Creed's Credo

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. I'm not making any money. Sure would help, though; real life sucks.



Author's Note: Roe and I spent a lot of time co-writing the dialogue in this chapter, even though it veered slightly from the intent of Broken, Part I. But more good stuff is coming, slowly but surely. THanks for the feedback so far, we've really appreciated it.





*



“I don’t know why yer wastin’ my time, kid. What if I’m just here for a fuck?”



Logan glared. "Bullshit, Vic. You know that there's more to it then just a fuck with Remy. Even Remy knows that. What's that shit about you and him bein' together."



"We were together, mec. I ain' gon' lie 'bout it."



"So you fucked 'im. And you didn't fuckin' tell me about it. Why." Logan shrugged emphatically, throwing up his hands.



"You know why, chere.



Logan felt Remy's shame leaking through their rapport, despite Remy's attempt at projecting calm. Remy took his hand, feeling Logan's body tense beneath his touch.





"Ya would've hated me."



Logan gritted his teeth and closed his eyes before sighing. "I hate you, Vic,” he told his rival. And I...I love you, Rems. You coulda told me. I wouldnt'a blamed you, darlin'. I woulda blamed him. He's the one that fucked you. He's the one that...that made you believe he loved you. He don't love nothin’ or no one. He's an animal. A beast. Nothin' more." He clasped Remy’s nape roughly and tugged on his collar. "You didn't know he was gonna do that. Hell...you even tried ta stop it from happening. That's how ya got them damn scars,” he added, nodding to them. “From him, the fuckin' asshole. Why'd you do that? He was tryin' ta save ya from doin' somethin' stupid. From doin' somethin' you didn't want to do."



"Who said the Cajun didn't wanna do it? He was gettin' paid, runt. Same as me." Logan treated him to an icy glare, nostrils flaring.



“Just cause he was gettin' paid fer it, doesn't mean he knew what ya'll were goin' to do. He was tryin' ta save peoples lives...and you were tryin' to take 'em." Remy felt a frisson of guilt but said nothing.



"I ain't the first killer the kid's thrown his lot in with, Shorty. Ya know he ran with the Assassins Guild, back in the day. Even married their little princess. Ya lay down with dogs, ya get fleas. Rem here likes layin' down with dogs, 'specially me. Remy knows I'm a killer. Hell, he knows yer one, too. Ya ain't any better than me, runt."



Logan growled and narrowed his eyes. "He only dealt with the fuckin' guild 'cause Jean Luc wanted ta get the two guilds together. So they could work in harmony. It ain't like he wanted ta be with that lil' bitch. And I only kill when I have to. Not because I want to. That's the difference between us Vic. You have no soul. I do."



"Some soul,” he sneered. “Ya enjoy the kill. Ya won't admit it ta yer sweetheart, here, but ya do. Takin' a life's my way of life, Jimmy. And deep down, ya love it just as much as I do. It's a fuckin' rush."



"He ain't yer fuckin' sweetheart, Vic. And don't call me Jimmy. I don't enjoy the kills. Do you know how many times I've wanted to kill you fer killin' an innocent? How many times I have ta hear... have ta hear Remy screamin' from his FUCKING nightmares about you? Killin' people?"



"That ain't the only reason' he's screamin'." Victor’s tone held a suggestive note, and smugness teased the corners of his mouth.



"I know... I know he screams and cries, because of how that sick fuck 'worked' on him. But you didn't do him no good, either." Vic chuckled at Logan’s justified rage, enjoying himself for a moment.

"Yeah. Sinister did a number on 'im." For a moment, Vic sobers, and the yellowish, feral gleam recedes from his eyes, leaving behind shadows in their blue depths.



Remy looked at Victor and sighed softly. Taking the feral's hand, he squeezed it gently. "You did you're best, cher. Remy knows you did your best to save 'im. And he appreciates that, cher. Remy does. But Remy also knows dat Logan don' feel dat rush like you do. I seen dis man wracked with guilt when he ends up havin' to kill people. Especially those who don' deserve to die."



Victor's fingers instinctively squeezed Remy's back, and memories flooded back to him, partially drowning out the voices in his head. But he stiffened, and his eyes hardened again.



"He feels the rush. Don't lie ta yerself, kid. And yer givin' me an' you both too much credit.” He freed himself from Remy’s grip, shaking him off like he was a gnat. “Yer fuckable, I'll give ya that." Logan huffs, irritated but not surprised. "Ya think I was tryin' ta save ya? Ya think I cared that much?"



Remy's eyes hardened as well. "I know you did cher. Remy knows you cared...still care...because Remy can feel it in you. So don' lie to me, cher," he said in a low, threatening tone.



