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niceandfluffy2Part B
*
Remy had the first inkling that something wasn’t quite right when there was a soft sliding sound from the top of the corridor he was in. He frowned and stopped, eyes narrowed as he strained to hear anything further. The personnel of the base were supposed to have left, evacuated once Wade had gone completely nuts, and unless one of the rats had decided to start experimenting with buttons then there was little to justify such an unnatural noise.
He slowly began to prowl forward again; his footsteps were barely audible on the smooth floor as he moved, every single sense focusing as much as he could on the territory beyond the corner. The evacuation had apparently put the lights on emergency settings, the minimal amount casting long shadows in even the most sterile of situations, and Remy was thankful that the base had limited natural light. Dark and dingy, this was his world, and he was glad for any familiar surroundings he could grab.
“Wade?” he called softly, forcing himself to break the silence. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to keep quiet and keep his back to the wall, but that wasn’t what he was here for. Wade was a scared, tortured man. Creeping up on him was not going to help, other than possibly get Remy turned into a Cajun Kebab on the end of one of the massive swords that they had implanted into Wade’s long suffering body.
The corridor remained silent. Gambit paused, then slowly prowled forward again warily. Wade might well have gone outside of the base, but he didn’t think so. This base was familiar ground, and injured animals tended to crawl to places they knew. Or, in this case, teleport.
“Wade? It’s Remy,” he continued to call, his voice deliberately soft, low and unthreatening. “Are you there, mon ami?”
Still nothing. Remy’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the corridor. There was a nagging feeling of being watched, and he was always prepared to listen to what his gut was telling him rather than his eyes. He slipped to the wall, feeling the cool smooth comfort pressed against his spine, and carefully looked around him again.
He was prepared enough not to jump out of his skin when the faint chuckle sounded, but the noise was too light to tell how far away the man was. Gambit pressed against the wall a little more, fighting against his immediate instinct to find ammunition.
“Well, well, well,” came a light, amused voice. “If it isn’t our escaped prisoner. Didn’t get very far, did you?”
Remy eyed the corridor back and forth but he still couldn’t see where Wade was. That wasn’t boding well.
“I’ve come to talk to you,” he replied softly, planning to stick to the original plan until another turned up to take its place. Wade responded with a little snort.
“Did you? Aww, that’s nice. I haven’t really had a chance for a chat for a long period of time, you know. Hazards of having your mouth sewed up, apparently, although I’m now a demon in a game of Charades.” A shadow shifted; light gleamed lovingly down a shiny metal blade, before that too vanished. “But, to be honest, I’m not in the mood.”
That was not what he wanted to hear. Remy edged a little closer, trying to see his target.
“Let me help you,”
That sparked off even more laughter. “Help me? Well, aren’t you just a little ball of community spirit.”
The shadow detached itself from the wall, and Wade slowly strolled towards him. Remy felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared at him. Wade was still naked from the waist up, although the pen marks had already begun to smudge. The loose pants had been shredded into barely there shorts, tongues of loose fabric flopping listlessly down against his thighs. Wade’s dark hair had begun to grow back to add a little hint of normality, but the scarring on one cheek fought against it. And then there were his eyes. Wade always had somewhat velvety brown eyes that held a hint of darkness, but now there was something else lurking within them that suggested the abnormal. Gambit watched him carefully. This was a man who had taken the next step from foolhardy to mindlessly suicidal, and men like that often looked for company on the way to hell.
“So,” breathed Wade softly, a small smile hovering on his lips. “How d’you want to ‘help’ me? Find me my socks? I could do with some socks. Socks are great, aren’t they? You can use them for all sorts of fun things, and still keep your tootsies warm.”
Remy was silent, waiting until the man had prowled as far as he could before speaking. This was not going well. Wade had his defensive armour up, and said armour wasn’t in the mood to start admitting vulnerability.
“What would you like me to do?” Gambit spoke, choosing to put the ball firmly in Wade’s court. Wade smiled again.
“Oh, that’s a fun question. There’s so many fun things I haven’t done for ages. Talking, for one. Ping pong is another. Watching dodgy foreign porn and jerking off. Trying to hum the theme tune to Dallas in an Australian accent.” Wade added a little burst of song to his comment, and even did a small dance. He finally skidded to a halt, and lazily scratched his chest with a hand. “Trouble is, I think I’m still supposed to be on duty,”
Remy’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “You’ve just escaped from a surgery, and you’re on duty?”
“Yeah. Slave drivers, they are.” Wade shrugged carelessly, although his gaze never wavered from Remy. Gambit felt his concern grow. Those were shark’s eyes, watching its victim splash around until it felt it suitable to pop up from the depths to ruin the rubber inflatable.
“Ignore the duty.” Remy urged softly. “Let’s go to a bar, you and me. Have a drink or two, relax a bit. You deserve it,”
“Do I?” Wade cocked his head to one side as he considered it. “Well, that’s sweet. I like deserving things, it gives me a fuzzy, warm glow inside. Am I glowing?” There was a pause, then Wade lifted his head; Remy was uncomfortably aware of one of the swords sliding out from the man’s hands, and the voice becoming a little more dangerous. “Well?”
“Not glowing as such. More .. vibrating.” Gambit replied carefully.
“Vibrating?” Wade looked bemused, then peered at one of his arms. “I wasn’t supposed to be vibrating. D’you think they turned me into a sex toy by mistake?”
“A sex toy with big, metal swords?”
“Oh. Good point. That doesn’t tend to work well with orgasms, big pointy death,” the sword was inspected, then Wade looked up. His eyes flashed again, and there was again that slightly dead, focused look in his eyes which wasn’t quite Wade. “Of course, big pointy death is good for doing that duty I spoke of, eh?”
Remy had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to like what the ‘duty’ was. Wade gave him a winning smile.
“Yeah. You’ve been a naughty boy, I hear. Escaping really pisses off the guards, cause it makes them look as thick as shit, and although they are thick as shit, it’s nice to pretend they do their job,” the sword moved, showing another spark of light. “So we all had the order to stop you by using lethal force. Sorry about that.”
Gambit looked from the sword to Wade. “What happened to recapture?”
“You know, I never asked,” Wade mused. “I always preferred the ‘straight to lethal force, do not pass go, do not collect $200.’ It’s easier that way, and I get to do a special killing move which looks funky. You know, where you stand like you’re pretending to be some sort of bird before you thrust with your sword,”
Wade looked down at the metal protruding from his hand, and grimaced slightly. “You need to have something now I can’t just twirl my swords. I loved doing that. It looked so damned funky, and now…,” he shrugged, and offered a casual smile back. “Ah well. A bit late now, right?”
“They can remove them,” Remy fought the need to be somewhere else. “The doctors.”
There was a look of utter bemusement before Wade roared with laughter. “You think I’ve had to go through this and then go through it again? Fuck off.” One blade ran lightly down the front of Remy’s chest as Wade’s eyes grew serious. “No one’s touching me again. Now, let’s get back to that duty, eh?”
The sword twitched, cutting a hole in Gambit’s shirt. Gambit’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“They wanted me recaptured. Not killed,”
Wade shrugged.
