Creed's Credo

Summary: A woman. A death. A cabin. A nightmare remembered, or one unfolding before his eyes?



Disclaimer: I don’t own the X-Men fandom. Logan, Remy and Victor belong to Marvel Comics. I make no money from the writing of this story.



Author’s Note: Continuing previous information about this fic, there will be more violent content and mature language and slight nudity. Implied non-con makes this rated R for 18 and up’s, and not recommended for the squeamish.



All Logan remembered was blood. Everywhere. Furnishings and heirlooms of his wife’s people were stained in gore. The stench hit him before he kicked the door from its hinges.



“FOX!” His heart hammered and cold sweat broke out over his flesh. The scent of blood choked him; the gruesome truth that it was hers made him wish he’d never take another breath. “FOX!” His voice was hoarse, broken and unrecognizable from his typical whiskey-soaked, lazy drawl or from the low, husky tones he reserved for her when the lights were off. His dark eyes were wild and dilated and his chest heaved with his body’s demands for equilibrium and an argument his brain refused to provide, the revelation that refuted what his soul already knew.



The light of his spirit had been extinguished. Time came to a crashing halt as he gave his senses their head, steeling himself. The kettle shrieked from the kitchen, a shrill blast that burned like acid across his nerve endings due to his enhanced hearing. The sound of branches outside dripping into his rain barrel, plink-plink, plink-plink… He heard the crunch of pottery beneath his foot as he stepped around the remains of a bowl of soup she’d heated for herself; noodles mingled with coagulated blood globs and sprayed across the floorboards in a macabre canvas that told him too many things, dark, unholy things not meant for man’s mind to process. Not a humane man… not even animals treated one of their own kindred this way, a voice in Logan’s consciousness reasoned. It wasn’t the way of the circle of life. Not this. Never this…



He knew he’d find her in the bedroom. The bastard who did it knew what the fuck they were doing and meant business; the center of his world was their marital bed, the one place he felt secure and loved and complete, where nothing could touch either of them. Logan stumbled and cursed, tripping over something soft that tangled around his snakeskin boot.



His flannel. His blue one, her favorite one to sleep in. He twisted it in his hands and gave a strangled cry, fighting back sobs he couldn’t indulge in yet as he took the last, precious whiff of her living scent, the way her hair smelled after a shampoo, that hint of her sweat that he enjoyed in the fold of flesh where her neck met her jaw after a night’s sleep. “Fox! Please, no…nononono,” he crooned as he loomed at the door. He collapsed against the frame. “Oh, baby…oh, baby, no…not you,” he whisperered. “Not you…”



Her beautiful eyes, black and large as walnuts, stared emptily up at him. Her arms were splayed open as if beseeching heaven to save her one last time before her throat was ripped out. In bizarre, almost arcane fashion, her finger, stiffened by rigor mortis, pointed to the wall above her head, leading his eyes in a lurching trail toward the space over the headboard.



The walls were knotty pine, this one now a calling card for Silver’s murderer…and her rapist. The bastard’s stench was all over her, something discernible to him only now, once he’d gotten over the sensory overload of her blood. His arms automatically collected her naked, mutilated body to his breast as he read the words spelling out the sacrilege carried out against his lover and friend, literally his reason for living a life he tired of after three quarters of a century…



TAG, YOU’RE IT, RUNT



Claw marks dipped in her precious blood engraved the words in the planks indelibly; the stained shavings littered the wedding ring quilt on the bed.



*



Blue eyes flooded with tears beseeched him, but all he saw were dark ones, frozen and wide open in a death-trance, pleading with Logan, why? Lips with most of the gloss kissed off quivered and gasped for breath.



The sight of that massive beast rutting into her as she struggled for air awoke something savage in him. The quilt beneath them was kicked halfway off the bed, shabby and wash-worn, the white fabric of the background faded so gray that you could hardly tell it was a wedding ring quilt at one time. The cabin was ill-kept and cluttered, dust coating every surface, indicative of the owner not spending much time there or not giving a damn.



Her voice was coming out in a squeak, deprived of precious oxygen, and she was reduced to pitiful mewls. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and Remy chafed at witnessing her nudity and vulnerability. Victor’s body tensed and stiffened; he paused a moment, then craned his neck to face them over one broad shoulder. His skin was flush with color and slicked with sweat, making his muscles stand out in sharp relief despite the room’s dim light.