"Not any more than a kid cares fer a shiny toy truck. I like ta play with ya, Remy. Love playin' with Jimmy here, too. Had some good times, didn't we, Shorty?"



Logan stood and lunged towards Victor, claws drawn. Sliding his claws into Victor's throat, he snarled. "We...didn't...have fun, you SICK fuck. And I ain't Jimmy. And you ain't yer dad. So shut the FUCK up."



Victor grinned savagely, savoring the cold bite of his rival's gleaming talons. Warm blood oozed from the shallow cuts. "Ya could've called me Daddy, if ya wanted. Woulda made it more fun, runt. Are ya havin' fun now? I can hear yer heart pounding. Smell that adrenaline. Smells good."



Remy was up in a shot from the bed, charging the first item that came to hand. He flicked the cigarette he was about to light, and the red, crackling projectile landed against the back of Logan's neck, startling him.



Logan jerked and then whipped around, snarling at Remy, in full feral mode. But he returned his full attention to Victor, and he stabbed the man over and over again as he growled and roared out his anger and frustration, remembering the rape over and over and over again.



Remy ran to him, jerking Logan's arm back, but Logan's fist flew back, striking his jaw with a loud crack. Remy staggered back, stunned.



Logan, free of the distraction, continued to tear into Victor. He'd never admit it, but it felt too good to him to cut him, to feel his claws rending his flesh, to cause him pain. Victor hardly defended himself.



He gets off on the pain. It feeds him.



"Ya like that, Jimmy! Huh? Ya like that!"



"NON! LOGAN! DON'T, CHER!"



Logan panted and snarled before removing his bloody claws, as Remy's frantic cries came through to him. "Why the fuck not darlin'. You know what this bastard did to me? He raped me. The fucker...raped me." Logan’s voice was thick and hoarse, but it rose in volume with the damning words.

"Warned 'im. Told him I'd get off, no matter what." Blood spattered Vic's cheeks and neck, but he looked satisfied. He ran his fingertip through a streak of it on his neck and tasted it.



Logan shuddered and closed his eyes, turning his head as he cracked his neck. "And how would you like gettin' raped."



Victor shrugged. "That's what fancy folks call a matter of semantics."



Remy knew this was his fault. He pushed them both.



"Dat true, Vic?" Remy tried to keep his voice steady, but his hands shook as he lit another cigarette. He backed away from both men, feeling too saturated in their anger and bloodlust to think clearly.



"This what ya wanted, sweetheart? Three of us, talkin' 'bout our feelin's?"



Logan sighed softly and shook his head. "If I wouldnta agreed to this, this wouldna happened."



Victor's smile was evil, and his bark of laughter made Remy's stomach lurch. "Sure it would've. It'll keep happenin' til one of us is dead, bub. This is what turns ya on."



Remy's heart was still pounding and his skin felt clammy. "Is it?" he asked hollowly.



Logan shook his head sadly, and his face suddenly looked older. "No. This ain't a turn-on, darlin'. It fuckin' tears me apart."



“Nah.”



Remy and Logan heard the telltale click of Victor’s talons extending from their beds too late to recognize it for what it was. “This fuckin’ tears ya apart, runt.” Victor drove his hand up viciously and swiped his claws across Logan’s middle, nearly eviscerating him. “YEEEAARRGGHH!”



“MERDE!”



“Ya like that?” Victor hissed, completely lost in the thrill of getting Logan back. His eyes shone an eerie gold; the predator inside him awoke fully from its uneasy sleep, breaking Remy’s empathic connection with him completely.



“LOGAN! LOGAN!” Remy shouted, horrified by the gouts of blood spilling onto the carpet, and by Logan’s chilling grimace.



“Darlin’…get outta here!” he rasped.



“Stick around, sweetheart,” Vic spat. “We ain’t through talkin’ yet.” Victor backhanded Logan, making him stagger and fall. In an instant, Remy forgot everything he knew of Logan’s unbreakable bones and stubborn healing factor. All he saw was the man he loved…



…about to be killed by the one man who broke his heart.



He reached into his pocket for his cards, and the suite crackled with kinetic energy as he charged himself. Both ferals felt the hair on their necks stand up on end. Logan fought to stand, but Victor lunged at him again. Remy flicked the first card, letting it spin neatly through the air. Victor hissed in outrage as it sizzled across his throat, barely missing his jugular. The burnt flesh stung more than the puncture wounds, and he looked stunned for a moment. “Yer aimin’ high now, Gambit? Ya woulda made a better Assassin, eh?” But he was on Logan again, and Logan’s hands were drawn back, claws still gleaming with Victor’s blood. Logan roared at him, eyes screaming at Vic, Come get me, ya sonofabitch!



His hand flew out, fingers cupped in a familiar position that Remy recognized too well.