“Not what I’ve been told. Tell you what, if I kill you and you were right, I’ll write a sincere letter of apology to your mum.” He smiled winningly again, the darkness in his eyes dancing. If the subject matter hadn’t contained so much violence, Remy could have almost believed it was the old Wade back again. The sword twitched again, adding another hole in his shirt and scratching his skin lightly. LeBeau stopped himself from stepping backwards, knowing as soon as he tried to escape the swords would simply find their target and end it. He could try fighting the man but ultimately it would end up like the battle he had when meeting Logan for the first time; he could delay matters, get in a few good shots, but at some stage he simply wouldn’t be fast enough. Wade would only need one chance.
Oh yeah, fighting was out. What he needed was a distraction and even the smallest amount of time to make his exit. Remy assessed Wade carefully. Despite the weapons and the metal, the personality of the man still seemed to be there. Wade had always been a little hyperactive, his mind constantly leaping from subject to subject and not necessarily linking the two together before making that jump, and that childlike eagerness for excitement and adventure was a perfect weakness to manipulate.
“Are you sure you want it like dis? Sounds a bit boring to me,” Remy commented as carelessly as he could, watching as a little burst of interest shone in Wade’s eyes.
“Boring? What d’you want to do? Finger painting?” he paused, thinking about it. “I dunno, blood dries really quickly. I can never finish my name in time.”
“Possibly something less bloody?”
“Less bloody? I thought you wanted something non-boring! Or are you trying for sexy stuff?” Wade cocked his head to one side. “’Cause I’m not really in the mood for that. Terrible, isn’t it? I think it’s the stuff they’ve pumped into me. My dick’s really not paying attention,” Wade glanced down at himself and poked his groin with a finger. “Either that, or it’s ashamed of the pants they forced me to wear. I mean, honestly! Look at them. I look like something out of a harem. Shove a feather up my ass and I could dance for royalty.”
He wiggled his hips then sighed regretfully and looked back at Remy. Wade paused, looking him up and down in interest. “Hey, what size are you? I like your jeans. When you’re dead, can I have them? Just try to bleed out without actually getting it on the fabric, okay? Do a mate a favour,”
Remy made a little noise of agreement. The location of his jeans after death really wasn’t going to be high on his list of concerns. “Sure. You can have my clothes if I die,”
Wade chuckled again. “If. That’s cute enough to earn some bunny ears and a little pink bow.”
“Okay. When I die.” Gambit amended. It was all getting a little too morbid, and he hadn’t even had a coffee that morning. “Anyway, how about making your duty a little more fun? Almost like a game?”
A careless shrug greeted that suggestion, although Wade’s eyes betrayed the man’s interest. “Sure. Go on.”
“You give me, say, ten seconds, and then come hunt me down. It’ll be like a really violent version of hide and seek,” Remy explained, his mind running through all the plans and the building schematics he had examined from the file room. Oh yeah, there was a maze of small crawl spaces suitable for his purposes which were not teleport friendly, even in the unlikely situation that Wade actually knew where he was. There was always a way out to save your tail.
Wade shifted his weight from foot to foot as he considered it, making a clicking noise with his tongue.
“Yeah. Sounds interesting.” He raised his hand and gave Remy another gentle poke to the chest. “I mean, it’s pretty dull you just standing there. You don’t even look like you have any missiles on you, unless you’re planning to charge your underpants and throw them at me.”
“I’m not wearing pants,” Remy advised him. “And they don’t take a charge well even if I did.”
“No pants? Damn. Don’t get too scared will you? I don’t want to have to wash those jeans,” Wade shuddered. “Laundry just isn’t me.”
“I’ll try not to,” Remy replied dryly.
“Good boy,” Wade patted him on the shoulder, then took a few steps back and covered his eyes with his hands. “Okay. You’ve got ten seconds and-,”
“Just a thought. You only got Logan’s healing ability, right? You haven’t gone all animalistic with it?” Remy asked cautiously. Victor’s sense of smell had completely ruined his ability to hide, even with covering scents. Wade made a dismissive noise.
“Nah, they wanted me whole, not fuzzy. Look, no squirrel.” He posed in what was presumably supposed to be a non-squirrelly way. “I can seek out nuts easily enough, but I don’t want to bury them if you get my drift. Well, possibly I do…,”
Remy sighed. Wade’s sexual desire might have been damaged, but clearly this hadn’t had the same effect with innuendos. On the plus side, it seemed clear that Wade’s sense of smell was probably only fine-tuned to detect popcorn, and that made him happier.
“Okay. Game on, then,” he grinned, his eyes flashing red for a moment before fading away. Wade gave a little salute before covering his eyes and beginning to count; for a moment it was relatively peaceful.
Of course, all that was due to change.
*
They had split up to cover more distance. Wade’s scent was everywhere, no doubt thanks to both a powerful air conditioning system and use of his new teleportation device, and this was proving to be a major headache. Victor lifted his head and sniffed, before heading to the left in a foul temper. If Wade was out there, he’d find him, regardless of what the man looked and acted like now.
Granted, the explosion near the head of the base assisted the search. Victor paused as the vibrations worked their way out of the floor and walls, then smiled to himself. Apparently Gambit and Wade had met up, and LeBeau’s sweet talking had failed to hit the spot. What a surprise. LeBeau’s dubious talents were suited to darkened bars and private rooms where there were rivers of alcohol and minimal signs of common sense. He only hoped that Wade hadn’t taken the kid’s head off, that would have been far too quick a death. Of course Jimmy wouldn’t be too happy either, but his brother would get over it. If only he could-
His thoughts were stopped by the lights flickering as though it had had a sudden disco moment, and then giving up completely. Victor looked around the pitch black corridor, and frowned. Well, this was annoying. Enraged squirrel was one thing, but he was definitely not a mole. Teleportation was also an incredibly annoying situation when you could see it, let alone when you couldn’t.
Growling softly, he headed further down the corridor, his footsteps an echoing accompaniment. Victor’s vision had just adjusted to the new light level, when there was another noise and a bright explosion shone directly in front of him. Victor swore, and blinked his eyes a few times; bright red dots stared back at him smugly. Fucking LeBeau!
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice turned up out of the dotted darkness, amusement in every syllable. “I twaught I saw a puddy tat, a creeping up on me…. Hello, Victor. I don’t suppose you’ve seen LeBeau anywhere, have you? He blew out the electrics and then fucked up my night vision, and now he’s managed to disappear. Honestly, if I thought he was going to cheat on a game of hide and seek I would have just cut his head off,”
“I haven’t seen him,” Victor desperately tried to see his lover, but the darkness proven difficult to defeat. There was a little reluctant sigh.
“Damn. Sneaky bastard.”
Slowly, the other man was coming back into focus, although he was still mostly a shadow with Wade’s voice and body language. The blades found a little bit of light that caressed down their length every so often, a beautiful but short blaze. Victor was silent, simply watching him. It felt strange somehow, like they had stepped back in time to when Team X was still together and fighting whatever crap Stryker had come up with. Wade seemed…well, Wade. His voice, his mannerisms, the smooth way he moved. Completely carefree and simply keen to work.
