Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What do you think we’ll do, when the war is over?” Logan asks Victor, the two of them hiding out under a canopy of trees. The ground and air is wet around them, and each breath feels heavier than normal. Victor doesn’t know where they are, but he doesn't really care. A mission is a mission, and he’s got Logan with him.

“What do you mean?” Victor responds, moving his gun to the left so he can step closer to Logan on his right. He brushes their arms together, and smiles when Logan presses back. “We’ll fight the next one.”

Logan sighs, a scowl on his face. It’s one he makes so frequently that Victor knows exactly what to do. He leans down to kiss Logan, pressing his body into his until Logan has to back up, pushed up against a tree. Logan makes a pleased sound, a hand going up to Victor’s throat.

And then- 

Victor Creed wakes up. 

Nostalgia is hell of a drug, a morphine drip when the world is trying to kill you. 

It’s funny, in a horrible way, the way the world is now. Victor was always curious to see what everyone would be like, with their fears bubbling to the surface, with their blood on their hands. Everyone would be dead, it turns out. 

Curiosity killed the cat, he thinks bitterly. 

No new mutants, any cause or rebelling not worth the dirt they were bled in, and all the olds ones, weak now, and then those killed by their own hero, their so-called savior.

Even Wolverine. Logan . Damn runt went and got himself killed, and for what? Playing hero, getting into those stupid comic books? What good did that do for anyone? The world is still shit- more shit, even, than it used to be. The mutants are gone, the humans win. It's not like Victor even cared about other mutants, but its a real rub, isn't it?

Game, set, match. 

Victor sighs.

It’s just been him in the Wyoming woods for the past year or so, ever since the world has truly gone to shit. He used to be in Canada, but something there set him off, made him think too much of Logan- he killed a whole town that day. The blood was always good in his mouth, on his tongue, but it wasn’t as fun as it used to be. Victor had stood in the middle of town, blood soaking his clothes and the snow covered ground. It looked beautiful, and it did nothing for him.

So. Wyoming.

It’s almost nostalgic, the off the grid little cabin he has, if it wasn’t for the way he absolutely hates it. Though, that too can be sentimental, if he tries hard enough. 

The only thing he has to tie him to the outside world is the tiny radio he keeps in his kitchen; Victor doesn’t know why he listens to it, why he keeps it. What drives him to listen to the stories of humans dismissing mutants as old news, or the updates on natural disasters, or anything at all? 

(He knows why he has the radio. He was lying; he was so good at lying to other people, never tried to lie to himself. Didn’t see the point. He knows why he does everything he does, he knows exactly who he is and why. He has the radio because it’s the only time he can hear a voice that’s not his own.)

Maybe he should be dead, like the rest of ‘em. He knows that most would want it, anyway. 

But hey- fuck ‘em. 

“Fuck ‘em,” Victor murmurs to the sky.

The sky doesn’t answer back.

Victor has the radio on low, mostly just so the silence doesn’t drown him before the liquor he’s drinking does. He’s not really listening to it, not sure even what station it’s on, but he perks up when he hears, ‘Multiple parallel lacerations’.

Hope, like nostalgia, is a dangerous drug. 

Victor gets up from his kitchen table, turning the radio volume up before he realizes he does it, crouching down in front to listen.

“...to major arteries, including the femoral. The thoracic was slashed in those same parallel lines, with hands and legs missing as well. With this attack, we really must ask ourselves- what animal could cause that? I, for one, believe the long extinct tiger may not be as extinct as the government-”

Victor turns the radio off. It didn’t sound like a tiger to him at all. It sounded like a wolverine. 

But that- that couldn't be true, could it? The X-Men are dead. Logan was dead. He’s been dead for 552 days, give or take a few. 

The descriptions though- he knows how Logan kills. He knows that animal. And it sounded like Logan, albeit more messy. It could be him. Logan was so hard to kill, just like him. He might be back. 

Victor missed his birthday last year. And this year. 

Standing up, Victor makes a decision. He’s always been good at finding Logan. 

It takes three days. 

He spends most of that time near non stop driving, his windows rolled down to get a whiff of the runt, but he finally manages to find Logan scent in a seemingly random part of Oklahoma City. 

It leads him to a casino, with everyone on the ground; unconscious, throwing up, or crying in pain, some clawing at their heads. He even sees a few he thinks are dead. Victor can hear an ambulance heading towards them. 

What the hell you got yourself into, Logan? Victor thinks with humor, passing a man sobbing, not for himself, but for the young girl he holds in his arms. 

And that’s when he sees him, rushing around the corner and heading straight towards Victor. 

Logan looks…horrible, to be honest. He’s older, so much older than Victor thought was possible. Victor doesn’t really remember when he was born, and Logan had even less of an idea last Victor knew, but he knew that he had at least a decade or so on the kid. Logan shouldn't look older than him. Logan’s hair, once a dark brown, is the color of sand, grey and white sprinkled in it like ash. There’s deep bruises around his eyes, a scar- a scar - around his temple. Small, barely there blood stains seeping through his shirt.  Blood in his eyes, and on his knuckles. At least the latter was familiar. 

Logan looks horrible, but the sight of him still makes something in Victor’s chest hurt. Victor has to tamp down the ingrained, automatic response in him to cause Logan pain because of it. 

“Logan,” Victor breathes, equally embarrassed and relieved. 

Logan’s eyes widen, and Victor then notices a little kid gripping the back of his jacket, squaring her shoulders and glaring at Victor. Logan’s hands flex where he is holding onto the quilt covered body of- well shit. 

That’s Professor X. Old bastard wasn’t dead after all. 

“Victor,” Logan responds, more warning growl than welcome. The little kid holds on so tight to the back of Logan’s jacket that Victor can see it pull slightly off his frame. 

Victor can tell the runt is thinking of attacking him, planning on where he can put the body of his Professor down, where he can jump Victor so the kid wouldn’t get in it, all the usual stuff. It would be almost funny, if it also didn’t make Victor feel so damn tired. 

“I don’t have time for this.” Logan tells him. 

“Gettin’ hunted again?” Victor questions. He can smell guns and explosives nearby, and doesn’t doubt that the answer is ‘yes’. 

“Victor,” Logan snarls. Victor sees the kid make a similar expression, although silent.

Oh. 

Logan has a kid, a real kid, not one of his stupid students. Victor wonders, in the same way he wonders about all the loved ones of Logan he’s killed, who the brat’s mom is.

What the hell has Logan been up to? How could Victor not know? The kid is what? 10? He was in Logan’s life then, he was there, how the fuck did he have a kid and he didn’t know?

Why the fuck does Logan look like that, why the fuck is he here? What the hell did his runt get into? 

“C’mon,” Victor decides, taking a step towards them. “Let me help with whatever ya doin’.”

Logan glares at him. “You must think I’m stupid, Creed.”

“Nah,” Victor denies. “Yer smart enough to know that you shouldn’t trust me as far as you can spit a whale. But you also are smart enough to know that you look like a stiff breeze could knock you over, and ol’ Victor here is as strong as ever. You got a dead man in your arms, and a brat at yer heels. You need all the help ya can get, pup.”

Logan’s eyes flick from Victor to the kid. He licks his lips, looking behind them. The ambulance- cops, too- are getting closer. They’ll be here any minute. 

“We have a ride.” Logan argues with him.

“You don’t have me.”

“Usually that’s a good thing.”

“Yer right to be suspicious, but what else do you got?” Victor tries. He’s so close to Logan, after what feels like 100 years. He can’t let him get away. “I can smell them comin’ for ya. Can you?” He glances at the Professor’s corpse. “I also got a truck with a cover in the back for your old man.”

Logan’s face breaks a bit, a sliver of despair peering through the rage. “Yer a fuckin bastard, Creed, you know that?”

“Yeah, ‘course I do.”

Logan takes a deep breath, and then a step towards Victor, his kid still holding on to his jacket. “When- if you double cross me, Victor, I swear to fuckin’ God-”

“Yer always worrying about the future, aren’t ya, kid?” Victor shakes his head. Logan could never just be , always worrying, always fretting. It’s a surprise he didn’t overwork his healing factor into a heart attack years ago. Victor turns his back to them, looking over his shoulder as he leads them to his truck. “C’mon, live in the present with me.”

“Fuck you,” Logan growls at him as he follows. 

“You can fight me about it later.” Victor shoots back, opening up the bed of his truck, and taking the dead man from Logan’s arms, more or less ignoring but following Logan’s hissed commands of ‘Careful !’ 

Covered and secured, Victor shuts the tailgate, and gets in the driver’s seat, Logan and his kid already in. “So, where we headin’, runt?” Victor asks as he quickly gets the hell out of dodge. “And who’s the kid?”

Logan doesn’t answer him, surprise surprise, so Victor looks at him, only half paying attention to the road now. Logan’s hands are on his face, shaking, a quiver going down his spine as well. He looks at Victor through his fingers, as if even in this moment of- weakness? Runt’s a lot, but weak never really fit him- fatigue, he thinks he still has to watch out for Victor. 

“I’ll take you back to my place if ya don’t answer.” Victor threatens. He’s bluffing; there’s something almost humiliating about the thought of Logan at his house in Wyoming. 

Logan shakes his head, dropping his hands. He glances at the back of the truck, to his daughter, Victor assumes, before answering. “Somewhere near water,” he croaks. “I gotta bury Chuck.”

Not looking at his daughter, then. 

“Sure,” Victor agrees easily, turning back to the road. He rolls down his window and sniffs. Nothing that smells like a body of water- mud, wet grass, fish, things like that- but this is as good of a direction as any, unless Logan wants to talk and tell him where they’re going. They’ll hit water eventually. “So, good ol’ Professor did a bad, bad thing, did he? Back at that casino? Did ya have to kill him?”

Behind him, Logan’s daughter growls. Victor turns back to look at her and hisses. She doesn’t even flinch. Brat. She raises her fist as if about to punch him, but Logan strikes first, grabbing her wrist. “Stop that!” He snaps at her, before turning to Victor. “He had a fuckin’ seizure.”

