
"Yeah, luv, knock yo'self out." He waved.
"Go and see Illyria. Ask her what she would have felt in that child's position." He considered this for moment, then nodded.
"Yeah. Also, I put the 20 grand in the safe, downstairs."
"Thank you." He stood, took a drag and put his shades back on. She watched him walk out and shut the door behind him.
…
London had the ability to walk without making a sound. His nature as a shapeshifter helped, but it was mostly training, skill. Not now though, as he walked out he made as much sound as he wanted and he enjoyed it. This was his home, he was safe here. There was no one waiting for him around the corner, there was nothing to fear.
He headed up to the flat, collected the hold-all he'd come in with the night before then made his way to the armory. After keying in his security code for Caroline, he set his bag on the table and unpacked his equipment.
Two 9mm berretta 92 fs autoloaders, with plenty of ammo, two k-bar army knives, a garrote wire, a long distance night vision scope, a pair of binoculars, a Barret m82 long rang, high powered rifle, 50 caliber incendiary rounds for that, suppressors for his 9mms and a katana. After that came his set of lock picks, high tech pass key simulators, laser pointers, shape charges, detonators, blasting caps, and a whole bunch of other fun toys.
Step by step, he did everything the army had trained him to do. He cleaned, checked, re checked, packed and secured all his equipment. He made sure everything was perfect then got to work fixing the stuff that wasn't. One of the things he'd learned in life was 'if you take care of your equipment, it takes care of you.'
By the time he was done it was almost 12, but he wasn't feeling up to visiting all the kiddies that invaded his personal space. He didn't mind the girlies, but it was in his nature to be pissed off by the males. Males were a threat, a threat that was either dominated or destroyed. Since he wasn't allowed to do either of those, he was just going to stay away. But he did want to see Kinessa…
Almost as if the world read his mind, she walked through the Armory's electric doors.
"You been here all morning?" He'd been working in the dark, so as a courtesy to her he put on his shades and switched on the lights. She switched them back off. "You don't have to do that and you know it." She hopped up on the work bench he'd just cleared his things from and took the cleaning rag from his hands.
"Just thought you might like to see…"
"There's nothing to see. No one's gonna jump out an get me, and even if they do – you're protection enough…" He put his arms around her and held on tight. Making love to her was all well and good (actually it was all well and fucking awesome) but he did like to just hold her sometimes.
"London?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?" Fuck. Empath. Fuck. Fuckeddy fuck.
"No, but I will be."
"Did you talk to someone?" And right there, was one reason he loved her. She didn't expect him to talk to her – it only mattered that he dealt with it, in his own way.
"Mentioned it to Cardinal. Got some questions for Blue, but I'll be fine. Promise." She was warm beneath his touch and the electric charge across her skin was humming against his. He loved it. She just leaned her head on his shoulder and let him hold her. She was humoring him and he knew it, but it just made him love her all the more. The softness of her comforted him, the sensation of being home, of being cleansed by her presence made him feel more whole. "I did a bad thing, K. Would you forgive me if I told you?"
"That's not important. The important thing is whether or not you would forgive yourself." She pulled away and tilted he head to the side, he saw the gesture for what it was: a huge display of trust. In his society, to bear your throat to another was to give them the chance to take your life but to trust that they wouldn't. He kissed her café-au-lait skin and savored it. "I won't lie to you, London. You're an animal." She looked him straight in the eye. "You are, you're a wild thing, you don't think like the rest of us, you see things differently and you react accordingly. But you're my animal. You're mine, and that's what matters."
She loved his eyes, loved them so much. They were terrifying, beautiful, captivating and a pair in a million. Black pupils surrounded by irises so light-blue they were almost white, but kept in check by a ring of navy blue. They were eyes like diamonds, like ice, like stars. He had eyes like the moon and she loved them.
"Yours." He nodded and she felt the uncertainty, the confusion and the regret all in emotional grid fade into calm. "Yeah, yours." When he kissed her she felt the brush of his five o'clock shadow on her chin and the power of his body beneath her fingertips, but she was not afraid.
If there was one thing she was certain of it was that London would never hurt her. The man in him loved her, and the animal was bound to her. Both sides had given everything they had over to her. Handed her the keys to their very lives. Even if she woke up unable to help herself one day, her lover would cross the world to find her.
She was the beauty to his beast, and neither of them minded much.