“So,” Wade continued in a tone that suggested he was giving his typical grin. “How have you been? I’d look for myself but you’re still standing in that whole red blob zone and it makes it harder to check. Still all there, y’know, for hands and feet and stuff,”
“Yeah. I’m fine,”
“Ah, good. Mind you, you always did manage to get out of situations with barely a scratch, didn’t you? Always so damned lucky. Me, I get nobbled by my own side. I mean, how fucked up is that? They told me to sign something to live, so I signed it, and then they started replacing bits of me that I quite liked au naturelle, y’know? It’s fucking embarrassing, to be honest. The pen is mightier than the sword, and the power is in the fine print,” there was a little whispering noise that suggested the blades had retracted into Wade’s body. “Oh well. So, why are you prowling around in the dark? Need somewhere to take a piss?”
Wade. God, he had missed him. Even his ridiculous babble and his need to say things that everyone else had classified as ‘a bad idea’. The enthusiasm seemed to drip off him, each word spoken with the cheerfulness of a small child discussing their favourite television programme, and it took all of Victor’s strength not to touch him to check the body matched the mental image. There was a ‘tsk’.
“C’mon, Vicky. Don’t tell me they’ve stolen your tongue? Well, if they have, just kinda make an ‘rrrrgggghh’ noise instead,” Wade wandered closer, and Victor’s eyes had finally adjusted enough to be able to see the slim, muscular form so close to him. He slowly raised a hand and traced down the nearest pen mark, only to have Wade leap away as though he had received an electric shock.
A sword aimed itself at Victor, Wade’s eyes dark and his voice serious.
“No touchie.”
Victor growled softly. “I’m not going to do anything,”
“Yeah, a lot of people say that. And you know what? A lot of people lie through their teeth.” Wade’s voice was hard. “The catchphrase seems to be ‘we’re doing this for your own good’, or perhaps the good of the nation, or the world, or hell, the fucking Care Bears. But, when it comes down to it, it fucking hurts. And we’re not talking the good fucking hurts, with the spanking and the ropes and the ‘ooooh, hit me harder, I’ve been a naughty boy’. We’re talking begging and screaming type of fucking hurts, and apparently that doesn’t turn me on as much,”
Victor’s hands clenched into fists. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”
“What d’you mean, think? You were the one who shoved your dirty fingernails into my stomach!” The shadowy figure of Wade gestured with his arm. “That doesn’t just tickle!”
“I’m sorry,”
“Yeah. We’re all sorry.” Wade snorted, and prowled further down the corridor. Victor turned to watch him, raising his head as Wade kicked open a door and the daylight from a window flooded into the corridor’s darkness. “Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!”
Wade leaned into the room and made a grumpy noise. “Fuck. Still no Gambit. You know, I should have just gone with a particularly vicious game of checkers. Or perhaps Scrabble. I’m good at Scrabble. Eviscerate gives a good score. Gut. Fillet. Disembowel. Here, Gambie, Gambie, Gambie!”
He whistled, then snorted in frustration. “Okay, someone’s really going to have to train him better.”
“Speak to my brother,” Victor folded his arms, but his gaze was still firmly fixed on Wade. The shorts clung to him, outlining his firm backside and enhancing the beauty of Wade’s figure. Pen marks did little to distract, other than hint at the traumatic past history that the man had just suffered. Victor’s eyes softened as he studied him, remembering the barefooted predatory stalk all too well during one of Wade’s various sex sessions. The only thing that differed was the scent; it was Wade, but there was something else, something unusual that added an unwelcome spice to him.
Wade glanced at him, and Victor was finally able to see the man’s face properly. New lines had been etched on his features, but his eyes were just pure Wade.
“Logan? Logan’s fucking him?” an amused grin turned up to shine in the shadows. “Awww, that’s sweet! I didn’t think he was into being all manly with other blokes, unless you put a knife to his throat. You didn’t put a knife to his throat, right?”
“No. His little sexual adventure has nothing to do with me,”
“Good, although you’re slipping in your extra old age.” Wade whistled loudly again, then yelled down the corridor. “C’mon, Gambie, I’m getting bored! Come here and get your head cut off and then we can go for lunch! Well, not you, being all dead and all, but that’s no reason to stop me having a sandwich,”
Victor eyed him. His brother would kill him if he didn’t at least attempt to stop the blood lust. “You know we don’t need to kill him, right? The orders have changed,”
“Have they? Well, if you don’t tell anyone, I won’t,” Wade grinned at him and raised a hand. One of the swords slid out with a sweet whisper of intended violence. “I need to get my aim back in. C’mon. You don’t seem like you like him, anyway. Let’s go hunt him down. Last one to catch him is a vegetarian.”
Victor found himself regretfully shaking his head. “No.”
“What?” Wade stared at him incredulously. “Since when did you turn down the opportunity for a hunt? He’s an escaped prisoner, and he blows things up. That, to me, means he’ll be interesting to hunt down with extreme force and pretty blood stains,”
“You used to like him,” Victor replied curiously. Wade snorted.
“Yeah. I used to like a lot of things.” Velvet dark eyes studied him curiously. “So… why are you here? You have that whole grrrrr posture that says you’re working.”
And that was the crux of the matter. Victor studied the boy for a long time, all but tasting the bitter upset that Wade carried for his betrayal and feeling that knowledge stab deep within him. Wade’s reconstructive surgeries would need to occur, there was no question over it; he couldn’t stay like this, but trying to get him back was not going to be pleasant. Wade would also know exactly what was coming. Could he look into his lover’s eyes and do it to him again?
He didn’t know. For the first time in his whole damned life, he truly didn’t know. Wade was damaged in more ways than simply physical, but to leave the weapons with him was to invite all manner of unfortunate circumstances. Victor growled to himself, furious with himself and the whole damned situation.
Wade rubbed his chin with a finger, watching him.
“Hmmmm. Okay, that expression’s a bad sign. You here to beat me up again, like you and Logan did earlier?”
Victor shook his head. “No.”
“Well, good. That was damned annoying. They kept feeding stuff in my head and it was like watching a computer game when someone else is playing.” He shrugged, then looked around in interest. “Where is Logan, anyway?”
His throat felt rough and dry as he considered what to say. Victor kept his body posture calm, but his mind screamed at him as he raised his head and smiled slowly at Wade.
“He’s in a room down the other end of the building. He actually wanted to talk to you.” He cocked his head. “D’you mind if we go speak to him?”
“What, now? I’m in the middle of a game,” Wade whined, like a small child threatened to be taken away from the playground. “Look, let’s just wait until I’ve got Remy all caught and splatted, and then I’ll come see your darling brother. Oh. Wait. Isn’t Gambit his little sex toy at the moment? That might be awkward if I turned up with his head. Perhaps I should rent a locker to keep it in…,”
“We can find LeBeau later on,” Victor soothed him.
“Later on? I can’t even find the bastard now!” Wade sulked. “That’s it, next time I’m gluing his feet to the floor. Or nails. Nails are good. Shinier. And they don’t have a nasty smell that gives you a headache either,”
“Sounds a good idea,” Victor agreed, sliding his hands in his pockets and beginning to walk back down the corridor. He had taken about five steps before he realised that Wade wasn’t coming.
He glanced over his shoulder and was greeted by a dismissive look, Wade’s arms folded against his chest.