Victor hums. Made sense. “He was what, 100? Hell, metal head didn’t even make it that long, and that bastard made us think he would live even longer than us, didn’t he?”

“97. Stop talking.” Logan lets go of his daughter’s wrist and sits back in his seat. Victor glances at the rearview mirror, and sees her glaring at them both. He smiles with his fangs, and she blinks in surprise. 

“So, what you been up to, pup?” Victor asks cheerfully. He really does look like shit. Victor can’t think of anything in the past few years that could have done that to him; sure, everyone that Logan knew is dead, but hell, not the first time, was it? And all those scars the softie keeps are inside, nothing to show on his skin. 

“We’re not doing small talk .” Logan replies disdainfully. He crosses his arms across his chest, almost petulant. 

“No? Just gonna sit there in silence til we find pops a sweet little restin’ place?”

Logan doesn’t respond. He turns on the radio, as if that could drown out Victor’s voice.

“. ..some noting a similarity to the incident almost two years ago in Westchester, New York that left 50 dead, and twice that many injured- ” 

Logan slams the radio off so hard that it dents the plastic frame around the screen. 

“I’ve got a real nice place in Wyoming.” Victor tells him, unable to stop smiling a little at the tantrum, glancing out the corner of his eyes. Logan never was good with his big emotions. 

 Logan doesn’t respond, doesn't even look at him. 

“Heard about a bunch of folk killed somewhere down south, torn apart. They thought it was an animal. Thought the wrong animal though, didn’t they? It was you .”

Logan doesn’t respond. 

“And here I was, thinkin’ my favorite little runt was dead, for nearly two years now. Lotta birthdays we missed, pup.” Victor keeps his tone light, near friendly, even though he knows it does the opposite effect on Logan. He truly doesn’t want to fight, at least before he gets answers. Though, even then… doesn’t look like Logan could put up much of a fight against him, even less than before. One push and he’s in the dirt. 

A dance isn’t worth anything if it's over after the first key.

“If you came here for a fight, drop us off now.” Logan snarls. “I told you, I don’t have time for this.”

“No fight,” Victor promises. Another sniff; He smells water. He gets into the right lane to take the next exit. “C’mon, I ain’t gonna kick your ass in front of your daughter. Who’s her mom anyway?”

Doesn’t really matter- she’s probably dead already. Victor just wishes he was the one to kill her.

“End of the world, and you still want to ruin my life?” 

“Is that what I do?” Victor questions. “Or is it, end of the world, and you still don’t wanna admit what the fuck you are?”

“I know what I am.” Logan snaps. 

“Yeah, you do,” Victor agrees with a smile. “An’ you hated it. How ‘bout now?”

 Logan growls, deep and animalistic, and Victor’s smile grows. “There’s my guy.” 

“I’m not your fuckin’ guy.”

Not anymore, Victor thinks. And hey, he’s never been an optimist, but he’s feeling real good about something right now. He thinks he can change that for the better. 

“Where we goin’ after we bury the professor?” Victor asks again. 

“Stop askin’ me that.”

“Start answerin’ me, then.”

“Kiss my ass.”

Victor, for the sake of keeping his ‘no fight’ promise, decides not to respond to that. “Kid,” He calls back to Logan’s daughter. “Where we headed?”

The kid reaches for her backpack, digging through it, but Logan snaps again before she can get anything- hopefully an address -out of it. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know, okay?”

Victor can see the kids head snap up at that, a terribly familiar snarl creeping onto her face. She growls at Logan, and he glares at her. “It doesn’t fuckin’ exist !” 

The kid shakes her head rapidly, getting increasingly upset. 

“What doesn’t?” Victor asks, getting off the highway and into a smaller road. 

“This fuckin’ make-believe world. Eden. She got it from a fuckin’ comic book.” Logan tells him, not breaking the glare he has on his daughter. “It doesn’t fuckin’ exist, and so we’re not fuckin’ going .“

The kid yells at him, wordless screams of anger, too loud in the small space of the car. Apparently Logan thinks so too, as he shouts, “Shut up!”

She stops yelling, but her face is still that snarl. Makes Victor think of young cats fighting their ma. 

“Okay,” Victor says simply, turning off the road and driving through a semi decent dirt road through some trees. “Tell me more about whatever this is about.”

“Victor,” Logan warns, turning his glare onto him. “Drop it.”

“Have you ever known me to drop something once I get my teeth in it?”

Logan rubs at his eyes again. Victor pulls up to a small abandoned lake. It looks peaceful, he’s sure Logan would appreciate it. 

“You got a shovel?” Logan asks him. 

“‘Course I do.”

“‘Course you do.”

Logan doesn’t want Victor to dig the grave, but also doesn’t want him to hold Professor X at all. He seems protective of the corpse, which Victor doesn’t get. There’s nothing in there that was once the man Logan knew; just a shell, a bag, a sack of flesh. 

Still, Logan touches the center of the dead man’s chest as if he can still get hurt. 

Logan carries the corpse next to the hole he’s digging, and Victor watches from the now near empty truck bed. 

The kid stands hesitantly between Victor and Logan, as if unsure where to go. There’s no tears in her eyes when she looks at the Prof, which Victor thinks is odd; from his experience, kids tend to cry a lot, especially when facing death. 

There’s only rage in her eyes, even more when she looks up and stares at Logan. 

What the Hell happened to them?

“What have ya been doing these past few years?” Victor calls out to Logan, watching as he takes off both his collared shirt and long sleeve, leaving him in his usual tank.

Logan ignores him, and starts digging. The kid watches Logan, before twitching closer to Victor. She doesn’t take her eyes off Logan throughout it, scanning the man with an emotionless face. 

“Where is this Eden place supposed to be, kid?” Victor asks, not looking away from Logan, and a particular pearl of sweat that falls down his temple, his neck, and rests in his clavicle. Logan’s arms flex with each movement, showcasing both strong muscles and scars. It’s a dichotomy he’s not used to seeing on Logan; he’s not sure how he feels about it. 

 The kid’s eyes widen when she turns to Victor, not out of fear, but excitement. She gets closer to him, putting her backpack next to him and rummaging through it. She pulls out a thick envelope, covered in blood, and hands it to him. Tearing his eyes off of Logan, Victor sniffs the envelope- blood not the kid’s or Logan’s- before looking at the writings on it. 

“North Dakota, huh?” 

The kid nods her head eagerly, tapping at the envelope. 

“Laura!” Logan snaps suddenly. Victor looks up and the kid spins around to face him. He’s paused mid dig to glare at them, arms shaking; either from rage, or weariness, Victor doesn’t know. “Get over here!”

The kid- Laura -doesn’t move, just glares at Logan with aversion. 

“Just chattin’ with the kit, no need to bite her head off.” Victor says breezily, honing in on the way Logan's hands flex on the shovel handle, opening three cuts on his knuckles. A thin bead of blood falls down from the middle knuckle, dropping into the grave he’s digging.

 Can’t even heal those now, can he?

“I don’t want you talkin’ to her.” Logan tells him.

“Then you talk to me, runt.” Victor replies, hopping off the truck bed and strutting towards Logan. He stops in front of him, Logan in his half dug grave, and the Professor between them. “So: What the fuck have you done?”

Logan, staring straight into his eyes with his upper lip raised in a snarl, doesn’t respond for so long that Victor starts to think he’s not gonna. “Takin’ care of Charles, mostly.” 

“Yeah? How’d it feel to take care of the Mutant Messiah?”

“ Don’t fuckin’ call him that, asshole.” 

“He acted like it, back then. Called us next step in God’s plan. Or was that Magneto? You know, it’s funny. I sometimes forget which one said what, who thought what. Magneto hated the damn humans, yeah, but which one thought it was all part of a greater plan? Who said we had to be better than we were- and what did that mean to them?” 

“Got real into philosophy in your old age, didn’t ya, Creed?” Logan sneers. He’s still shaking. It’s not from weariness- or at least not only because of weariness- or rage, Victor realizes: this is Logan when he’s so filled with remorse that he doesn’t know what to do with it. In the past, it would always turn to different emotions, ones Victor could handle with more ease; anger, disgust, contempt. He wonders which one it’ll turn to now. 

“You know me, a real thinker.” Victor shoots back smoothly. “What the hell you thinkin’ about, pup? What’s rummaging around in that lil head of yours?”

Logan doesn’t respond right away, although Victor didn't expect him to. He surprises Victor though, by saying, “He called me a disappointment.”  

Victor didn’t see that coming. Logan says it like he’s admitting something, but not answering Victor’s question. Victor looks into the waxy face of the man at his feet. The quilt is up to his chin, revealing his open mouth and blank eyes. “Hm. Why’d he do that?”

“I said we’re God’s mistake.”

Victor laughs softly, surprised. “You believe in God?” He didn’t know that. 

 Logan shrugs, suddenly looking even more exhausted. He leans more heavily on the shovel, avoiding Victor’s eyes. 

“C’mon, who cares what a God would even think of us?" Victor asks. 

“He did. Kurt did. Kitty did.”

“Yeah, and that helped them a lot, didn’t it, cupcake?”

Logan closes his eyes, asking tiredly, “Why are you helpin’, Victor?” 

“I’m bored,” Victor answers, a truth, but not the reason. ‘Course it’s not the reason. Logan should know that. He didn’t do all he did for Logan, all he did to Logan, to stave off boredom . 

“Bad things happen when you’re bored.”

Victor hums in agreement, a wide smile on his face. “Yeah, ain’t it a blast?” He gestures to the shovel in Logan’s hands. “Give me that, pup. I feel like ya kid could beat yer ass right now.”

“She could,” Logan groans, shaking his head. Victor wonders if he sees Laura perk up at that. “But I have to do this.”  

“That cross feel heavy on your shoulders, or what?” Victor grabs the shovel, not taking it out of Logan’s hands, not yet. “Sit down, runt.”

“ I can’t. ” Logan hisses at him. He rips the shovel out of Victor’s hands, and goes back to digging. “I can’t.”