He was going to cut out Logan’s heart.



Dat ain’t an option.



Logan braced himself for the strike and prepared to swing on him, aiming again for the giant’s neck. But his attack stance was broken by the one hundred seventy-five pounds of desperate Cajun who’d never forgive himself if the rendezvous he’d planned resulted in the men destroying each other, the one thing he promised them, and himself, that he wouldn’t let happen.



Logan’s eyes widened in horror as Remy shoved him out of range of Victor’s strike. “REMY!” he bellowed. His anger had a new, painful focus, mingling with the horror that strangled him.



It happened so fast that he almost didn’t realize that Victor penetrated his flesh. It didn’t seem real until he read the shock in Victor’s eyes and felt his arm jerk, every muscle in his body forced to a jarring halt. But what banished his rage in an instant was the odd look of satisfaction on Remy’s face, and the misplaced… relief in his eyes. Victor’s claws retracted with a sickly, oozing pop, and Remy staggered back, struggling to stand. “Ain’… ain’ gonna ‘urt ‘im… no more… cher.” Logan’s eyes were wide and he struggled for breath, but a fist was squeezing his heart. Not Victor’s. Because of Remy.



Damn that kid!



“You…can’t…” Remy swallowed with difficulty and swiped at an odd trickling sensation at his chin. Blood dribbled up over his lips, joining the spreading stain darkening his shirt.



“No. No.” Logan’s voice was hoarse and broken. “No, nonono. No, Remy. Ya hear me? Don’t.” The last note was plaintive. He caught him by the shoulders as Remy began to collapse and gently dragged him to the floor, ignoring Victor. “Why?”



“Know.” Remy swallowed and coughed. “Why.”



Logan steeled himself at the sound of Victor’s voice when it broke through the noise in his head and his own drumming heartbeat. “Damn you.” His voice was quiet, almost bleak. It didn’t belong to the same man, completely lacked the swagger and cruelty that they identified with him. He stood stock-still, and Logan heard the low, eerie drip of blood from his talons hitting the iffy shag carpet.



Logan gave in to his rage again, seeing Victor through a crimson haze. Any inkling of humanity in him evaporated. He charged him, roaring as he plowed his shoulder into Victor’s sternum, which felt like slamming into the grill of a Mack truck. They exploded through the window in a hail of glass shards, tumbling out onto the asphalt. A group of teenagers in the deserted lot dropped their cigarettes and scattered in surprise at the sight of the two bloodied men.



SNIKT!



Logan ignored the choruses of “Holy shit!” as he recovered first and prepared to cut Victor’s throat, planning to put him down. “He thought ya were worth it! Fuckin’ psycho scumbag! He thought ya were better than ya are!”



“I know that! Victor railed back. He dug his nails into the hand Logan had locked around his throat, piercing his skin.



“The fuck you know!”



“I know that!” Victor’s lips peeled back from his teeth, revealing his fangs, and he struggled with Logan, catching his fist just shy of letting his adamantium blades nick him. “Kid’s fuckin’ stupid if he thinks I’ll ever change, or that yer any fuckin’ different or any better’n me, Jimmy! This time, it was me. Next time, it’ll be you!”



“Ya lyin’ f-…” Logan’s jaw worked, and they stayed locked in their struggle, but he felt something pulling at his subconscious, just noticeable enough to annoy him at first, until he realized the source. “Remy,” he whispered.



“Tag, asshole!” Victor crowed, and he brought his leg up sharply, ramming his knee into Logan’s package. Logan lost his balance and fell forward, carried into Victor’s grip by the momentum, and he made a low retching sound as Victor reached up and ripped his throat out. As Victor shoved him off, he collapsed onto the cold, unyielding asphalt. He heard his own flagging pulse over the sounds of the street and panicked voices in the background, shouting to call an ambulance. Victor surprised him; he didn’t linger over him or even offer a parting shot.



He ran. And by the time Logan regained consciousness again, his scent would be cold.



*



“I don’t need to know how you ended up at the hotel,” Henry mused soberly from the uncomfortable guest chair in Logan’s hospital room. “But why in heaven’s name did you think it was wise for the two of you to take that maniac on without calling for backup?”



“Blue, give it a rest. Ya don’t wanna piece of this right now.”



“Of course I don’t. I’m just the man wading through mountains of paperwork in an effort to get this blasted place to release Remy to our institute’s care. This is a logistics nightmare, Logan.”



“Nice work with the transducer.”



“Don’t change the subject, and don’t butter me up. I’m put out with you right now.” Logan huffed. The flat look in Henry’s blue eyes was just the tip of the iceberg. He could smell the man’s justified anger and tension and the remnants of his adrenaline.



“Get in line.”