“Oh, come on. How fucking stupid d’you think I am? ‘Oh, Logan’s down here, and he really wants to see you’. Jesus, Vicky. Could you have screamed trap any louder at me without actually painting it on one of the walls?” Wade rolled his eyes and stabbed a finger at Victor. “The only reason you haven’t smacked me on the head and just carried me off under your arm is purely down to the fact that I now set off the metal detectors at airports and you don’t. So don’t give me this shit, okay?”
Victor growled and turned around to face him. “Guess your sense of paranoia hasn’t lessened,”
Wade raised his arm and extended a sword. “What, thinking people are out to get me? I guess not. Funny that.”
Victor growled again, a low rumble that seemed like a good idea at the time. Ordinarily he would simply pounce and take what he wanted, but Wade really wasn’t going to fall like anyone else.
“Go on. What is in that room?” Wade asked with curiosity. “A huge food blender with reinforced blades? A group of small man-eating hamsters?”
Victor gritted his teeth. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, you want to hurt me alright, otherwise you’d be over here and we’d not be having this fun conversation.” Wade snorted in amusement. “So. Is it a big pit with spikes at the bottom? You know I like a house with traditional features,”
“Oh, fuck this,” Victor snarled, turning on his heel and stalking down the corridor. Logan would just have to turn up with the needle. His dramatic exit was stalled by Wade suddenly popping into existence immediately in front of him, a blade held against Victor’s neck. Wade purred softly, his eyes unblinking as he looked at him.
“C’mon, Vicky. You’re gonna walk away from me? After everything we’ve been through,” Wade chuckled softly. The blade slowly retracted, Wade leaning closer and licking his tongue up Victor’s neck before making little licking noises as though tasting him.
“Mmmm. Hint of squirrel. Warning, may contain nuts,” he grinned. “You haven’t changed a bit, Victor. Trouble is, everyone else has. And when you don’t keep up with the world, you end up being a prehistoric creature who’s just gonna get evolved out the food chain.” Wade’s grin flickered upwards. “Sabretooth.”
“Remind me why I wanted your mouth back?” Victor snarled.
“Probably the blow jobs,” Wade said helpfully.
“Hmmmph,” Victor’s eyes narrowed. “You planning to do any of those?”
“Who knows? Places to go, people to kill – for a very reasonable fee, of course,” Wade shrugged. “I’m sure I can fit in a bit of kink for you. Might need to get more impressive shackles though, I’d break the usual sort.”
Victor eyed him uncertainly, not sure what was running through Wade’s mind. It was a lot easier dealing with Jimmy, who had three settings: happy, sad, and fucking annoyed.
“Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”
“Not sure. But I’m not. Perhaps it’s the romantic in me, eh?” Wade mused it over. “Mind you, all those famous romantic stories tend to have death and angst in it somewhere. Great word isn’t it, angst? The way it comes off the tongue so angry like. Angst. Angst. Like a dog bark.”
Victor stepped a little closer, his eyes serious. Hell, it was worth a shot. “Wade, I can help you get back to vaguely normal. You just have to trust me.”
Wade snorted. “And why on earth do I want vaguely normal? I can teleport here! Okay, sometimes I miss what I’m aiming for, but there’s a healing factor to sort out that problem. I can even do lasers, although I’m not gonna do it much. It hurts when I do it, like someone’s set matches alight just behind my eyeballs. What with that and masturbation, I’m sure I’m gonna be blind soon. Oh, yeah, healing factor’ll sort that out, as long as masturbation damage is covered with the policy. Isn’t that good? I mean-,”
Wade’s chatter stopped as Victor pressed his hand over his mouth.
“Okay, enough.” Victor growled. “All of your fancy items are just gonna get you in trouble. You know that, I know that, and don’t say you like trouble. There’s trouble which gets people to snarl at you and then there’s trouble where other mercenaries come and hunt down your hide. And, quite frankly, I want you back to a position where we can get on.”
Brown eyes looked at him dubiously. Victor risked lifting his hand.
“Are we saying get on as in talking, or get on whilst bouncing on the bed?”
“Wade, I doubt whether anything is going to get us to get on as in talking.” Victor raised an eyebrow. Wade chuckled.
“An offer of sex already? You little whore.” he said cheerfully. “And look, I can say that now. Even if you shove your claws in me it won’t matter! Although, please don’t.”
Victor gritted his teeth. “So, you’re going to do it? Come back with me to the doctors?”
“No. But it was really nice to know you still love my cute little ass,” Wade grinned. “I’m afraid the whole ouch factor means- FUCK!”
Wade immediately vanished, popping back further up the corridor with a look of utter disgust and pulling out a syringe need from his backside with one hand. He looked at it, then tossed it aside as he focused on the figure who had apparently snuck up behind him and shoved the needle in the meat of his buttock.
“Still not dead, eh?” Victor commented to Remy. The pup always did have a nasty habit of turning up when he wasn’t expected. “Never mind, there’s still plenty of day left.”
Gambit tilted his head in acknowledgement as he made his way to stand behind Victor’s frame. Victor watched him in bemusement, unused to being used as a shield and certainly to people he disliked. He sniffed, scenting Logan close by. Apparently if Wade wouldn’t go to the trap, the trap would come to Wade.
“Now, I know this is gonna come across badly,” Victor commented to Wade who was prowling forward, eyes blazing and swords extended. “But he,” a thumb jabbed backwards at LeBeau. “was not my fault.”
He jumped backwards as swords flashed through the air, dodging the lethal blows and landing, crouched and hissing, on the ground.
“Yeah, thought you might take it that way,” he sighed, then ran in for the attack; Wade immediately tried to teleport but merely flickered, a look of surprise crossing his face before Victor connected with the younger man’s midsection and sending them both crashing to the ground. Wade struggled to get up, but Victor was putting his full weight on pinning both lethal arms to the floor and within seconds Logan was there, backing him up. Wade struggled, twisting and turning like a greased snake, but neither feral was prepared to give up their hold and once Wade’s speed and agility had been overcome their brute strength was enough to keep the younger man where they wanted.
“Got him?” Logan panted, shaking off a solid kick to the face and putting his knee on Wade’s lower leg to pin it to the ground.
“Kinda,” Victor grunted back, having to tighten his grip before he managed to squirm out.
“Bastards!” added Wade, for good measure. “Fucking bastard squirrels!!”
“And you two have ruined my chance to get laid,” Victor added. Logan snorted in amusement, then leaned his body out of the way to allow Gambit to sneak back in, armed with two sets of very shiny handcuffs.
“Fuck!” They ducked out of the way as Wade’s eyes turned bright red then blazed laser upwards, destroying the ceiling directly above them in one long blast. Victor could hear LeBeau swear, then the brightness shut off as another shiny metal thing turned up to put over his eyes. Clearly adamantium had a whole range of accessories for the discerning customer. Victor growled and slowly got up, eyeing Wade’s shackles before slinging him over his shoulder to avoid the wriggle.
“Well, that was easy,” he said dryly. Gambit was too busy getting pieces of ceiling out of his hair and t-shirt to comment, muttering to himself in random languages as he did so. Logan shrugged.
“No one got massacred. I’d say that’s a result.”
Victor accepted that point grudgingly as they began to make their way back to the room and the waiting surgeons. Yeah, it had been quick, and no one had been physically maimed. That didn’t, of course, mean that injuries hadn’t occurred.
He would just have to see how significant those injuries would turn out to be.