His eyes were hard, showing no hint of tenderness, as though what had previously been an act of passion hadn’t touched him or moved him at all.



“Get off her,” Logan growled.



“Bout ta get off now, runt,” Victor shrugged with a nasty grin. His hips flexed in one smooth shunt, making his partner whimper beneath him. Long, black rivulets ran down into her hair from where she lay on her back, eye makeup ruined by tears. She no longer urged him to continue, but he offered her another uncaring thrust, enjoying himself even more now that he had a captive audience.



“Nah. Yer about ta get yer dick cut off an shoved down yer throat, just for starters, asshole. The rest of ya ain’t even gonna feed the birds by the time me an’ the Cajun’re done.” Remy’s eyes glowed with kinetic energy, and the woman looked nearly as terrified as the two intruders as she did of the man literally holding her life in his hard, cold hands. His hand at her throat tightened imperceptibly; a droplet of blood snaked out from beneath Victor’s talon and drizzled down her neck, staining the already dirty sheets.



“Nah,” Victor mocked. “Cajun here ain’t good for much else but lookin’ pretty. Tell ya what, Gambit, here’s what I’ll do. After I’m done with this bitch…no offense, babe, this has been fun…howsabout you suck my dick, kid? I promise ya I’ll have somethin’ left. Give ya the last taste of Shirl here that anyone’ll want in the process!”



“Noooooo,” she moaned weakly, barely able to shake her head where she was pinned. Her breasts heaved with her sobs, nipples still ruched and flushed with color from her exertions. Victor reached down and tweaked one, hard.



“Aw, yeah, babe, Daddy ain’t finished-“



“Wrong,” Remy informed him. Victor’s words were cut off by his strangled roar as one of Remy’s charged cards bit into him, searing his shoulder.



“Think that was cute!” Vic warned. “Huh? Think it’s gonna be cute when I snap her neck? C’mon, old man. I fuckin’ dare ya ta come over here! Ya haven’t got the balls!” He stared Logan down, enjoying the minute changes coming over him. His dark eyes dilated and his fingers clenched until the phalanges of his hands strained beneath the skin. He was beginning to pant, drawing in deep breaths of the scents of the room, processing them, listening to the woman’s fading breaths as he calculated how to disengage her.



“Close yer eyes, darlin’,” Logan growled. She squeezed them shut obediently, as though she had abandoned all hope of leaving the cabin of her own will. Remy had held his breath until then, but his hands didn’t obey his brain’s orders to follow Logan’s lead. His bo staff flashed in a smooth arc, striking an underhand stroke to Victor’s wrist. He howled in pain and outrage as he knocked his grip loose from her vulnerable neck. Logan was done hesitating, and he charged him, mentally regretting having to attack while Victor was still inside her.



All Logan saw was blood, remembered from long ago and fresh from the moment as he tore him away, clotheslining him with a whipcord sharp swing of his beefy forearm. Victor gurgled at the impact of it against his throat, but his leer never faltered. His blue eyes mocked Logan, goading him.



The frail was the appetizer; the runt was his real dinner. He barked out a laugh as he was bowled off the bed by three hundred pounds of infuriated, adamantium-fortified mutant, his favorite whipping boy.



“I’m so scared, don’t huuuurt meeeeeeee!” Victor crowed, his voice suffused with rough laughter as Logan began to whale on him, claws extended. Victor was quick, agilely lunging to his feet and circling him like a wary cat. He wasn’t chagrined by his nudity, and Remy’s mouth went dry at the sight of him. He was profanely muscular and seemed to be carved from granite, his skin covered in a generous layer of sandy brown hair that reminded Remy vaguely of Logan’s on occasions where he’d spied him shirtless. His phallus was still erect, and Victor grinned boldly at them, flexing those muscles to make it jerk at them. “Ya never accepted my offer, Cajun.”



“Ya never accepted his,” Remy said coldly, assuming a broad, clean stance and brandishing his bo. He motioned for Victor to come at him with a clean flick of his hand.



