Okay I had another one hit me. Yes I know I have unfinished ones, and blame the blockage monster - and a few real world blockages - at least the creative juices are flowing in some direction.
Summary: We all know that the most successful hunters, serial killers, and psychopaths hide in plain sight, successfully blending in with normal society. Logically, Sabretooth should follow that trend. I've written him in a normal environment before, but not like this. 25 years after Origins, Origins Sabretooth/Victor CreedXOC. (Yes that puts him 'working' during X1, I am assuming the events of X1 took place over spring break, and that Creed has some control of how to alter his appearance so he is not 'recognized' in his 'day job.')
Disclaimer: I don't own them, no really I don't. I swear I make nothing off of this except the satisfaction to get some sick stuff out of my head safely.
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He watched her, on her haunches, biting off chunks of meat almost faster than she swallowed it. She really must have let her blood level get dangerously low.
"When did you eat last?" He asked as he licked his claws, nothing was better for a feral than raw red meat, pure protein, but on this modern world, places like his little refuge were hard to find.
She shook her head, and he knew she was trying to take control of the animal. She would learn, he wasn't going to give her the choice. He'd had to learn to merge both halves of his mind, his brother hadn't made things easy growing up, and Victor still couldn't understand why Jimmy fought so hard to keep them separate. Victor was going to teach this one right, to learn from the animal and rational minds.
"Tuesday." She said finally. She was staring at the lump of meat in her hand.
"That explains it." He ripped a piece off the rear haunch of the doe he'd killed. After New York he needed a little replenishment himself.
"Why'd you bring me here?" She shrugged her shoulders and took another, smaller bite of meat.
"When I found you, I just thought it was another suicide, but then I saw your eyes and I knew you were a danger to others. You needed to hunt, and its better if you hunt animals." He emphasized the last word. He'd lost the choice along the way, but she had a chance to do this thing right.
"What do you hunt?"
"Man." He watched her eyes widen, and expected the usual scent of fear. She surprised him again.
"That was you in New York?" She asked.
"Yes." He ripped off a bite of meat, hoping she'd take the hint. He wasn't in the mood for dinner conversation.
"Why?"
"Someone paid me." He growled.
"No, why my initials.". Shit, she'd put that part together, too.
"Eat, you need to build up your blood." She took another bite, but stared at him expectantly.
"Why'd you bite me, in the shower?" He countered, knowing she didn't have the answer.
"I don't know."
"There's your answer." He growled back. The less she knew about the marks right now the better.
"How old are you, my dad says you've got a portrait somewhere that ages for you?" He chuckled. She at least changed the subject to one he was willing to discuss.
"I'll make you a deal, I'll spill my guts on the healing, if you shut up and eat." She nodded and took another small bite.
"I'm two hundred and twelve years old. The healing heals everything including the damage of time. My brother is four years younger than I am. If you over extend it too much your body will age, and if you get it early, it does allow you to reach your optimal maturity stage before it starts stopping degeneration."
"You have a brother?"
"Shut up and eat." He reminded her. "My healing is one of the highest rated in the world, along with my brother. It looks like yours will come close."
He could see the question in her eyes. "I've been watching you all night, you aren't winded for someone not used to the exertion you put out, the doe cut your leg with a hoof when you tackled her, you didn't even notice, little things."
He watched her, the more he talked, the faster she ate. "Jimmy and I were on our own early, he was just a kid, maybe eleven and I had to take care of him. I tried, his mutation developed faster than mine, I think it was because it started later. I can't remember a time when I didn't have my claws or fangs, the whole thing was just always there for me. It may be why I'm stronger, and bigger. He was always sick as a kid. As his big brother I had to take care of him, teach him to be like me. I tried the woods but he just wouldn't learn to hunt. I tried things like logging camps but spent most of my time keeping him out of trouble. Then came the war."
"What war," She asked, then quickly took another bite.
"Civil War they call it now...we joined up, and that's where I learned to hunt men. Now...these are just food, no thrill, no challenge. It kept getting worse. At first I could leave it on the battle field, but war after war that was harder and harder to do. I was constantly hunting, killing, until one day James had enough and left me. He somehow kept a conscience, somehow kept the human from blending with the animal until I can't tell sometimes where one ends and the other begins."
She'd stopped eating and he grinned. "Let's get this butchered up. Anything that hasn't been chewed on goes to the old guy that looks after this place for me. He'll either sell it or freeze it and use it."
He pulled out his knife and started cutting up his own kill.
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She watched him cutting the meat into manageable pieces. "What about the heads and hides?"
"I use those to make my hunting gear." He said as she watched. He quickly had the animal quartered and she realized he'd kept most of his "meal" confined to one quarter.
She looked down at hers. Most of the internals, heart, liver, kidneys were gone. There was quite a bit of meat off one foreleg but the rest of the animal was intact. He quickly processed hers as well and, carrying the meat in the skins signaled her to follow.