TBC
Remy had the first inkling that something wasn’t quite right when there was a soft sliding sound from the top of the corridor he was in. He frowned and stopped, eyes narrowed as he strained to hear anything further. The personnel of the base were supposed to have left, evacuated once Wade had gone completely nuts, and unless one of the rats had decided to start experimenting with buttons then there was little to justify such an unnatural noise.
He slowly began to prowl forward again; his footsteps were barely audible on the smooth floor as he moved, every single sense focusing as much as he could on the territory beyond the corner. The evacuation had apparently put the lights on emergency settings, the minimal amount casting long shadows in even the most sterile of situations, and Remy was thankful that the base had limited natural light. Dark and dingy, this was his world, and he was glad for any familiar surroundings he could grab.
“Wade?” he called softly, forcing himself to break the silence. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to keep quiet and keep his back to the wall, but that wasn’t what he was here for. Wade was a scared, tortured man. Creeping up on him was not going to help, other than possibly get Remy turned into a Cajun Kebab on the end of one of the massive swords that they had implanted into Wade’s long suffering body.
The corridor remained silent. Gambit paused, then slowly prowled forward again warily. Wade might well have gone outside of the base, but he didn’t think so. This base was familiar ground, and injured animals tended to crawl to places they knew. Or, in this case, teleport.
“Wade? It’s Remy,” he continued to call, his voice deliberately soft, low and unthreatening. “Are you there, mon ami?”
Still nothing. Remy’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the corridor. There was a nagging feeling of being watched, and he was always prepared to listen to what his gut was telling him rather than his eyes. He slipped to the wall, feeling the cool smooth comfort pressed against his spine, and carefully looked around him again.
He was prepared enough not to jump out of his skin when the faint chuckle sounded, but the noise was too light to tell how far away the man was. Gambit pressed against the wall a little more, fighting against his immediate instinct to find ammunition.
“Well, well, well,” came a light, amused voice. “If it isn’t our escaped prisoner. Didn’t get very far, did you?”
Remy eyed the corridor back and forth but he still couldn’t see where Wade was. That wasn’t boding well.
“I’ve come to talk to you,” he replied softly, planning to stick to the original plan until another turned up to take its place. Wade responded with a little snort.
“Did you? Aww, that’s nice. I haven’t really had a chance for a chat for a long period of time, you know. Hazards of having your mouth sewed up, apparently, although I’m now a demon in a game of Charades.” A shadow shifted; light gleamed lovingly down a shiny metal blade, before that too vanished. “But, to be honest, I’m not in the mood.”
That was not what he wanted to hear. Remy edged a little closer, trying to see his target.
“Let me help you,”
That sparked off even more laughter. “Help me? Well, aren’t you just a little ball of community spirit.”
The shadow detached itself from the wall, and Wade slowly strolled towards him. Remy felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared at him. Wade was still naked from the waist up, although the pen marks had already begun to smudge. The loose pants had been shredded into barely there shorts, tongues of loose fabric flopping listlessly down against his thighs. Wade’s dark hair had begun to grow back to add a little hint of normality, but the scarring on one cheek fought against it. And then there were his eyes. Wade always had somewhat velvety brown eyes that held a hint of darkness, but now there was something else lurking within them that suggested the abnormal. Gambit watched him carefully. This was a man who had taken the next step from foolhardy to mindlessly suicidal, and men like that often looked for company on the way to hell.
“So,” breathed Wade softly, a small smile hovering on his lips. “How d’you want to ‘help’ me? Find me my socks? I could do with some socks. Socks are great, aren’t they? You can use them for all sorts of fun things, and still keep your tootsies warm.”
Remy was silent, waiting until the man had prowled as far as he could before speaking. This was not going well. Wade had his defensive armour up, and said armour wasn’t in the mood to start admitting vulnerability.
“What would you like me to do?” Gambit spoke, choosing to put the ball firmly in Wade’s court. Wade smiled again.
“Oh, that’s a fun question. There’s so many fun things I haven’t done for ages. Talking, for one. Ping pong is another. Watching dodgy foreign porn and jerking off. Trying to hum the theme tune to Dallas in an Australian accent.” Wade added a little burst of song to his comment, and even did a small dance. He finally skidded to a halt, and lazily scratched his chest with a hand. “Trouble is, I think I’m still supposed to be on duty,”
Remy’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “You’ve just escaped from a surgery, and you’re on duty?”
“Yeah. Slave drivers, they are.” Wade shrugged carelessly, although his gaze never wavered from Remy. Gambit felt his concern grow. Those were shark’s eyes, watching its victim splash around until it felt it suitable to pop up from the depths to ruin the rubber inflatable.
“Ignore the duty.” Remy urged softly. “Let’s go to a bar, you and me. Have a drink or two, relax a bit. You deserve it,”
“Do I?” Wade cocked his head to one side as he considered it. “Well, that’s sweet. I like deserving things, it gives me a fuzzy, warm glow inside. Am I glowing?” There was a pause, then Wade lifted his head; Remy was uncomfortably aware of one of the swords sliding out from the man’s hands, and the voice becoming a little more dangerous. “Well?”
“Not glowing as such. More .. vibrating.” Gambit replied carefully.
“Vibrating?” Wade looked bemused, then peered at one of his arms. “I wasn’t supposed to be vibrating. D’you think they turned me into a sex toy by mistake?”
“A sex toy with big, metal swords?”
“Oh. Good point. That doesn’t tend to work well with orgasms, big pointy death,” the sword was inspected, then Wade looked up. His eyes flashed again, and there was again that slightly dead, focused look in his eyes which wasn’t quite Wade. “Of course, big pointy death is good for doing that duty I spoke of, eh?”
Remy had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to like what the ‘duty’ was. Wade gave him a winning smile.
“Yeah. You’ve been a naughty boy, I hear. Escaping really pisses off the guards, cause it makes them look as thick as shit, and although they are thick as shit, it’s nice to pretend they do their job,” the sword moved, showing another spark of light. “So we all had the order to stop you by using lethal force. Sorry about that.”
Gambit looked from the sword to Wade. “What happened to recapture?”
“You know, I never asked,” Wade mused. “I always preferred the ‘straight to lethal force, do not pass go, do not collect $200.’ It’s easier that way, and I get to do a special killing move which looks funky. You know, where you stand like you’re pretending to be some sort of bird before you thrust with your sword,”
Wade looked down at the metal protruding from his hand, and grimaced slightly. “You need to have something now I can’t just twirl my swords. I loved doing that. It looked so damned funky, and now…,” he shrugged, and offered a casual smile back. “Ah well. A bit late now, right?”
“They can remove them,” Remy fought the need to be somewhere else. “The doctors.”
There was a look of utter bemusement before Wade roared with laughter. “You think I’ve had to go through this and then go through it again? Fuck off.” One blade ran lightly down the front of Remy’s chest as Wade’s eyes grew serious. “No one’s touching me again. Now, let’s get back to that duty, eh?”
The sword twitched, cutting a hole in Gambit’s shirt. Gambit’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“They wanted me recaptured. Not killed,”
Wade shrugged.