“Pussy,” Victor spat, baring his teeth as he lunged at them.



Tag. You’re it. The words flashed in Logan’s mind’s eye, sending him back to the pine-walled cabin with ruined furniture and fur rugs that were slick with this wife’s blood. He remembered shavings of wood in tangled sheets and words engraved in gruesome, precious ichor as he drew first blood, one of the only times of his long life that he had against Victor. He sliced him cleanly across the crest of his cheekbone, making him grunt. He retaliated with a backhand that made Logan see stars, reeling back at the sickening crack of his fist meeting flesh. Remy charged forward with his bo, feinting and jabbing with it.



“Come an’ get me, loverboy,” Vic hissed. Remy lunged at him, point of the bo aimed at his sternum, but Victor was quick. He caught the bo and they grappled with it, locked in a menacing dance. Victor dragged him in too close, bathing Remy’s face in tequila fumes and his hot breath. “Like that? Huh? This ain’t the stick I wanna get my hands on, Cajun.”



Still frozen in place, Shirley flattened herself against the headboard of the bed, covers clutched protectively to her chest. She shivered, petrified and cold. She emitted an involuntary, brief shriek at each flash of Logan’s claws or Victor’s talons as they did each other damage that seemed to be healing each time, right before her eyes. But that did nothing to cleanse away the blood with each slash and gouge, mutilating flesh as a sacrilege.



Logan and Victor struggled while Remy broke away, diving for the bed. He scooped up Shirley in his arms, taking care to gather the quilt around her. If she was terrified by the sight of his unearthly red eyes, she gave no sign. “Up, petit! C’mon, now!” She didn’t fight him as he tore her from the bed and held her against him, running with his broad back to the violence in the tiny room to shield her. She sobbed as they hurried outside.



“Yer girlfriend left the party, bub! Make sure he at least puts out!” Victor mocked as Logan cuffed him. Victor dug his talons into Logan’s scalp and shoved him back into the fireplace, breaking loose a chunk of the mantel. A lamp was knocked over during their struggles and a chair splintered as Logan threw it in a clean arc, making it bounce off of Victor’s broad chest. It richocheted and hit the wall, but the impact didn’t even knock the wind out of Victor.



“S’okay, petit,” Remy soothed gruffly, projecting to her with his charm to calm her jangled nerves and slow her racing heart. She shivered violently as he bundled her into the car. “Stay here, chere,” he ordered sternly before whipping off his long trench coat and tucking it around her. Even though he wore the coat for its protective, puncture-resistant fiber, she clearly needed it more than he did. Remy ignored the chill in the air as he charged back inside, staff at the ready.



“Ya’ve lived long enough, asshole,” Logan grated through blood-streaked teeth. Flecks of red spittle flew out with his words. “Ya get off on hurtin’ women?”



“Nah. I get off on listenin’ ta a bitch cry and beg. There’s a difference,” he admitted. “And I love gettin’ a rise outta you, runt. Ya make it so damned easy. Ya haven’t changed a fuckin’ bit. I could walk outta here wearin’ that bitch’s head as a hat, and there ain’t anything ya can do about it. Even if ya keep me from doin’ her in now, I’ll find her. Got her scent all over me, and I like it.” Logan plowed into him and Remy kicked a table squarely into his ass, causing Logan to knock him over it. He tried to plunge his claws into Victor’s neck, but he deftly caught his wrist and grinned up at him wickedly. The sight of that fanged smile made Logan’s blood pressure skyrocket.



“Too slow!” Remy jabbed his staff toward his jugular, but Vic caught the end of it too. “Too weak!” he pronounced, neatly whipping it from his grip. He rang Logan’s chimes, making him see stars as it connected with his skull. Logan grunted and staggered back, then shook his head to get his bearings.



“That tickled,” he told him.



“I can tickle ya a lot better with these.” He brandished his talons before changing his target. He raked them savagely down Remy’s side, tearing through his flesh. Remy bellowed in pain as blood seeped from the wound that felt like it was on fire. He doubled over, clenching his arm around his waist, and Victor laughed.



“Would’ve been more fun if ya’d sucked me off, Cajun. I’ll make it easier on ya. I like it when the one goin’ down on me ain’t got any teeth!” He viciously backhanded him, sending blood spraying from his split lip. Remy reeled, lurching against the wall; Victor’s fists felt like bricks.