“You don’t always gotta be a damn savior , kid-”

“I’m not being a savior, I’m being a decent-”

“Oh, decent, are ya?” Victor takes the shovel away from Logan now. “Since when?”

Logan punches him in the face. 

It hurts; Victor can’t pretend that it doesn’t. Logan seems more breakable now, but he’s still strong, and he’s still got those metal bones. Victor feels his nose crack a bit, and then immediately heal. 

He growls at Logan, picking him up from the front of his shirt and throwing him down next to the body of his Professor. He’s pissed, but in a way he can control. The anger is soothed a bit by how weak Logan’s punch was. It hurt, but not like it should.

Laura makes a sound, some sort of yell, but she doesn’t rush towards them. Victor gives her a brief look, sees her scan the both of them as if looking to make sure she knew who her enemy was. 

“I don’t know if you got the news, sweetpea,” Victor says to Logan, who stays on the ground, wind knocked out of him and seething. “But there’s no sides anymore; Just people survivin’. So if you wanna go back to playing big bad cat and scary wolverine, let me know, but until then, how about you accept some fuckin’ help ?”

“I hate you,” Logan growls. Victor believes him. While Victor would prefer Logan’s feelings veer more on the other side of the spectrum, he doesn’t really mind Logan hating him- At least Logan feels strongly about him. 

“Who doesn’t,” Victor replies, picking up the shovel off the ground.

He digs a grave for the Professor, Logan sitting on the ground next to the corpse. Laura comes and sits next to him, a good two feet of distance between them. Logan refuses to let Victor drop Xavier in the grave, demanding he do it himself, as well as burying him. Victor, feeling like he won by forcing Logan to let him dig the damn hole, decides not to fight him on this. 

Laura gets up to stand next to him, closer than she was sitting with Logan. She’s not close enough to brush her tiny shoulders against Victor, but she’s close enough that he can feel her body heat. He wonders if she’s trying to get comfort from him. Strange.

Logan uses the shovel almost like a cane when he finishes burying the Professor, hobbling up to them. He stands next to Laura, staring at the grave he and Victor made. 

“Well,” he croaks. “It’s got water, and…and it’s…it’s got water-”  Logan shudders, knees shaking, and Victor barely has enough time to catch him before Logan drops. The shovel hits the ground with Victor, Logan in his arms, the runt’s temple pressed against Victor’s chin. Victor can feel his whole body shake. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Chuck, I’m sorry-” Logan sobs this over and over again, seemingly unaware of anything else around him besides the dirt pile in front of him and his own guilt. His hands dig into the ground below them, fresh dirt burying him to his knuckles. 

“Pup,” Victor tries, unsure what to do with this. He’s not used to Logan being this heartbroken, not used to Logan not leaning into more acceptable forms of expression like violence and revulsion. 

Laura comes up from behind them, and places a hesitant hand on Logan’s back, crouching so she could face him. She catches Logan’s eyes and he stares at her, wide eyes. She stares back as if she’s trying to tell him something. If she is, it’s something Victor doesn’t understand. She puts her free hand over Logan’s in the dirt, tiny fingers curling around his wrist, an imitation of holding hands. 

“Fuck,” Logan curses, breaking away from their touch. He heads back to the car, slamming the passenger seat after he climbs in, leaving Victor and Laura on the ground, in the dirt.

“He okay?” Victor asks Laura, knowing the answer. He just wonders if she does.

Laura shakes her head. Good, so she does know. 

Victor gets up and goes back to the car, Laura close at his heels. Logan has his face in his hands when Victor gets in, but he quickly drops them. 

“So,” Victor starts the car once Laura gets in the back seat, pulling out back towards the dirt road. “North Dakota?”

“We’re not goin’ to North Dakota.” Logan tells him. Victor waits a second, but just like he thought, Logan doesn’t actually tell him where they would be going, if not fuckin’ North Dakota. 

Victor feels a pull on his sleeve from behind him, and he quickly looks back at Laura to see what she wants. Face serious, she shows him… a comic book.

“What’s that?”

“That’s fuckin’ Eden, Creed.” Logan answers, grabbing the comic book away from Laura. Victor can see a drawing of Professor X holding coordinates, the same ones on the bloody envelope. “Her nurse made this shit all up, read to many fuckin’ comic books, made Laura believe in Fantasyland. You hear that?” Logan turns to Laura, waving the comic book in her face. “Doesn’t exist.“

She glares and growls at him, swiping the comic book back. 

“Nurse?” Victor questions, latching onto that. “What the hell is goin’ on here?”

With a deep sigh, Logan tells him. 

“So, she’s a clone?” Victor asks when Logan has finished telling him the story, glancing at the girl from the rearview mirror again. She scowls. 

“No. Yes. I don’t know. She’s my daughter.”

Victor scoffs. “Obviously.” 

Logan just sneers at him. 

Laura tugs on Victor’s sleeve again. He looks at her through the rearview mirror, and meets her pleading eyes. They don’t do anything to move Victor’s heart, but still…

Victor pulls over on the side of the road to properly face Logan.

“What the fuck are you-”

“I think we should go to North Dakota.”

Logan rears his head back in shock. “What? Why the fuck? I’m not gonna risk our life to take the kid to a place that doesn’t exist.”

“Oh, yeah? What the fuck else is there to do? Wanna drop the lil pup off on the side of the road and get outta here?” Victor mocks. Logan won’t, he knows he won’t, but he also knows that Logan needs to hear it be a suggestion before he realizes he won’t.

Laura growls again, glaring at him. He ignores her, or at least tries to, but she then punches him in the side of the head. It hurts even more than the punch Logan gave him. 

“You fuckin’-”

“ Hey -” 

Both he and Logan talk over each other, but are both cut off by Laura leaping between the two of them and punching Logan in the face, much like Logan did to him.

“Don't fucking hit me!” Logan yells at her, grabbing her wrist mid her next swing.

“Don’t do that again.” Victor warns her, grabbing her by the back of her jean jacket and pulling her towards him, making her face him. She snarls in his face. Logan lets go of her wrist, but keeps his hand up, like he needs to stop this somehow but doesn’t know how. “Don’t ever fuckin’ hit us again. You hear me? People want ya dead, kit, and it’s me and ya dad that are making sure they don’t do that. But if you ever try that shit again, I promise I won’t make a big effort to protect ya. Understood?”

Laura seethes, trying to shake herself out of his grip. She can’t. 

“Victor, let her go.” Logan finally makes a decision and grabs at the arm that holds Laura, pulling at it. “She gets it.”

“I wanna hear her say it.”

“She doesn’t talk !”

Laura’s nose twitches. Bingo. “Nod ya head if you understand, kid.”

Laura nods her head, and Victor lets her go. She crawls back to her seat, glaring at him. He stares back cooly, and Logan keeps his hand on his arm. 

“Yer real pissed at me, aren’t ya?” Victor asks her. She nods again, face a silent snarl. “ Good . Remember this, kit: Your rage will save you when no one else can.” He turns to Logan, who’s watching him with wide eyes. “You think Eden is fake, she believes in it. Why not go anyway? Either she’s right and you can get the kid off your hands, or she’s wrong, and we spent three days driving, which we’re gonna do anyway, because you have no clue where to go.”

Victor pulls back onto the road. “Smile, you two. Everyone’s gonna get what they want.”

Neither of them say anything back to him. 

Soon after getting back on the road, Logan falls asleep, leaning his head against the window.

Victor would be the first to admit- to himself, if not others- that he was deeply familiar with how Logan breathes. He knows how he breathed when he was just flesh and bone, the easy, smooth breaths he would take. He knows how he breathed when he was flesh and metal, how each breath was shallower, but faster, as if he had to make up for the fact that his ribs couldn’t expand as much.

His breathing right now is different from either of those. It’s shallow, yeah, but it sounds like he’s barely getting enough air in his lungs before he has to breath out, a faint click-clacking sound with each exhale. It sounds too much like a death rattle for Victor’s comfort. 

“What’s wrong with him?” He asks the kid, glancing back at her from the rearview mirror again. She just frowns at him. “C’mon kid, you can talk. I can see it in your eyes. You may be his kid, but I know you got some words in ya.”

Her frown deepens into a familiar scowl. Then, softly, as if she didn’t want Logan to wake, she says in Spanish, “I can talk.”

Victor is vaguely surprised by the Spanish, but maybe he shouldn’t have been; while Alkali was a Canadian company, the kid was raised in Mexico. “Good, that means you can answer.”

“Charles told me that he’s dying.” Laura whispers, still in Spanish. “He wouldn’t tell me why.”

“He tell you anything else?”

Laura hesitates. “He said Logan wants to die.”

Victor sighs, glancing at Logan. “He doesn’t wanna die. Not really.” Laura makes an inquiring sound, prompting Victor to continue. “Logan hates himself- Hates what he is. Always been tryin’ to hide it, or change it, or fix. Never really worked. He says he feels guilt, though I don’t know what he has to feel guilty about. He use to say the killin’, but I bet you’ve seen him kill more people than you can count, can’t ya, kid?” She makes a face at him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. See, he doesn’t wanna die, he just doesn’t wanna be him.”

“ Is he a bad man? ” Laura asks nervously. 

Victor knows about morals; he just doesn’t have any. He knows that killing, torturing, and eating people is considered wrong. He doesn’t care. He had too much fun with it, enjoyed it all too much to give a crap. Victor is a bad man, no way to sugar coat it. He knows this, accepts this, loves this.

Logan is a different beast than him, although still a beast. 

He never liked the taste of blood in his mouth, not like Victor did. He didn’t blink at those he killed, sometimes able to smile over the body, produce a quip or two. He used to leave the torture to Victor, but he always stood next to him during it, and after he left, when he was an X-Men, Victor had seen him use those pretty claws to get information out of people. 

He may say he feels guilt from the blood on his hands, but that never stopped him from spilling it.

“He’s complicated.” Victor answers. He can tell Laura doesn’t like that answer, but that’s too bad. “Things are almost always complicated once ya leave yer cage, kit.”

“ Are you a bad man? ”

“Oh, yeah, can’t you tell?” Victor answers easily. “That’s one of the simple things.”