“Not what I’ve been told. Tell you what, if I kill you and you were right, I’ll write a sincere letter of apology to your mum.” He smiled winningly again, the darkness in his eyes dancing. If the subject matter hadn’t contained so much violence, Remy could have almost believed it was the old Wade back again. The sword twitched again, adding another hole in his shirt and scratching his skin lightly. LeBeau stopped himself from stepping backwards, knowing as soon as he tried to escape the swords would simply find their target and end it. He could try fighting the man but ultimately it would end up like the battle he had when meeting Logan for the first time; he could delay matters, get in a few good shots, but at some stage he simply wouldn’t be fast enough. Wade would only need one chance.
Oh yeah, fighting was out. What he needed was a distraction and even the smallest amount of time to make his exit. Remy assessed Wade carefully. Despite the weapons and the metal, the personality of the man still seemed to be there. Wade had always been a little hyperactive, his mind constantly leaping from subject to subject and not necessarily linking the two together before making that jump, and that childlike eagerness for excitement and adventure was a perfect weakness to manipulate.
“Are you sure you want it like dis? Sounds a bit boring to me,” Remy commented as carelessly as he could, watching as a little burst of interest shone in Wade’s eyes.
“Boring? What d’you want to do? Finger painting?” he paused, thinking about it. “I dunno, blood dries really quickly. I can never finish my name in time.”
“Possibly something less bloody?”
“Less bloody? I thought you wanted something non-boring! Or are you trying for sexy stuff?” Wade cocked his head to one side. “’Cause I’m not really in the mood for that. Terrible, isn’t it? I think it’s the stuff they’ve pumped into me. My dick’s really not paying attention,” Wade glanced down at himself and poked his groin with a finger. “Either that, or it’s ashamed of the pants they forced me to wear. I mean, honestly! Look at them. I look like something out of a harem. Shove a feather up my ass and I could dance for royalty.”
He wiggled his hips then sighed regretfully and looked back at Remy. Wade paused, looking him up and down in interest. “Hey, what size are you? I like your jeans. When you’re dead, can I have them? Just try to bleed out without actually getting it on the fabric, okay? Do a mate a favour,”
Remy made a little noise of agreement. The location of his jeans after death really wasn’t going to be high on his list of concerns. “Sure. You can have my clothes if I die,”
Wade chuckled again. “If. That’s cute enough to earn some bunny ears and a little pink bow.”
“Okay. When I die.” Gambit amended. It was all getting a little too morbid, and he hadn’t even had a coffee that morning. “Anyway, how about making your duty a little more fun? Almost like a game?”
A careless shrug greeted that suggestion, although Wade’s eyes betrayed the man’s interest. “Sure. Go on.”
“You give me, say, ten seconds, and then come hunt me down. It’ll be like a really violent version of hide and seek,” Remy explained, his mind running through all the plans and the building schematics he had examined from the file room. Oh yeah, there was a maze of small crawl spaces suitable for his purposes which were not teleport friendly, even in the unlikely situation that Wade actually knew where he was. There was always a way out to save your tail.
Wade shifted his weight from foot to foot as he considered it, making a clicking noise with his tongue.
“Yeah. Sounds interesting.” He raised his hand and gave Remy another gentle poke to the chest. “I mean, it’s pretty dull you just standing there. You don’t even look like you have any missiles on you, unless you’re planning to charge your underpants and throw them at me.”
“I’m not wearing pants,” Remy advised him. “And they don’t take a charge well even if I did.”
“No pants? Damn. Don’t get too scared will you? I don’t want to have to wash those jeans,” Wade shuddered. “Laundry just isn’t me.”
“I’ll try not to,” Remy replied dryly.
“Good boy,” Wade patted him on the shoulder, then took a few steps back and covered his eyes with his hands. “Okay. You’ve got ten seconds and-,”
“Just a thought. You only got Logan’s healing ability, right? You haven’t gone all animalistic with it?” Remy asked cautiously. Victor’s sense of smell had completely ruined his ability to hide, even with covering scents. Wade made a dismissive noise.
“Nah, they wanted me whole, not fuzzy. Look, no squirrel.” He posed in what was presumably supposed to be a non-squirrelly way. “I can seek out nuts easily enough, but I don’t want to bury them if you get my drift. Well, possibly I do…,”
Remy sighed. Wade’s sexual desire might have been damaged, but clearly this hadn’t had the same effect with innuendos. On the plus side, it seemed clear that Wade’s sense of smell was probably only fine-tuned to detect popcorn, and that made him happier.
“Okay. Game on, then,” he grinned, his eyes flashing red for a moment before fading away. Wade gave a little salute before covering his eyes and beginning to count; for a moment it was relatively peaceful.
Of course, all that was due to change.
They had split up to cover more distance. Wade’s scent was everywhere, no doubt thanks to both a powerful air conditioning system and use of his new teleportation device, and this was proving to be a major headache. Victor lifted his head and sniffed, before heading to the left in a foul temper. If Wade was out there, he’d find him, regardless of what the man looked and acted like now.
Granted, the explosion near the head of the base assisted the search. Victor paused as the vibrations worked their way out of the floor and walls, then smiled to himself. Apparently Gambit and Wade had met up, and LeBeau’s sweet talking had failed to hit the spot. What a surprise. LeBeau’s dubious talents were suited to darkened bars and private rooms where there were rivers of alcohol and minimal signs of common sense. He only hoped that Wade hadn’t taken the kid’s head off, that would have been far too quick a death. Of course Jimmy wouldn’t be too happy either, but his brother would get over it. If only he could-
His thoughts were stopped by the lights flickering as though it had had a sudden disco moment, and then giving up completely. Victor looked around the pitch black corridor, and frowned. Well, this was annoying. Enraged squirrel was one thing, but he was definitely not a mole. Teleportation was also an incredibly annoying situation when you could see it, let alone when you couldn’t.
Growling softly, he headed further down the corridor, his footsteps an echoing accompaniment. Victor’s vision had just adjusted to the new light level, when there was another noise and a bright explosion shone directly in front of him. Victor swore, and blinked his eyes a few times; bright red dots stared back at him smugly. Fucking LeBeau!
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice turned up out of the dotted darkness, amusement in every syllable. “I twaught I saw a puddy tat, a creeping up on me…. Hello, Victor. I don’t suppose you’ve seen LeBeau anywhere, have you? He blew out the electrics and then fucked up my night vision, and now he’s managed to disappear. Honestly, if I thought he was going to cheat on a game of hide and seek I would have just cut his head off,”
“I haven’t seen him,” Victor desperately tried to see his lover, but the darkness proven difficult to defeat. There was a little reluctant sigh.
“Damn. Sneaky bastard.”
Slowly, the other man was coming back into focus, although he was still mostly a shadow with Wade’s voice and body language. The blades found a little bit of light that caressed down their length every so often, a beautiful but short blaze. Victor was silent, simply watching him. It felt strange somehow, like they had stepped back in time to when Team X was still together and fighting whatever crap Stryker had come up with. Wade seemed…well, Wade. His voice, his mannerisms, the smooth way he moved. Completely carefree and simply keen to work.