A small pack of playing cards flew out of Remy’s pocket, popping open and sending them sliding across the floor. His grab for one was interrupted when Victor kicked him in the ribs. Logan retaliated by knotting his fist in Victor’s long mane of blond hair and yanking his head back sharply until his neck nearly snapped. “Get off me, dumb ass! Ya ain’t shit! Ya hear me!” They stumbled back; Victor let his full weight fall back against Logan, steering him back into the wall. Plaster and drywall crumbled from the gouge they made as Logan exerted a stranglehold around Victor’s neck once he regained his center of gravity, difficult with the ridiculous gap between their respective heights. Remy coughed from where he crouched on the floor on all fours, spitting out more blood. He grabbed up a card that was slippery with it and charged it. He flung it at Victor, who anticipated the move and spun around so that Logan caught it in his back.



“AAAGGHH!”



“Shit! Sorry, homme!”



“Yeah, yer sorry! Yer pathetic,” Victor sneered. Remy was nonplussed. Several more cards were retrieved and charged, illuminating the dingy, dark room with their flight. Victor hissed in pain, growling at the fiery discharges that sizzled his flesh and left the cabin smelling like singed hair. “I’m gonna enjoy takin’ that outta yer hide!”



“Ya ain’t gon’ have much left,” Remy countered as he recovered his staff. The cold weight in his hands reassured him as he gripped it and bore down on him.





*



Ten years ago



Remy despised the damp stench of the tunnels and the slick, moldy drip of moisture from the surrounding walls and pipes, having no clue how anyone could live down there. His mind couldn’t process the far off sounds of children playing and shouting to hear their voices echo down each corridor. Food smells mingled with that of the mildew, making his stomach twist. Remy watched from the shadows as a homely little girl with red hair and bones sticking out of her face threw a pink rubber ball to a bald child with mottled green skin whose face remotely resembled a turtle’s.



A deep, low rasp behind him murmured “Nice work.”



Remy shrugged. “Don’ see what ya even want down here, mec. Gotta bring back somet’in’ fo’ Essex?”



“Got a job, yeah,” was the odd reply. Remy turned and scowled into the piercing blue eyes, searching them. Suddenly they were interrupted by the addition of a tall, striking Native American man with a prominent mustache, wearing a flak suit covered with strange attachments and tools. He kept a large gun holstered to his back, which gave Remy pause.



“What the fuck? What kinda job needs a gun down here, mec?”



“It don’t matter, pretty boy,” Scalphunter reminded him. “Ya’ve done yer job.”



“We’ll take it from here,” cooed Vertigo, sidling up to him and leaning her cheek against his shoulder. Remy recoiled from her venomous smile, even though she was a striking woman.



“Here. Take your cut,” added Harpoon, a sturdy Inuit man with close-cut brown hair. He reached into his dark jacket and retrieved a thick billfold. He flicked it at him in a neat toss that Remy deftly caught. “Take a load off. Get a drink. We’ll meet up with you later.”



“Remy can stick ‘round fo’ a bit…”



“Nah. Ya can’t.” Victor’s calm, smug mask slipped a moment, and he flexed his fingers in fists at his sides and sucked his teeth.



“C’mon, mec…” he cajoled.



“Nah. Get the fuck outta here, darlin’,” Vic murmured. “G’wan.” He caught Remy’s elbow and tugged him down the corridor, leaving behind amused glances in their wake.



“What’s he gonna do, kiss him goodnight?” Arclight joked as she took a hearty sip from a water bottle.



“That ain’t somethin’ I wanna see,” Scalphunter muttered. “Yeek…” Vic made his skin crawl with imaginary fleas, even on the best of days, and he was psycho. He didn’t know why Essex kept him on the payroll. Then again, maybe he did.



Vic was as good at killing as he was, the kind who probably pulled the wings off flies as a kid. He was hard, efficient, and he enjoyed it.



Remy was alarmed that Victor was practically dragging him further down the tunnel, into the shadows.