She looked down at her blood soaked skin and realized, for the second time, she was completely naked.
"I don't suppose you have any clothes I can borrow?"
"In the car, don't know how I got them but looks like they'll fit." He led her to a small cabin, the SUV parked in front of it, the blanket she'd been wrapped in still laying on the ground.
"There's a pump." He pointed to the side of the cabin as he disappeared around the back. She pumped water and washed off. She didn't hear him but then she turned he was standing there with a pile of clothes. She took them and started to get dressed. As she was adjusting her bra strap she noticed something that felt strange. Puckered flesh at the joint between her neck and shoulder. She thought she heard a moan near the car, but it could have been the wind. She pulled the shirt over her head and tucked it into the jeans. She realized that these were the clothes that she'd laid out on her bed before her shower.
"What did you mean, you don't know where you got them?"
"I found them on the floor board of the car." He said, this time from behind the cabin. He walked into view, clean clothes, his hair wet and loose hanging around his shoulders.
"They're mine."
"Well then they fit."
"So, why were you in my shower anyway?" She asked.
"I just got back from my trip, I smelled blood, I thought a student was being stupid, and needed a scare so I was going to either stop a suicide, or a fight. I found you lying in a pool of blood." He picked up the blanket and used it to wipe out the back seat of the car.
"And you just bit me?"
"No, I didn't just bite you, YOU bit me remember. I hazed out, I'm not sure what happened. The animal doesn't take control like that very often, not with me. I woke up with blood in my mouth and driving here, you were in the back seat covered with a blanket, and I knew you needed to feed."
"Feed?"
"Feed. Eat. Hunt. Let the animal loose to take care of what your body needed to keep you from stalking and killing people." He snarled and yanked open the passenger door of the car. "Now get in, its three a.m. and if we don't get back you'll be missed."
"Three...I got in the shower at about six p.m."
"And I got to the dorm around seven." He glared at her. "Do the math."
"Thanks I know we've been out here about seven hours, I swear, you are a bigger idiot out of the classroom."
He growled again. "You still have a mid term to pass."
"Go to hell." She muttered as she climbed into the car. She didn't have a choice, she had no idea where they were, and knew he was the only way back to the campus.
"You wish." He muttered back as he climbed in and started the car.
"So...ummm...is understanding math a part of the mutation?" She finally asked. She was still freaked about being able to solve the problems in her book.
"Actually, I've wondered about that. Almost every feral I've ever met is either mathematically or mechanically inclined, both right brain skills."
"What does right brain have to do with anything?"
"The mutation happens in the left side of the brain, well most of it. The senses, the instincts, the primitive part of the brain is mostly housed in the left side, along with logical and mathematical feeling and mechanical ability." He was in lecture mode, which meant he'd explain for a while. Her dad did the same thing. All she had to do was ask strategic questions and she'd keep him concentrating on the lecture until they were safe at the school.
"So, somehow, I was able to understand the math problems because my mutation kicked in?"
"I've often wondered if it was a part of the mutation, from the evidence of your rapid development and apparent comprehension of applied mathematics, which I'll test on Wednesday, it looks like it is. I wish I could test it further, but my hands are tied at the moment."
"Tied?"
"None of your business."
She shrugged. She could see lights in the distance, they seemed to be heading back to civilization.
"You need to eat, and more than once a week. I know the cafeteria shit turns your stomach, hell it turns mine too, but you have to find a way to get food into your body. As you are developing, even minor injuries will be a drain on your healing factor and require a higher food intake, and somehow you're going to have to get it as fresh as you can. I'd recommend eating out off campus twice or three times a week, or finding a way to cook your own. If you get desperate I can bring you back out here but I don't want to do that very often."
"Thanks." She sat back and contemplated everything he'd said that night until he pulled into his parking space under a burned out security light.
"It should be dark enough to sneak back into your room, stick to the shadows, I'll be right behind you." She moved from shadow to shadow until she was against the wall of her dorm. "Claws into the mortar between the bricks, yours is the open window." She climbed the wall, amazed at how quickly she moved. She climbed over the window sill and stepped down off her desk. The room was quiet, he must have flipped the TV off before they left.
"Where's your roommate?"
"Her boyfriend's place."
"That helps. We need to finish cleaning the bathroom." He moved quickly, using the towels and putting them in a plastic bag.
"I'll drop these in the trash near my place, they're used to bloody towels from there."
"Why are you helping me." She finally asked the one question that had been bothering her all evening.
"I screwed up with my brother, he learned things he never should have learned. You are the first feral I've actually taken an interest in for close to a century. You're female, you have a mutation that is almost identical to mine. Which makes you mine to protect. Deal with it, and get some rest, you're body's still healing." He said as he dropped the bag of towels out the window and leapt to the ground. She looked out the window and watched him dash from shadow to shadow across the campus until he was out of sight.