“So,” Wade continued in a tone that suggested he was giving his typical grin. “How have you been? I’d look for myself but you’re still standing in that whole red blob zone and it makes it harder to check. Still all there, y’know, for hands and feet and stuff,”
“Yeah. I’m fine,”
“Ah, good. Mind you, you always did manage to get out of situations with barely a scratch, didn’t you? Always so damned lucky. Me, I get nobbled by my own side. I mean, how fucked up is that? They told me to sign something to live, so I signed it, and then they started replacing bits of me that I quite liked au naturelle, y’know? It’s fucking embarrassing, to be honest. The pen is mightier than the sword, and the power is in the fine print,” there was a little whispering noise that suggested the blades had retracted into Wade’s body. “Oh well. So, why are you prowling around in the dark? Need somewhere to take a piss?”
Wade. God, he had missed him. Even his ridiculous babble and his need to say things that everyone else had classified as ‘a bad idea’. The enthusiasm seemed to drip off him, each word spoken with the cheerfulness of a small child discussing their favourite television programme, and it took all of Victor’s strength not to touch him to check the body matched the mental image. There was a ‘tsk’.
“C’mon, Vicky. Don’t tell me they’ve stolen your tongue? Well, if they have, just kinda make an ‘rrrrgggghh’ noise instead,” Wade wandered closer, and Victor’s eyes had finally adjusted enough to be able to see the slim, muscular form so close to him. He slowly raised a hand and traced down the nearest pen mark, only to have Wade leap away as though he had received an electric shock.
A sword aimed itself at Victor, Wade’s eyes dark and his voice serious.
“No touchie.”
Victor growled softly. “I’m not going to do anything,”
“Yeah, a lot of people say that. And you know what? A lot of people lie through their teeth.” Wade’s voice was hard. “The catchphrase seems to be ‘we’re doing this for your own good’, or perhaps the good of the nation, or the world, or hell, the fucking Care Bears. But, when it comes down to it, it fucking hurts. And we’re not talking the good fucking hurts, with the spanking and the ropes and the ‘ooooh, hit me harder, I’ve been a naughty boy’. We’re talking begging and screaming type of fucking hurts, and apparently that doesn’t turn me on as much,”
Victor’s hands clenched into fists. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”
“What d’you mean, think? You were the one who shoved your dirty fingernails into my stomach!” The shadowy figure of Wade gestured with his arm. “That doesn’t just tickle!”
“I’m sorry,”
“Yeah. We’re all sorry.” Wade snorted, and prowled further down the corridor. Victor turned to watch him, raising his head as Wade kicked open a door and the daylight from a window flooded into the corridor’s darkness. “Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!”
Wade leaned into the room and made a grumpy noise. “Fuck. Still no Gambit. You know, I should have just gone with a particularly vicious game of checkers. Or perhaps Scrabble. I’m good at Scrabble. Eviscerate gives a good score. Gut. Fillet. Disembowel. Here, Gambie, Gambie, Gambie!”
He whistled, then snorted in frustration. “Okay, someone’s really going to have to train him better.”
“Speak to my brother,” Victor folded his arms, but his gaze was still firmly fixed on Wade. The shorts clung to him, outlining his firm backside and enhancing the beauty of Wade’s figure. Pen marks did little to distract, other than hint at the traumatic past history that the man had just suffered. Victor’s eyes softened as he studied him, remembering the barefooted predatory stalk all too well during one of Wade’s various sex sessions. The only thing that differed was the scent; it was Wade, but there was something else, something unusual that added an unwelcome spice to him.
Wade glanced at him, and Victor was finally able to see the man’s face properly. New lines had been etched on his features, but his eyes were just pure Wade.
“Logan? Logan’s fucking him?” an amused grin turned up to shine in the shadows. “Awww, that’s sweet! I didn’t think he was into being all manly with other blokes, unless you put a knife to his throat. You didn’t put a knife to his throat, right?”
“No. His little sexual adventure has nothing to do with me,”
“Good, although you’re slipping in your extra old age.” Wade whistled loudly again, then yelled down the corridor. “C’mon, Gambie, I’m getting bored! Come here and get your head cut off and then we can go for lunch! Well, not you, being all dead and all, but that’s no reason to stop me having a sandwich,”
Victor eyed him. His brother would kill him if he didn’t at least attempt to stop the blood lust. “You know we don’t need to kill him, right? The orders have changed,”
“Have they? Well, if you don’t tell anyone, I won’t,” Wade grinned at him and raised a hand. One of the swords slid out with a sweet whisper of intended violence. “I need to get my aim back in. C’mon. You don’t seem like you like him, anyway. Let’s go hunt him down. Last one to catch him is a vegetarian.”
Victor found himself regretfully shaking his head. “No.”
“What?” Wade stared at him incredulously. “Since when did you turn down the opportunity for a hunt? He’s an escaped prisoner, and he blows things up. That, to me, means he’ll be interesting to hunt down with extreme force and pretty blood stains,”
“You used to like him,” Victor replied curiously. Wade snorted.
“Yeah. I used to like a lot of things.” Velvet dark eyes studied him curiously. “So… why are you here? You have that whole grrrrr posture that says you’re working.”
And that was the crux of the matter. Victor studied the boy for a long time, all but tasting the bitter upset that Wade carried for his betrayal and feeling that knowledge stab deep within him. Wade’s reconstructive surgeries would need to occur, there was no question over it; he couldn’t stay like this, but trying to get him back was not going to be pleasant. Wade would also know exactly what was coming. Could he look into his lover’s eyes and do it to him again?
He didn’t know. For the first time in his whole damned life, he truly didn’t know. Wade was damaged in more ways than simply physical, but to leave the weapons with him was to invite all manner of unfortunate circumstances. Victor growled to himself, furious with himself and the whole damned situation.
Wade rubbed his chin with a finger, watching him.
“Hmmmm. Okay, that expression’s a bad sign. You here to beat me up again, like you and Logan did earlier?”
Victor shook his head. “No.”
“Well, good. That was damned annoying. They kept feeding stuff in my head and it was like watching a computer game when someone else is playing.” He shrugged, then looked around in interest. “Where is Logan, anyway?”
His throat felt rough and dry as he considered what to say. Victor kept his body posture calm, but his mind screamed at him as he raised his head and smiled slowly at Wade.
“He’s in a room down the other end of the building. He actually wanted to talk to you.” He cocked his head. “D’you mind if we go speak to him?”
“What, now? I’m in the middle of a game,” Wade whined, like a small child threatened to be taken away from the playground. “Look, let’s just wait until I’ve got Remy all caught and splatted, and then I’ll come see your darling brother. Oh. Wait. Isn’t Gambit his little sex toy at the moment? That might be awkward if I turned up with his head. Perhaps I should rent a locker to keep it in…,”
“We can find LeBeau later on,” Victor soothed him.
“Later on? I can’t even find the bastard now!” Wade sulked. “That’s it, next time I’m gluing his feet to the floor. Or nails. Nails are good. Shinier. And they don’t have a nasty smell that gives you a headache either,”
“Sounds a good idea,” Victor agreed, sliding his hands in his pockets and beginning to walk back down the corridor. He had taken about five steps before he realised that Wade wasn’t coming.
He glanced over his shoulder and was greeted by a dismissive look, Wade’s arms folded against his chest.