Logan wakes up when the sun is almost about to fall, a good handful of hours after falling asleep. He wakes to Laura flicking the lock in her door on and off again, something she does every 2 seconds, close enough to a pattern that Victor was able to ignore it. Apparently Logan wasn’t- how Logan lived at that school so long, Victor doesn’t know.

“Stop that noise.” Logan grumbles, lifting his head off his window. Laura flicks the lock on and off again. “Stop that.” Logan snaps. Laura continues. “Fuckin’ stop that.” Laura glares at him, and he glares back. 

“You two always yellin’ at each other?”

“Fuck off,” Logan huffs, cracking his neck. It creates a sort of sharp metallic echo in the car. 

Victor can hear Laura huff in the back, and glances at the mirror to see her press her face against her window. The corner of Victor’s lips twitch up. 

“What are you smilin’ about?” Logan questions. Victor looks at him briefly, sees him lean against his seat heavily, like the rest he had hadn’t rejuvenated him. His head is angled up a bit as Logan looks at him, revealing his throat, and in particular a scar that looks like a scald or a burn, hidden under his shirts and jacket, but peeking up until mid neck.

Victor catches his eyes and Logan holds them. Logan’s eyes are hazy and bloodshot, but they still shimmer with all the things that make Logan himself. Victor wonders what Logan sees when he looks into his own eyes. Eyes are the window of the soul, they say. Victor ponders what that means for him. Everyone knows he doesn’t have one. 

“Just enjoin’ the company.” He’s so distracted from Logan- story of his fuckin’ life- that he’s almost too late to swerve the car out of the way when one of the big trucks next to them inch into their lane.

“How ‘bout you keep your eyes on the road, Creed.” Logan tells him dryly when Victor course corrects. 

“I fuckin’ hate those AI trucks,” Victor hisses instead of responding. “They’re made too fast to be anything but cheap shit that’ll break and not know a fuckin’ car from a shadow.”

Logan snorts a laugh, absolutely at Victor, but Victor is startled enough by the sound of his laughter- when was the last time he heard it? Years, had to be years, more years than Victor wants to think about. 10? 15?- to not be upset beyond a faint exasperation. 

“Wyoming, huh?” Logan asks, seemingly apropos of nothing. 

Eyes of the soul, Victor thinks again, before opening his mouth to reply when-

A horn from one of the trucks blasts through the air, the truck itself not just inching into their lane, but fully merging into it.

Victor pulls the wheel as fast and sharp as he can, swerving out of the way again. He overcorrects, though, veering completely off their side of the road, and into the incoming traffic. 

Laura and Logan shout, and Victor can hear the duo sounds of snikt as Logan releases his claws into the ceiling of the car to steady himself, Laura doing the same. Victor manages to get them to the shoulder, facing the right way.

“ Fuckin’ AI trucks,” Victor cusses once they’re settled. Logan keeps his claws in the ceiling, breathing heavily, but Laura rips her hands away, revealing the two metal claws Logan told him she had. Snikt! She resheathes them, glaring out the road. 

“Shit,” Logan agrees. The three of them watch as another truck pushes someone off the road, this one a family with a horse trailer, the trailer tipping and opening its door, letting the horses run free. “C’mon, let's go before more of these things break down.” Logan resheathes his own claws.

Victor shifts the car into reverse, but Laura hits his shoulder to get his attention before he can move the car. “What?” he turns to look at her, annoyed. 

She points to the horses and the family who try to corral them, eyes wide. 

“What, never seen a horse?”

She makes a ’yes, but’ face, pointing harder. 

Victor looks at Logan to ask him what she wants, but Logan is suddenly hit with some sort of coughing attack, turning his head away from them and hacking into his elbow. Victor is caught off guard by this; he knew Logan was sick, can smell it, Laura told him it, he can see it, but to hear it…It’s disturbing.

Laura, the little brat, uses Logan’s brief distraction of dying to her advantage, hopping closer to Victor and speed whispering, “ We should help them, Charles would want to help them.”

She glaring at him while saying this, and continues to glare when Logan is done coughing out a lung, completely unaware.

Victor doesn’t want to help these people. He doesn’t care about them, and would be just as likely to kill them than leave them. That, and the fact that they stopped to bury the Professor so close to where they were running from, means stopping again probably isn’t the best idea. 

“What do you need, Laura?” Logan asks, voice hoarse now. She points to the horses again, more aggressively. Logan looks at her blankly.

“She wants to help them,” Victor tells him, derision clear in his voice.

Logan raises a brow at him, before looking to Laura, who nods her head vigorously. He shakes his head at her. “We should keep moving.”

Laura makes a face at him like she smelt something bad, and then quickly, before Victor or Logan realize what she’s doing, gets out of the car. 

“Laura!” They yell in unison, ignored as Laura bounds over to the family, both her and the teenage boy almost getting hit by those damn AI trucks.

“Nate!” The woman shouts to her son as he tries and fails to round up the horses. “Get off the road!”

“God fuckin’ damn it,” Logan hisses, getting out of the car after Laura.

Victor parks the car and follows after him. “She’s your kid, alright.”

“ Shut up .”

The two of them chase after Laura, Logan trying to get to her before a truck or a horse can, Victor a step behind him. He whistles loudly as they get closer to the horses, causing all of them to huff and slow down.

Victor was always good with animals; it made hunting easier. He clicks his tongue, and one of the horses heads towards him, curious. He pats the bridge of its nose to let it know it should stay here. With this one horse off the road, the father and son are able to wrangle the other two horses, Logan getting the last one. 

“You, uh, need a hand?” Logan asks the father, handing him the reins of the horse he had.

They help the family move their truck and trailer off the ditch, Logan and him pushing against the front of their truck while the father and son push off from the side of the car, and the mother inside pressing on the gas, all while Laura looks at them from Victor’s car. 

“Laura.” Victor calls once they’re done, prepared to go. He didn’t care for this helping business. She ignores him, and heads towards the trailer where the horses are, jumping up on a bar to get a better look inside. 

“Thank you so much for your help.” The mother smiles at them politely but honestly. Victor feels his skin crawl. She puts a hand out for a shake, which Logan takes for the both of them. “I’m Kathryn Munson, and this is my husband Will, and our son Nate.” 

“James. Howlett.” Logan introduces himself like this is the first time he’s done it, words clipped and awkward. 

Jesus wept, this guy. 

She looks over the both of them, before glancing at Laura. She seems to make a decision of some sort, as she turns to Logan and asks hesitantly, “Is that your daughter?”

“Yeah. Laura.” Logan answers with a frown. “And, uh, this is Victor, he’s, um…”

“His partner,” Victor cuts in, because it’s true, even if Logan doesn’t know it, even if it's not the kind of partnership he knows this woman will take it as. It’s him and Logan, though. Him and Logan. 

“Oh!” Kathryn’s eyes widen, but she quickly smooths her expression out. Her husband doesn’t react more than raised brows. Logan, meanwhile, glares at Victor. He puts a hand on Victor’s lower back, outwardly to help showcase their ‘partnership’, but Victor hears the familiar metallic noise of his claws, and feels the tips dig into him, not quite breaking skin and getting his spine. 

Victor grins widely, putting an arm around Logan’s shoulders and pulling him in, pushing the claws in deeper, just deep enough that Victor feels some blood go down his back. Logan puts his claws back in, and Victor keeps his arm around him. 

Never bluff a bluffer; Logan still doesn’t get that.

“Where you all headed?” Will asks. 

“North.” Logan answers shortly. 

It’s easier pulling out teeth than talking to this man sometimes. Victor would know. 

“Can we give the three of you a decent meal, show our appreciation?” Kathryn asks. “We don’t live far from here.” She adds. 

Hm. Victor drove straight for 5 hours before finding Logan and Laura, and then continued to drive almost the whole day, minus when they buried the Professor. He could go on for much longer, but the idea of food is extremely tempting right now. 

“No, thank you, we can’t-” Logan cuts himself off, calling out to Laura, who is still looking at the horses in their trailer, “C’mon, Laura, let’s go.”

She makes a face at him, but does as he says. 

“Please.” Kathryn tries again. “It’s the least we can do. And you’re going to have to stop for dinner somewhere.”

“She’s gotta point, sweetpea.” Victor says, putting a hand on Laura’s shoulder to make sure she doesn't run off again, when she stands next to him. “‘Least this way we get a free meal.”  And if the ones after Laura and Logan find them, here’s three people in the way, able to slow those bastards down enough that he, Logan, and Laura could escape; living shields. Victor smiles at the Munsons, charming and pleasant, and with no fangs. A smile that’s gotten him into places when slashing and tearing people apart wasn’t the route to go. 

“I-” Logan cuts himself off, frowning deeper at Victor, before looking at Laura. “I…”

Live long enough, and you start to see the same sort of people, over and over again. Very rarely do you meet someone brand new, someone you’ll never meet again. Victor has only met one, and he’s sitting down in this nice little middle America home with him.

Victor knows this family, as he’s known hundreds of others like them: families that work hard, believe hard. The Lord will save them, something they believe in even at the end, when there’s more of their blood on the ground than in their bodies. All they know is the land they work and eat and shit on. Small people, small minds, small worlds. Happy people, usually. 

The Munsons- and Logan, always pretending- keep their heads bowed and eyes closed as they say Grace, setting Victor’s teeth on edge. Laura and him keep their heads up, the kid looking around at all the photos and decoration, the little people’s little place. She makes eye contact with Victor in her look around, eyes wide, and Victor winks at her. She smiles at him. 

Strange kid. He’s gettin’ sorta fond of her. 

“​​We thank you, Lord, for this food... and we also thank you, Lord, for sending our new friends, the Howletts.” 

Victor smiles. The Howletts. Isn’t that just something to hear?

“They came to our aid.” Kathryn adds with a smile. Victor wonders how fast her smile would drop if she knew who and what exactly came to their aid, how ridiculous the notion is. “Amen.” She and her family finish.