“The hotel won’t press charges for the room. The school’s paying the tab.”



“Don’t let ‘em convince ya ta replace the carpet. It looked like shit when we got there.”



“Logan…why?”



“It wasn’t the Ritz, Hank.”



“No, damn you! What business did the three of you have in a hotel room? Did you track him there?”



“Nah. Even snakes gotta come outta their holes once in a while ta eat and get some air. We found him downtown. Guess we were just lucky.” Henry didn’t like the disembodied, flippant tone of Logan’s voice of his cavalier posture.



Logan was garbed in hospital pajama bottoms and his shirt was bare. He sat on the edge of the bed with the hospital’s television on at a low drone, hooked up to an IV of antibiotics. His throat was heavily bandaged and plastic wound drain hung out by its tubing from underneath. He was already healing rapidly, but he looked battered. Enough of his jugular had regenerated by the time he was loaded into the ambulance that he hadn’t needed much surgery. The overload of smells and noise, the staffers’ collective fear and shock of two mutants careening into their ER on gurneys, and the feel of hands pulling at him, even if they were benign, almost made him go feral.



“That’s not enough of an explanation.”



“I ain’t got a better one right now, Blue.”



“This shouldn’t have happened,” Henry said quietly. Logan knew the doctor was straining at the seams not to reach over and strangle him. “Especially not when Remy’s just recovered from his previous injuries. I’m used to you being a glutton for punishment, Logan, but I thought Mr. LeBeau had better instincts than that.”



“Ya thought wrong.” Logan sat idly, flipping channels, but he wasn’t interested in reruns, Sports Center, or CNN. A light rap on the glass of Logan’s door preceded the entry of quick, high-heeled footsteps. Betsy Braddock breezed inside on a cloud of designer perfume, eyes blazing.



“What ridiculous fuckery have you gotten yourself into now?”



“Hey, Bets. Missed you, too.” She rounded the bed and slapped his shoulder sharply, ignoring the wound drain.



“I’ve spent the entire trip from the lobby to the nurses’ station erasing people’s memories of your faces and the reasons you ended up in here, and convincing the charge nurses and administrative house supervisor why they should discharge you today. I hate using my powers like that, and I hate myself when it happens. It shouldn’t be necessary.” She looked hurt. “You should have called me.”



“Ya know why I’d never do that. I want ya ta stay far away from that fuck, Bets.”



“Do as you say, not as you do. How like a man,” she muttered, shaking her head. She tucked a strand of her violet-tinted locks behind her ear and folded her arms. “I could have helped you put him down.”



“He’d have used how much ya hate him against ya. It would’ve made ya sloppy. And me.”



“Surely you don’t forget the psychic lobotomy I gave you in Madripoor?”



“Yeah? You sure seem ta have forgotten how he practically sent ya to yer ancestors?”



“Touche.”



“I know ya wanna help.”



“No. I want to see his balls ripped off and crammed down his throat.” She gentled her words by leaning down to kiss Logan’s forehead. “How are you holding up, ducks?”



“Had better days. They won’t let me see Remy. I’ve been behavin’ myself. That’s the only reason they haven’t slapped me in five-point restraints.”



“Not like it would have made a difference, anyway.”



“Nope.”



“They’ll discharge you inside an hour.”



“Good. This damned pump’s killin’ me. I’ll heal up fine once it’s out.”



“I stopped in to see him. He looks dreadful.”



“That makes me feel better,” Logan murmured sourly as he picked at the bandage holding in his IV.



“He doesn’t blame you. He projected that to me, and he let me in here.” She tapped her temple. “He’s a brave, sweet lad, but his mind is a troubled, dark place right now. He said it wasn’t your fault. He feels that it was his, Logan, and he’s very broken up about it.”



“It was my fault.”



“Don’t start that. It won’t help him.”



“Never shoulda let him talk me-“ Logan stopped himself.



“He thought he could help him. And that’s not all, darling. He thought it would help you. Not the tack I would have taken, surely. I can think of better venues for that discussion.” She shuddered at the memory of the hotel and its seedy lot.



“At least you were on the ground floor,” Henry groused.



“I can feel what he felt when Victor attacked him. I know why he came between you two. You two need to have a frank discussion when he wakes up. I’ll return to now to your self-flagellating and sitcoms.” She swept out, briefly patting Henry’s shoulder on her way.



*



Damn you, Remy. Why?



The blood’ll come outta the shirt if I soak it long enough. Neck looks all jacked up; coughed up a hunk of my C3, I think, and spit it out a little while ago. My tonsils have already grown back, but I don’t really need ‘em.



He knows. The kid’s always known, and that’s what’s killin’ me.



I can’t get the little bastard outta my system. He’s right.