“Oh, come on. How fucking stupid d’you think I am? ‘Oh, Logan’s down here, and he really wants to see you’. Jesus, Vicky. Could you have screamed trap any louder at me without actually painting it on one of the walls?” Wade rolled his eyes and stabbed a finger at Victor. “The only reason you haven’t smacked me on the head and just carried me off under your arm is purely down to the fact that I now set off the metal detectors at airports and you don’t. So don’t give me this shit, okay?”
Victor growled and turned around to face him. “Guess your sense of paranoia hasn’t lessened,”
Wade raised his arm and extended a sword. “What, thinking people are out to get me? I guess not. Funny that.”
Victor growled again, a low rumble that seemed like a good idea at the time. Ordinarily he would simply pounce and take what he wanted, but Wade really wasn’t going to fall like anyone else.
“Go on. What is in that room?” Wade asked with curiosity. “A huge food blender with reinforced blades? A group of small man-eating hamsters?”
Victor gritted his teeth. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, you want to hurt me alright, otherwise you’d be over here and we’d not be having this fun conversation.” Wade snorted in amusement. “So. Is it a big pit with spikes at the bottom? You know I like a house with traditional features,”
“Oh, fuck this,” Victor snarled, turning on his heel and stalking down the corridor. Logan would just have to turn up with the needle. His dramatic exit was stalled by Wade suddenly popping into existence immediately in front of him, a blade held against Victor’s neck. Wade purred softly, his eyes unblinking as he looked at him.
“C’mon, Vicky. You’re gonna walk away from me? After everything we’ve been through,” Wade chuckled softly. The blade slowly retracted, Wade leaning closer and licking his tongue up Victor’s neck before making little licking noises as though tasting him.
“Mmmm. Hint of squirrel. Warning, may contain nuts,” he grinned. “You haven’t changed a bit, Victor. Trouble is, everyone else has. And when you don’t keep up with the world, you end up being a prehistoric creature who’s just gonna get evolved out the food chain.” Wade’s grin flickered upwards. “Sabretooth.”
“Remind me why I wanted your mouth back?” Victor snarled.
“Probably the blow jobs,” Wade said helpfully.
“Hmmmph,” Victor’s eyes narrowed. “You planning to do any of those?”
“Who knows? Places to go, people to kill – for a very reasonable fee, of course,” Wade shrugged. “I’m sure I can fit in a bit of kink for you. Might need to get more impressive shackles though, I’d break the usual sort.”
Victor eyed him uncertainly, not sure what was running through Wade’s mind. It was a lot easier dealing with Jimmy, who had three settings: happy, sad, and fucking annoyed.
“Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”
“Not sure. But I’m not. Perhaps it’s the romantic in me, eh?” Wade mused it over. “Mind you, all those famous romantic stories tend to have death and angst in it somewhere. Great word isn’t it, angst? The way it comes off the tongue so angry like. Angst. Angst. Like a dog bark.”
Victor stepped a little closer, his eyes serious. Hell, it was worth a shot. “Wade, I can help you get back to vaguely normal. You just have to trust me.”
Wade snorted. “And why on earth do I want vaguely normal? I can teleport here! Okay, sometimes I miss what I’m aiming for, but there’s a healing factor to sort out that problem. I can even do lasers, although I’m not gonna do it much. It hurts when I do it, like someone’s set matches alight just behind my eyeballs. What with that and masturbation, I’m sure I’m gonna be blind soon. Oh, yeah, healing factor’ll sort that out, as long as masturbation damage is covered with the policy. Isn’t that good? I mean-,”
Wade’s chatter stopped as Victor pressed his hand over his mouth.
“Okay, enough.” Victor growled. “All of your fancy items are just gonna get you in trouble. You know that, I know that, and don’t say you like trouble. There’s trouble which gets people to snarl at you and then there’s trouble where other mercenaries come and hunt down your hide. And, quite frankly, I want you back to a position where we can get on.”
Brown eyes looked at him dubiously. Victor risked lifting his hand.
“Are we saying get on as in talking, or get on whilst bouncing on the bed?”
“Wade, I doubt whether anything is going to get us to get on as in talking.” Victor raised an eyebrow. Wade chuckled.
“An offer of sex already? You little whore.” he said cheerfully. “And look, I can say that now. Even if you shove your claws in me it won’t matter! Although, please don’t.”
Victor gritted his teeth. “So, you’re going to do it? Come back with me to the doctors?”
“No. But it was really nice to know you still love my cute little ass,” Wade grinned. “I’m afraid the whole ouch factor means- FUCK!”
Wade immediately vanished, popping back further up the corridor with a look of utter disgust and pulling out a syringe need from his backside with one hand. He looked at it, then tossed it aside as he focused on the figure who had apparently snuck up behind him and shoved the needle in the meat of his buttock.
“Still not dead, eh?” Victor commented to Remy. The pup always did have a nasty habit of turning up when he wasn’t expected. “Never mind, there’s still plenty of day left.”
Gambit tilted his head in acknowledgement as he made his way to stand behind Victor’s frame. Victor watched him in bemusement, unused to being used as a shield and certainly to people he disliked. He sniffed, scenting Logan close by. Apparently if Wade wouldn’t go to the trap, the trap would come to Wade.
“Now, I know this is gonna come across badly,” Victor commented to Wade who was prowling forward, eyes blazing and swords extended. “But he,” a thumb jabbed backwards at LeBeau. “was not my fault.”
He jumped backwards as swords flashed through the air, dodging the lethal blows and landing, crouched and hissing, on the ground.
“Yeah, thought you might take it that way,” he sighed, then ran in for the attack; Wade immediately tried to teleport but merely flickered, a look of surprise crossing his face before Victor connected with the younger man’s midsection and sending them both crashing to the ground. Wade struggled to get up, but Victor was putting his full weight on pinning both lethal arms to the floor and within seconds Logan was there, backing him up. Wade struggled, twisting and turning like a greased snake, but neither feral was prepared to give up their hold and once Wade’s speed and agility had been overcome their brute strength was enough to keep the younger man where they wanted.
“Got him?” Logan panted, shaking off a solid kick to the face and putting his knee on Wade’s lower leg to pin it to the ground.
“Kinda,” Victor grunted back, having to tighten his grip before he managed to squirm out.
“Bastards!” added Wade, for good measure. “Fucking bastard squirrels!!”
“And you two have ruined my chance to get laid,” Victor added. Logan snorted in amusement, then leaned his body out of the way to allow Gambit to sneak back in, armed with two sets of very shiny handcuffs.
“Fuck!” They ducked out of the way as Wade’s eyes turned bright red then blazed laser upwards, destroying the ceiling directly above them in one long blast. Victor could hear LeBeau swear, then the brightness shut off as another shiny metal thing turned up to put over his eyes. Clearly adamantium had a whole range of accessories for the discerning customer. Victor growled and slowly got up, eyeing Wade’s shackles before slinging him over his shoulder to avoid the wriggle.
“Well, that was easy,” he said dryly. Gambit was too busy getting pieces of ceiling out of his hair and t-shirt to comment, muttering to himself in random languages as he did so. Logan shrugged.
“No one got massacred. I’d say that’s a result.”
Victor accepted that point grudgingly as they began to make their way back to the room and the waiting surgeons. Yeah, it had been quick, and no one had been physically maimed. That didn’t, of course, mean that injuries hadn’t occurred.
He would just have to see how significant those injuries would turn out to be.
TBC