Once everyone opens their eyes and puts their heads up, Laura wastes no time trying to dig in, dipping her fingers into her mashed potatoes and shoveling them into her mouth. Victor doesn’t stop her, figuring that while he eats human food neater, he eats humans much more messily, and can’t really judge the kid. Logan however, taps her shoulder and gives her her fork, a tired look on his face. 

Victor nods thanks to Will who hands him the bowl of corn, puts some on his plate, and then hands it to Laura. She scoops some corn on her plate, and is about to do it again, when Logan takes the bowl away from her. She makes a face at him, and he just gives her that same tired look, shaking the bowl, waiting for her to put the spoon back in. 

“Hm-hm.” He hums when she does.

Victor watches as Kathryn and Will make eye contact, their son looking between them.

“There’s plenty more if she wants.” Kathryn tells Logan.

“She’s fine. Thank you.” Logan looks at Laura as he says this, the kid happily shoveling so much of the food in her mouth that her cheeks puff out. 

Logan’s not really good at this whole ‘father’ thing, Victor thinks. The kid might not be good at the whole ‘daughter’ thing either, but Victor doesn’t know. Maybe that’s what a kid is supposed to act like. Hell, he was never good at being a child, being a son, but his father didn’t help matters. 

Well, Logan hasn’t chained her up in a basement and torn out her claws, so it’s not like he’s the worst father ever. Victor is reasonably sure Laura won’t try to kill him anytime soon. 

“Were you all heading?”  Will asks them.

Small talk. Logan probably doesn’t want to do that, so Victor answers with a lie, “Wyoming.” The same moment Logan answers with his own lie, “Oregon.”

They look at each other, Victor raising a brow. You wanna fix this?

Logan makes a face at him.

 “We’re travellin’.” Victor continues to lie smoothly. “Cross country roadtrip, and all that. Final stop is Oregon before we start headin’ back home.”

Victor looks over at Logan with a smile, fake for the humans but real for him. Logan is still looking at him, although he’s giving him a strange look, like he’s trying to figure something out. 

“That sounds lovely.” Kathryn smiles at him. “I’ve been trying to get Will here to take a vacation for years now.”

“And if we go out traipsing around the country, who’s gonna take care of this place?” her husband argues.

“Exactly. I say, ‘let it go.’”

“And live off what?”

“The Lord will provide.” Kathryn answers.

It takes everything in Victor not to jeer at them. Logan must sense it, or maybe see it, still looking at Victor, as he gently kicks him in the leg under the table. Laura looks at them as she eats low to her plate, feeling the vibrations of the kick. Victor, in a minor act of defiance against Logan, rolls his eyes at Laura. She smiles at him, and when he looks back at Logan, instead of the frown he was expecting, there’s that curious look again. 

Victor wonders what he’s thinking; wonders if after this, he can get Logan to tell him.

“So, how long have you two been together?” Kathryn asks Victor and Logan. 

“Oh. Um. Uh-” Logan flounders, seeming to remember the not-really-a-lie Victor gave them.

“Long time.” Victor answers. Laura perks up at that, interested.  “Been chasin’ this man for most my life, it seems.”

“Victor.” Logan scolds for some reason. 

“What?” Victor laughs. “C’mon, you know it’s true.” Smiling coyly, Victor tells the Munsons, “Knew almost from the moment we met this was the guy for me. He’s a hard one to convince though. Gifts don’t do nothin’ for him. Never had a head for poetry. A real battle it was.”

“ Victor .” Logan repeats, looking down, almost embarrassed, more likely indignation. Laura giggles, and the Munsons smile at them. 

“But, hey,” Victor continues. He leans behind Laura and taps Logan’s chin up with his knuckles, bringing Logan’s eyes to meet his. “Gotcha in the end.”

And he did, he will. He feels it to his very bones. He doesn’t know if this Eden place is real or not, doesn’t know what they’re gonna face while on the way there, but he knows this: Logan is gonna stay with him. He has to. 

Logan takes his hand away from his chin, and then, surprising Victor, holds it. He’s got that curious look on again. 

“Well, that’s sweet.” Kathryn declares. “True love.”

“Hm.” Logan grunts vaguely, dropping Victor’s hand. 

“What about you, James?” Will asks as Victor goes back to lean in his seat. “What’s your view of your husband’s great whirlwind romance?”

Husband. That, like being called the Howletts, delights Victor. 

Laura’s smiling face dims a little, getting back to her critical, analyzing look she gets when Logan talks. 

“Uh,” Logan stumbles again, not looking at any of them as he responds. “He’s been a real pain in my life, to be honest. Even when we were…friends, never had a moment's rest with him.”  Logan snorts a laugh, semi bitter sweet. “But he’s all I have.”

It’s too honest to be a good thing to say about a long term partner, Victor can see that in the Munsons’ faces, but to Victor, it’s the most delightful thing he’s ever heard. 

“You’re making me blush, punk.” Victor tells him honestly.

 Logan looks up at him; he doesn’t meet his eyes, but he does smile, soft and hesitant, but still sad. Victor smiles back, and almost forgets to hide his fangs.

That’s when he feels Laura tug at his sleeve. “Hm?” He looks down at her on his side, and sees her frown up at him. It's not the near constant angry frown she usually has, more sad. “What’s up, kit?” She tugs at his sleeves again before standing up, and heading straight out the front door.

“Laura!” Logan shouts after her, standing up alongside Victor.   

“Is she okay?” Kathryn asks worriedly, hands clutched to her chest. 

“We should go.” Logan says instead of answering, because really, did they know the answer?

He hears Logan dole out half hearted thanks and compliments for the meal, but Victor doesn’t pay attention. Whatever’s happening with the kid is more interesting than that, and so he heads outside to her.

She didn’t run off, like Victor half thought she would. Instead, Laura is leaning against his truck, arms crossed, her face turned down in outrage.

“Got what you wanted. Get in the car,” Victor tells her. “We’re leavin’.”

Laura turns her face towards him, glaring. 

“What?” Victor asks, exasperated. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re all he has.” Laura says bitterly. 

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

“ What about me? What about Charles ?”

“Kit.” Victor shakes his head. “Charles is dead.”

“I know that! ” She snaps. “ But -” She makes a small noise of outrage. “It’s his fault! It’s his fault Charles is dead. He wants people to stay but he takes them away himself!”

Logan was always good at pushing people out. Still. “It’s not Logan’s fault the old man had a seizure.”

Laura snorts angrily, a very Logan sound, but doesn’t say anything. Victor hears Logan head out the Munson’s front door and decides to drop it. Whatever reason Laura’s little freak out, whatever reason for Laura’s fake muteness with Logan, he doesn’t want to get into it.

“What was that?” Logan asks Laura when he reaches them, tired and embarrassed, but mostly looking mad.

Laura, of course, doesn’t answer, just gets in the car, slamming her door closed. 

Logan rubs his face, dragging it down and over his eyes. “Let’s go,” he mutters to Victor, patting his shoulder as he goes by. “I’ll drive.”

Victor spends his time in the passenger seat watching Logan. Logan obviously knows this, but doesn't comment on it. 

That meal was good for Logan, maybe. He seems less stressed, the tightness in his shoulders loosening a little bit. He still has that permanent furrow between his brows, something that’s been on this Earth longer than some people’s lives, but the rest of his face seems almost slack. He looks like he took a long rest. 

The kid stays silently fuming in the car for so long, Victor is only able to tell when she falls asleep by the sound of her breathing, about an hour into the ride. 

Logan must be able to tell when she falls asleep too, because he says to Victor, “You were almost good tonight.” The words are something like praise, but the tone isn’t. The tone is hesitant, like he doesn’t know how to properly compliment Victor, or maybe like he doesn’t know if this would be a compliment to Victor. 

“Ya thought I was gonna kill them?” Victor asks, as if that’s something out of character for him. He’s killed more for less. He’s killed more for nothing. 

“‘Course I did.”

“And you still let us go with them.” Victor notes. “You’ve changed, pup. Maybe I’ve changed, too.” He hasn’t, not really, not in any way beyond weariness. He’s tired of being alone, and he has a real opportunity, like never before, to keep Logan- and beyond that, an opportunity to be kept by Logan. He’s not gonna ruin that for some cheap thrills.

Logan snorts disbelieving, shaking his head slightly. 

They sit in comfortable silence, just the world whipping by them, and the sound of the car, and Laura. 

“You’re good with her.” Logan nods towards Laura, asleep in the back, almost accusatory. Victor doesn’t quite understand why. He doesn’t think he’s particularly good with the kid, to be honest. He doesn’t understand why she decided he could be trusted with her secret of silence, why she tried to tell him she wanted to help the Munsons, why she tried to tell him she wanted to leave, and not Logan.

 “Yer not.” Victor replies. He’s not accusing, he's just telling the truth. Logan knows it, of course, but the ‘why’ of it all tickles Victor’s brain. Why is it that Laura likes Victor better than Logan, why is it that it’s so hard for Logan to be with her?

Logan doesn’t respond. The tightness is back into his shoulders. 

“We should get a motel tonight.” Victor states. Logan jolts a bit, and Victor smiles with teeth and fangs. “Just somewhere for the three of us to rest our heads.”

“You think it’s a good idea to stay in one place for so long? After that dinner?”

Victor shrugs. He leans comfortably against his seat, still unabashedly looking at Logan. He keeps glancing out of the corner of his eyes, nervous like, as if Victor will pounce on him. “Told ya back at that casino, runt. Ol’ Victor is strong as ever. I’ll take care of ya kid and you.”

“Is it strange, tryin’ to save someone instead of killin’ them?”

Victor remembers a time in the early 50s, the early days of Team X, that he and Logan infiltrated an abandoned mine shaft that was being used as a base of operations. They killed those soldiers, yes, but one too many bullets hit one of the support beams, putting almost the entire mine down on them. 

Logan, smaller than him, afraid of the type of deaths that involve suffocating, had panicked when he saw what was happening. Victor had made a split second decision, and when the walls and ceiling started caving in, he pushed Logan to the ground, and got on top of him. He hid Logan’s body under his, bracketing it with his arms and legs, and let the mine shaft fall on him. He held up all he could, and then more, ignoring the bits of stones and broken wood that pierced his body, the weight of the Earth trying to crush him. 

Logan had looked at him with wide eyes. They were trapped there, but with the way Victor was over him, Logan could breath, and wasn’t impaled on anything. Logan had touched his face, and had to slap him awake every time Victor almost passed out. Their faces were so close, they breathed each other’s air. 

They were there for almost two days before the rest of Team X found them.

“No; just a little rusty.” Victor finally answers. 

“Yeah,” Logan replies softly, and Victor is surprised to hear it sound like commiseration. 

They find a motel an hour later. Logan goes in to pay, and Victor gets Laura out of the car. At some point she got a toy horse out of her bag, and is holding it to her chest. He puts an arm around her back and under her knees to lift her up, like he would do with a corpse. She murmurs something in her sleep when Victor picks her up, aggressive yet weak, but quiets down once her head lands on his shoulder. He moves his hands so she can get more comfortable, to go back to sleep, and one of her little hands goes towards his chest, holding onto his shirt with the same level of intensity she holds the toy horse. Her face smooths out, and Victor hears and feels her make a happy little sigh. 

Victor tries to recall the last time he held someone this gently. He can’t remember. 

He hears Logan’s footsteps walk towards them, and then stops. Victor looks up from her face to see Logan standing a few feet outside the motel office door, looking at them as if they were a ghost.

Victor moves a hand up from Laura's back so she’s resting more on his forearm, and covers the ear not resting against his shoulder. “What?” he whispers to Logan. 

He sees Logan’s throat move, hears the clicking noise it makes when he swallows. 

“This way.” Logan mutters, talking a step back, still looking at them, before turning around and heading to one of the motel doors. 

Shaking his head, Victor follows him. 

Logan opens the motel door for him and Laura, and closes it behind them. Victor scans the room. Two beds, each with a single bedside table, are neither extremely clean nor fairly dirty. A nothing room in a nothing state in this nothing world. 

Victor places Laura on the bed farthest from the door, and the kid automatically curls into herself, fetal position, horse tucked in close. 

Victor takes a step back to look at her. 

Logan’s possible clone mutant daughter. Feral little kid who won’t talk to her father, but will to Victor. Who wanted to help the horse family but needed to leave them. Who apparently is great at killing but is worried about Victor and Logan being bad men. 

He doesn’t understand children. 

Victor gazes back at Logan, who was watching them both, a shine to his eyes. 

Logan looks so damn sad, Victor doesn’t understand it. Victor takes a step towards him, but Logan shakes his head. 

“Ya drove a lot.” Logan murmurs to him, nodding towards the other bed. “Rest up. I’ll head back in a few.” And with that, Logan leaves the room, closing the door behind him.  

Victor sighs. He takes off his jacket and places it in the lone coat rack in the room, closes the curtains to the small window in the room, makes sure Laura is really asleep, and then heads out to Logan. 

He’s pacing on the sidewalk next to their motel room, that same sad expression on his face.

“What’s got you all twisted inside, pup?” Victor asks, hands in his pockets. “Haven’t seen you this worried since, hell, the seventies.” The 70s being, of course, when Logan left him. 

“You wouldn't understand.” Logan tells him wearily. He sits down on the small bench in front of their motel window, head in his hands, elbows resting on knees. 

“You want me to?” Victor asks. He could probably try, if Logan wants. Logan is probably right, though, and Victor wouldn’t get it. Whether he’s troubled because of his kid, or the loss of the Professor, or just the guilt he still feels he has to carry for the lives he’s ruined, the people he’s killed, Victor doesn’t know; but he does know that if it’s any of those, Victor can’t reach him there. He’s alone in that. 

Logan shrugs helplessly.

That weight on his shoulders is gonna drag him down, Victor thinks. Talk to me, dammit.

“You’re dying, aren’t ya, pup?” Victor says, more statement than question. He knows Logan is, and Logan knows Victor knows he is; he just wants to know why . 

He wants to know why this is the world they have to live in, why he can never reach out to Logan like Logan needs, why Logan can never reach back to him like he wants. Wants to know why this is the best hand he could have been dealt, the company of this dying man. 

Logan lifts his head out of his hands, and scowls at Victor. “Fuck off.”

“Come off it,” Victor goes to sit next to him on the bench. “Ya smell sick, half dead already. Don’t think I didn’t notice those pretty little red spots through your shirt. What happened to ya?”

“The Adamantium,” Logan admits after a moment of harsh silence, lightly poking at the small blood stains seeping through the dark fabric of his shirt. “Caught up to me.”

Huh. Guess the procedure wasn’t the dangerous part of that whole deal after all. 

Victor glances behind him through the small space in between curtains into the window. Laura is asleep on her side, lil face scrunched up and knees to her chest, holding that toy horse.

“So what, this whole goose chase is a dyin’ man last wish? Yours or the Prof’s?” 

“I don’t deserve her.” Logan whispers, following Victor’s eyes. He lowers his head in shame, in absolution, as if Victor can do anything about that. “I’m not good enough to-to-” Logan’s scowling face twists, looking away. 

“What happened to that bleedin’ heart of yours, pup?” Victor questions. Logan was always trying to be better than they were, and has been for almost as long as they knew each other; takin’ in kids, fighting the ‘good fight’, tryin’ so fuckin’ hard to be what he thought he could. 

It’s kinda nice to see the runt open his eyes to what they are, but more than that… He doesn’t like it when Logan looks defeated. At least when it’s not because of something Victor did. Victor always loved it when he was able to get the kid to look up at him with those wet eyes, his breath shallow and fast. The way his body used to be so open, almost like how he once was with Victor. 

He misses their fights. 

“Bled out.” Logan responds tiredly. He closes his eyes as though it physically pained him to keep them open. His breath was shallow, but it’s slow, like each inhale and exhale was a struggle. Victor can hear the tickle in his lungs, the way the air forces itself in and fights to get out, a fight it sounds like it’s losing. 

He looks so fuckin’ old , Victor can’t help but keep going back to that. He looks half dead- Hell, he smells half dead. Being this close to him, without the smells of the road, or Laura, the running car, the Munsons, Victor can smell it so clearly. The poisonous blood in his body, the bruises rising and staying, the rot that sticks to his joints. It’s like talking to a corpse. 

Victor remembers one time, sometime in the 1960s, leaning too far down into Logan's space. It had hurt his lower back, but he didn’t care. They were at a bar, in between missions, in enough cups that they both could feel a nice fuzz in their heads, but not enough that it wouldn't go away in an hour. People were staring at them, glaring really, but no one would have dared to say shit. 

“Could stay together, forever.” Victor had said. “You and me…”

“Forever is a long time.” Logan replied easily. He didn’t lean up into Victor, but he didn't move away. He liked making Victor chase after him, back then. 

“Long time is all we have, sweetheart.” Victor had leaned more down; he absolutely was hovering now. Logan’s lips had twitched up, a barely there smile, and he hooked his ankle around one of the rungs of Victor’s stool. He didn’t pull Victor closer, just kept that connection between them, and Victor had taken it as a promise: forever. 

But then Logan thought he was too much. And then Logan left. And then Logan forgot him, forgot them. And then the only time Logan and he could touch each other was to draw blood. 

And now they’re here, together again, but Logan is dying . 

“You got regrets?” Victor asks him, leaning back against the bench. His shoulders touch Logan’s, such a small thing to notice now. Victor’s got a few regrets- less than he knows the world wishes from him, and none what they hope. All his regrets revolve around Logan, one way or another. 

Logan hums vaguely, eyes still closed. His brows furrows in a familiar expression of pain. “You?”

“Wish I was in your life more,” Victor says honestly, even though what he really meant was ‘wish you were in my life.’ There’s an important distinction between the two, and he doesn’t know how to tell it to Logan. It used to be easier, saying what he wanted, needed , from Logan, even when Logan was trying to truly kill him, and Victor near it. He knew they could heal from it, so it didn’t matter. It matters now. Oh, hell, it matters now. 

“Wish I was in ya life less.” Logan shoots back. 

That hurts, but it’s the kind of pain that Victor expects from Logan.  “Yeah,” he sighs, a small smile on his face. “You know, I missed you, pup.”

Logan snorts, finally opening his eyes and turning his head to face Victor. “You miss tryin’ to kill me, blondie.”

“If I ever really wanted ya dead, you wouldn't be here, and ya know it.”

Logan scoffs, shaking his head. “Gotta big head, Creed.”

Victor laughs, and he sees Logan look at his fangs. 

You’re dying, Victor thinks when he quiets down, looking into Logan’s bloodshot eyes. How much time we got?

“Hey,” Victor says, always one to dive in, ignoring the risks; Always jumping out of planes without parachutes. “Let me fix one regret of mine, before ya keel over, will you?” 

Logan’s brows furrow, drawing attention to the scar on his temple and the wrinkles around his face. 

How much time we got?

Victor leans in before Logan can ask what he means, cupping Logan’s jaw with as much of a gentle touch that he is capable of. Victor hears Logan’s breath hitch in surprise half a second before pressing his lips to Logan’s. They’re calloused and cracked, more pronounced by Victor’s own contrasting soft lips. Victor kisses him like he never kissed him before, like he never will kiss him again. He keeps his movements as light and careful as he can, aware of the precious and fragile thing in his hands right now. Logan is dying; he can’t heal like he should. Victor can’t touch him like he used to. 

With a shudder, Logan starts to kiss back. Victor feels one of Logan’s hands hesitantly go to the back of his neck, dry fingers scratching at his nape before curling themself in the strands of hair that has escaped Victor’s bun. Victor jerks, which seems to embolden Logan, his other hand going to Victor’s arm, hand tight on his upper forearm. They twitch a little, as Logan tilts his head a bit to the side, and Victor realizes that Logan is silently asking for him to come closer. 

Victor does, and when Logan opens his mouth, Victor can taste cheap whiskey and blood that’s too metallic. 

I love you, Victor thinks with a sort of desperation that fills him with rage. He pushes more into Logan in response, and has to stop himself using his fangs on Logan’s mouth. Logan makes a broken sound from the back of his throat, and pulls gently at Victor’s hair. Victor’s chest burns with emotions. I’ve loved you. 

When Logan pulls away, his breath is unsteady, as if he’s close to tears. He is, Victor realizes, when he opens his eyes. There’s a wetness to them, and Victor doesn’t think before leaning in again, and kissing the corners of one. Logan shudders with his whole body, pressing his forehead against Victor’s.

“One of your regrets was not kissin’ me?” Logan mocks, the whispering tone of the words and roughness in his voice taking out any bite. 

“Nah,” Victor denies. He decides to take another risk, and runs his fingers through Logan’s hair. He thinks it's thinner than it used to be, but he can’t be sure. “Regret not rememberin’ the last time we did kiss.” 

“I don’t believe you.” Logan says, as familiar of a dance as their fights. Logan hated him too much to believe there was a time he trusted Victor, let alone more than that. He knew they were friends, but not more than that, and barely that at all.

It’s not like Victor helped his own case, to be fair. 

He’ll be as honest as can be, right now, though. 

“I know you don’t,” Victor acknowledges. “Doesn’t change it, though, does it?” He leans in to kiss Logan again, and Logan meets him halfway. Victor wonders if the muscle memory is there, if not the actual memory. Wonders if Logan’s body knows their long history. Victor lets his hands wander now, feeling the fast flutter of Logan’s heartbeat against his neck, then his chest. The coarse chest hair peeking through his shirt, scars and cuts on his skin that's hidden by his beard. 

Victor pulls himself away from Logan’s mouth- enjoying the slight sound of protests that escapes Logan- and leans down to scrape and kiss at Logan’s neck. The angle causes a slight pain in his back, but that’s nostalgic, and makes it better. Logan’s breath catches, and the hand in Victor’s hair holds on tighter. Logan smells the strongest of death here, in the crook of his neck, but it’s Logan’s death, so it still does it for Victor. And maybe he can use it to his benefit, at least in this moment. Maybe he can finally leave a mark on Logan, something that Logan can keep. 

“We’re in front of the window, Laura’s inside.” Logan gasps. 

It’s not a stop , or a no , and Victor continues. He sucks a bruise right where Logan’s beard meets his neck, and watches as it stays. “The blinds are closed, and the kit is asleep.” The hand near his elbow moves up, Logan’s fingers slipping under Victor’s rolled up sleeves. Fingertips touch the crook of Victor’s elbow, and for some reason, it is one of the most intimate things Victor thinks he has ever felt. “It’s just us here, sweetheart.”

Logan shudders again, and pulls Victor off his neck and back to his mouth. 

“Still,” Logan mutters around a kiss. 

Victor doesn’t know how bad Logan’s hearing is now; he doesn’t know if he can hear the birds a mile away fighting over prey, or the dogs down the block snoring, or the A/C of the rooms at the motel, like Victor can. He hopes the only sounds Logan can hear are the ones they make together. 

Victor moves his hand to Logan’s lower back, leading him onto his lap. Logan starts to fight this, snapping, “Not here.”

“Ya think we’re gonna get up to something more than neckin’ outside?” Victor laughs, because during their whole relationship when in Team X, they never actually did more than that. Logan scowls at him, a pinkness rising to his cheeks that Victor can’t help but find adorable. Silly little pup. “C’mon, Tiny Dancer,” Victor stands up, pulling at Logan's arms to lead him to his car. “Lay me down, hold me closer.”

Logan lets Victor lead him to the car, crawling in the back. He leans against the car door on the other side, a hesitant look in his eyes as he watches Victor get in and shut the door behind him. Victor wonders if he’s thinking of their fights, when Victor would have him crushed, or pinned, and then would stalk and loom over him. 

Victor crawls between Logan’s legs, puts his hands back around his face. Logan’s hands go to his hips, barely there. 

“You look like you wanna eat me.” Logan comments, which is a hilarious thing to say to a man who has eaten people before, so Victor laughs again. Logan’s lips twitch up, his familiar barely there smile, and Victor’s chest hurts again. 

“Well, come on then, cupcake.” Victor kisses Logan again, and then again, and again. “Feed me.”

That startles a laugh out of Logan, but the moment of happiness that it causes in Victor quickly fizzles out, as the laugh turns into a wet cough. Logan leans out of Victor’s arms, turning his head towards the car floor. Logan’s coughs shake his whole body, making his face twist up in pain. Victor can hear his lungs spasming around half taken, aborted breaths, even after the coughing dies down and Logan lays back down against the car.

There’s a moment of silence, the only noise being Logan's wheezy, unsteady breath. He ignores Victor’s eyes, but doesn’t hide his face. Victor can still see the pain from the furrow of his brow, and the embarrassment in the downward curl of his lips. 

Victor has never been one to comfort, has barely even tried. He doesn’t know what to do for Logan, but that’s not new. He didn’t know what to do when Logan was unhappy with Team X, didn’t know what to do when Logan didn’t know him, didn’t know what to do when the only way he could touch was to hurt. He doesn’t know what to do now. 

Logan always did that, bring out the worst in him; made him feel childish, unsure, weak. It didn’t matter to Victor, really, that sort of vulnerability. He used to chafe at it, certainly, made sure to hurt Logan as much as Logan hurt him when it seemed like that’s all they could do, but- well, when he thought Logan was gone, he missed it. It was lonely, in his chest and his head, thinking that Logan was dead. He’ll be the loneliest when he sees Logan die. It can’t be long now; Victor can smell it. 

I lost you once, Victor thinks, and then swears, I’m not gonna lose you again.

“C’mere,” Victor murmurs, drawing Logan back in his arms. He’ll make this good for Logan, he’ll be as sweet as he can feasibly be with who he is. I love you, rings around in head again, because he does, he did, he always will. He’s never been good at showing it, not in any way Logan wants, but he can right now. He has to. His normal touch would break Logan, so he has to change it if he wants to make this last. “C’mere.”

I’ll have you forever, pup, even when you’re gone.  

Victor cups Logan’s jaw again, guiding his mouth back to his, and Logan goes back to grabbing the back of Victor’s neck. Victor, careful not to scratch, grips Logan’s shirt to pull him closer, as close as he can get him. Logan’s own hand goes to Victor’s wrist, holding him there. The back of Victor’s car really is not the best spot for this, Victor too big to get real comfortable, but he can make this work. He leans forward, still holding Logan’s shirt, and makes Logan fall back. Still between Logan’s legs, Victor pulls off Logan’s collared shirt,  the shirt pooling around Logan’s arms as he won’t let go of Victor, and then pulls at his other shirt. “C’mon,” Victor growls against Logan’s lips, fangs tucked in his own mouth. “Help me out here, pup.”

There’s a clicking sound as Logan swallows. He pulls away, finishes taking off his collared shirt, and then pulls off his other shirt, before finally his tank, leaving his chest bare. Victor’s hands follow the movement, feeling out the shape of Logan’s hip bones- too prominent- to his stomach-still strong- and his chest- covered in scars and wounds.

He looks like shit; he’s still the most beautiful thing in the world. Victor kisses the center of Logan’s chest and tastes more blood, dried and old. He looks up to look Logan in the eyes, and sees him look back, afraid. Strange; he doesn’t think he ever saw Logan look at him that way before. Horrified, absolutely. Disgusted, more times than he could count. But scared ? “Don’t worry, I won’t bite.”

Something about that must have given Logan a bout of bravery, because he tugs at the neckline of Victor’s Henley. “You too, handsome.”

Smiling wide, Victor leans back as much as he can, taking off his shirt in one fluid motion. There’s few differences in his body since the last time he had any intimacy even close to this with Logan, over 65 years ago, so if Logan liked his body then, he must now. And hey, the man deserves a show. 

Logan’s eyes scan his face and body, the pretty pink in his own rising. He smiles hesitantly, and Victor leans back down to kiss him. Logan kisses back with a fervor, his hands scratching up Victor’s back, down his arms, pulling him in. Victor slows them down when he hears Logan start to get out of breath already. He crawls down, kisses under Logan’s chin, his Adam's apple. “Settle down, punk.” Victor’s lips brush skin, and he can sense so much of Logan right now. Can taste his skin, the old blood he never washed off; Can smell Logan’s own blood, and the poison, but also his arousal, his fear; Can hear his heart fluttering like a bird, his shaky breath. 

“I’ll be good,” Victor promises, the only time he’s ever said it and meant it. He kisses Logan right next to a half healed bullet wound on his left pec and Logan jerks at that, his hips dragging against Victor’s stomach from the angle. Logan gasps, the hand in Victor’s hair tightening almost painfully, pulling strands loose from the bun. Victor groans, pressing his forehead against Logan’s skin. He wants to open his mouth wide, and bite, but he can’t. Logan would bleed, and stay bleeding. His fragile little frail. 

“Yer never good.” Logan argues, always arguing, even as he moves his hips slowly back up against Victor, again and again. 

Victor crawls further back, and kisses Logan through his jeans, holding him gently but firmly by his hips to stop him. Logan lets out a barely audible ‘oh’ . “I’ll be good,” Victor repeats, opening Logan’s jeans and pulling them down just enough. He kisses Logan again, this time through his boxers. “It’s a night of firsts, pup.”

Logan only gets out, “Heh,” in response, more air than laughter. He pulls out the tie that keeps Victor’s hair up, just to grab a fistful of it. 

Victor pulls Logan’s boxers down and under his balls, freeing his half hard cock, only to quickly take him in his mouth. Victor hears Logan’s breath get caught in his throat, before letting out a surprised moan. Victor bobs his head, letting out a pleased purr when Logan sighs peacefully, like a weight was just taken off his shoulders. Logan’s hip jerks up in response, and Victor decides to let him, forcing his body to ignore it when the head hits the back of his throat. He takes Logan as deep as he can, until his nose brushes the greying hair at Logan’s base. He’s careful with his teeth as he swallows, trying to make this as sweet and nice as he can handle. The way Logan gasps and moans, shuddering in Victor’s arms, Victor thinks he’s doing a pretty good job at it. 

He looks up, a sudden burning need in his chest, that he had to see Logan’s face, had to see that he actually was doing good for him, was making him feel good. But when he looks up, he sees that Logan has turned his head away, an arm across his face. Victor can only see his mouth, partially covered by his beard, open and panting. 

That’s not good enough. He wanted this for so long, Logan can’t hide from him with this now.

Victor pulls off with a wet ‘pop’, leaning up on his forearms on either side of Logan’s hips, hands holding him down. Logan makes a sound of discontent, but doesn’t remove his arm or do anything to look at him. 

“Move yer damn arm, pup. Let me see ya.” 

Logan grumbles softly, no words, and doesn’t move his damn arm, so Victor leans back and away from Logan, on his knees in between Logan’s legs, torso curled down from the roof of the car. 

“Goddamn it, Creed-” Logan moves his arm to glare at Victor, face flushed and eyes shining. Victor slips his hands between Logan’s shoulders and the car seat, and pulls him up, pushing Logan so he’s on Victor’s lap, knees bracketing Victor’s hips. His spit-covered cock rubs against Victor’s abs, and Logan twitches in his arms, his hands going to Victor’s shoulder’s for balance. 

“I’m trying to make something good for ya, old man.” Victor complains, moving one hand up and down Logan’s back, the other going to hold Logan’s cock, rubbing his thumb along the head. 

“Yeah, yer a real philanthropist.” Logan twitches again. It looks like he’s fighting against the pleasure, trying to hide from Victor what he’s feeling. 

“Big word for ya,” Victor grunts, kissing him again. Logan meets him, open mouth, and Victor smoothly moves his hand on Logan’s cock. He jerks him leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world. As if they were in one of the nice bedrooms Victor had before the world killed them, and not in the backseat of his 5 year old car. As if Logan loved him. “The world’s so full of shit, ain’t it?” Victor murmurs against Logan’s lips. “All this damn hurt ya got, it’s burying you before you’re even laid in the ground. But don’t worry, sweetpea, I know all about pain. I’ll take care of ya.”

Victor moves his hand off Logan’s back to his head, tilts it so that Logan has to look him in the eyes. His eyes are wide, flickering around Victor’s face. “And all I want is just to look at ya, Logan. I just wanna see.” 

“That’s not all you want.” Logan challenges, moving one of his hands off Victor’s shoulder and between his legs. He presses his palm onto Victor’s hard-on, rubbing his thumb along the zipper. 

“Yeah, well,” Victor knocks his head against Logan’s, rubs their temples together as Logan undoes his pants and takes his cock out. His hand is rough and dry, and it hurts, but it’s Logan. Wouldn't be him, wouldn't be them , if it didn’t hurt at least a little. “All I want from you is to look at me. I’ll handle the rest.”

“Just lay here and look pretty for you, Victor? That it?” Logan pulls back and raises a brow at him, cocky, so Victor does a particular twist with his hand, and Logan’s face immediately stutters, both relaxing and tightening. Pleasure and pain always looked the same on him.

“You’ve always been real pretty,” Victor agrees, because it’s true. Logan scowls, an embarrassed look crossing his face. Victor lets go of Logan, and spits in his hand. He goes to stroke himself, one, two, three, before taking Logan in his hand as well. 

They moan in unison, the feeling of their cocks rubbing against each other making Victor feel light headed. Logan moves his hips in time with Victor’s hand, small motions, like he can’t find it in himself to really go for it. Old man, Victor thinks, horribly, painfully fond. 

“Ah-” Logan grunts, hands going back to Victor’s shoulders, squeezing the muscles, nails digging in. “ Victor .”

“I know, pup, I know.” Victor moves his hand faster, moving his own hips up, more powerful than Logan’s, pushing them into each as much as they can in this moment, grinding and stroking. 

The more Logan seems to enjoy it, the more he tries to look away, avoiding Victor’s eyes as he pants and moans. He stares at Victor’s hand on them, and Victor can only see the crown of his head. 

“Look at me,” Victor demands again, embarrassingly desperate. Please, don’t leave me. You can’t leave me now. “Look at me, Logan. You’re takin’ all of me, let me get all of ya.”

“Victor,” Logan says again, voice catching. He moves his head up an inch, looking up over at him through his eyelashes. Victor has seen that look so many times, over so many years, over a gun, a glass, a set of claws, both bone and metal. 

Victor runs his thumb over his tip, spreading precum across the head and his thumb, and moves his hand more, doing the same to Logan’s.

Logan makes a garbled sound, deep in his chest, and leans in to kiss Victor. His mouth is moving against Victor’s, tongue tracing a fang, when he suddenly shudders. It turns less into a kiss, and more Logan pressing himself into Victor’s mouth as hard as he can as he comes, staining Victor’s hand, Logan’s own chest, and stomach.

“Fuck,” Victor grunts, opening his eyes, having closed them during the kiss, to look at the mess Logan made. He takes his hand off Logan, and moves his hand faster on himself, using Logan’s cum to slick up the already smooth passage. 

Logan makes a small, oversensitive noise as Victor still grinds against his now softening dick, but doesn’t move away. “Yeah,” he goads, sucking in a ragged breath, burying his face in Victor’s neck. “Keep goin’, Creed.” Logan is panting into Victor’s neck, breathing him in, still squirming on his lap, and all Victor can smell is Logan; Logan’s sweat, his cum, his blood, his hair, Logan, Logan, Logan.  

Logan said Victor was all he has; doesn’t he know it’s the same for Victor? That all he has, all he wants, is Logan? 

“Fuck,” Victor repeats. He’s close. He buries his nose at the base of Logan’s skull. He still smells like death; he still smells like Logan. He wraps his free arm around Logan’s back, pulling him in, an imitation of a hug. Logan is broad, but Victor still feels like his hand envelopes so much of Logan. He kisses the back of Logan's neck, and whispers, “I’ve loved you,” simply because this is a night of first, of getting rid of old regrets. He loved this bastard and now the runt is dying. He has to say it. “I’ve loved you through it all, through the worst of me. Even when I was hurtin’ you like never before, I loved you. I’ve loved you for 82 fuckin’ years-”

“Ya talk too much,” Logan cuts him off, pulling away just to look him in the eyes and put his hand over Victor’s on his cock. Just like that, Victor comes, an animalistic growl coming deep from his chest. Victor doesn’t notice Logan hitting his hand away, but he must, because it’s Logan’s hand stroking him through his orgasm, Victor doing nothing but holding on to him.

They both take a moment trying to catch their breaths. Tired of sitting hunched over in the back of his car, Victor leans back down on the seats, leading Logan with him. Logan follows without complaint, resting his head in the crook of Victor’s neck.

“You’ve gotten soft in your old age.” Logan murmurs to him, wiping his hand off on Victor's chest. The hand on his chest feels so nice, Victor doesn’t even care about the mess.

“Look who's talking, punk.”

Logan grunts, but doesn’t reply. He sniffs at Victor’s neck, and Victor feels that pain in his chest. Deciding not to ruin this nice moment, he blindly gropes between the driver’s seat and the center console until he finds a pack of wet wipes.

“What the hell you have that for?” Logan questions, mocking humor in his voice. 

“Sometimes I eat when I’m drivin’, I don’t wanna stain my clothes.” Victor defends, glaring. Just because Logan always been a fuckin’ slob doesn’t mean he has to be. 

Logan snorts, his barely there smile crossing his face, nearly out of Victor’s view. “Nancy-boy.”

Victor wants to bite him, and kiss him. Instead, he wipes his own chest, then the front of his jeans, before getting a new wipe. He rubs Logan’s chest, more as an easy excuse to feel him up again, than to actually clean him, although he still gets the job done. 

Logan grunts, but doesn’t stop him, which is basically a ‘please’. 

Victor throws both wipes on the floor, and relaxes. He pulls Logan closer to his chest, stroking his fingers down Logan’s forearm, feeling the blades just beneath the skin. 

“Put your dick away.” Logan commands, leaning slightly out of Victor’s grasp to pull up his boxers and pants, tucking himself back in and zippering up. 

Victor doesn’t, and Logan doesn’t ask him to again. He leans back against Victor, and Victor greedfully holds him, sniffing and kissing at his hairline. Logan doesn’t say anything, but Victor can hear his wheezy breath, the stutter of his chest against his own. Their little romp took a lot out of him. 

Feeling the sickness against him like this, hearing the broken breathing, thinking of the way Logan coughed like he couldn't stop, fills Victor’s chest with lead. 

He's really, truly, dying. For no good fucking reason, he’s dying, and Victor can’t do shit against it. Victor doesn't know what he’s gonna do when the runt is gone. 

“So,” Logan starts, voice quiet and rough. His lips brush against Victor’s throat, and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “You loved me, huh?”

He says it like he doesn’t believe it, which is fair. Still, Victor gives him a look that he knows Logan can’t see, one that he knows sets Logan’s teeth on edge: A look that just says Logan needs to catch up.

“Obviously.”

“ Obviously ,” Logan repeats, shaking his head, inadvertently nuzzling Victor. Victor preens. “You call all that shit, you lovin’ me? Killin’ ones I care about? Attackin’ me?”

“I said it back there, didn’t I? Knew from the moment I met ya that yer the guy for me.” Victor shrugs, pressing his lips to Logan’s forehead so Logan could feel the smile overtaking him. He thinks his smile is charming; Logan used to as well. “All I got to show for it is my passion for ya, precious.” He moves a hand up Logan’s forearm, his bicep, his neck, until he’s brushing his jaw, nails lightly scratching at Logan’s greying beard. “Sorry if that’s not enough for ya.” 

“Victor….” 

“Yeah?” Victor moves Logan’s face up so they could face each other. The runt is frowning, that wetness back in his eyes. It’s not just his body that is more breakable now. Victor has to remember that. “What is it?”

Logan licks his lips, the same hesitant look falling over his face as it did in the casino. He opens his mouth, and Victor hears a scream. 

It’s not Logan- its young and high pitched, though it has the same berserker rage behind it like Logan does.

Laura .