“Get the fuck out, Cajun,” he growled. “And don’t look back.” Something in that gruff scratch of a voice beseeched him. “We can take care of this shit from here.” Remy shook off his grip, annoyed, but Victor grabbed his forearm, almost ringing it in his huge hand.



“I don’ like de sound of dat.”



“What’s ta like?” His grip on him tightened, and again Remy sensed something pleading in his eyes and voice. “That’s life. It’s a livin’.”



“Is it? Dat’s what ya call dis? Workin’ fo’ Essex? Hangin’ wit’ dese riff-raff?”



“I am riff-raff,” Victor reminded him sagely. Then he shoved Remy back against a wall and closed the gap between them. Remy huffed as the wind was briefly knocked from him, but he grinned at the hard press of Victor’s body against his. “Get that fuckin’ cocky look off yer face, Rem.”



“Ya never minded it befo’, chere,” he murmured. His fingers, left bare by the strategically cut gloves, reached up and traced the line of Victor’s jaw, teasing the vein that worked there. Vic grabbed his hand to make him stop and growled at him.



“Don’t play with me, Rem. Go. Get out.”



“Not yet,” he murmured. “C’mon…” Reluctantly Victor submitted to another caress as Remy cradled his cheek in his palm, roughly stroking his bristles of blond stubble.



It would be the last gesture of tenderness between them ever again. Remy couldn’t know that he would come to mourn this eventually or to miss the feel of those firm lips grazing, then nipping the pad of his palm. Victor groaned under his breath and gave in, leaning into Remy’s heat and capturing his mouth beneath his. He tasted the bourbon the kid had snuck a while ago and his natural, heady flavors that he’d grown addicted to over the course of months. Remy’s fingers were combing through the side of his long hair, scraping it back so he could massage his neck. For precious seconds, Victor grew lost in the kiss and the hold Remy had on him, but the voices in his head clamored for his attention. The sounds of the women and children in the great hall of the tunnels were beckoning to him, and his purpose underground came hurtling back him in stunning, sharp clarity. He broke the kiss abruptly and flung Remy’s hands from him. Remy looked dazed and slightly hurt.



Before he could protest, they both heard a low, sharp whistle. Scalphunter beckoned to Victor. Vic punched Remy’s shoulder less than playfully. “Go. Now.” Remy smothered a sigh, then nodded, turning on his heel. His trenchcoat fluttered out behind him and he pulled up his hood to cover his long chestnut waves from Victor’s hungry gaze.



“Ya don’t need ta see this, darlin’.” Victor’s words evaporated as he saw Remy activate the teleportation ring that was a gift from Sinister and blink out of the hallway in a flash of light.



Death sang Victor a siren’s song, plying him to follow his team into the tunnels. His face grew darker and more menacing the farther he walked, the longer he heard children and women’s voices, sneering at the sounds of a group of men playing dice in a corner a few blocks up. He licked his lips, gathering up the final taste of Remy and priming himself for blood. It was who he was. It was how he was made.



Remy reappeared in the same tunnel connection that he’d left ten minutes ago. When he gathered his bearings and found himself alone, a strange feeling of wrongness crept over his flesh.



That was when the screams began.





*



They fought for long, torturous minutes, flesh burning and throbbing, gradually growing riddled with bruises and scrapes. The cabin room grew demolished as bodies were shoved into furniture or through walls. Shirley cowered in the back of the car, too petrified to even look for the key to the ignition. She crouched as low as she could make herself in the back seat, sobbing uncontrollably. She prayed for the tall young man who dragged her out, hoping that he came out of that cabin with his life. She knew her mother had to be sick with worry, and Shirley only hoped that she survived til morning to see her again.



Victor crushed Remy beneath his weight, strangling him where he lay sprawled on the floor. Logan panted to regain his breath and strength, but he was battered and exhausted, clothing painted red with his own blood and Victor’s. It was running into his eyes from gashes over his brows and a long wound in his hairline, which resembled a gruesome, crooked part.



Victor was still erect; he was even leaking precum in anticipation of the kill, the adrenaline spike of pleasure he got just from inflicting pain and having another human being at his mercy. His hands were wrapped around Remy’s windpipe, talons digging in as fiercely as they had into the woman’s tender throat, but he was enjoying this more, getting off on his more determined struggle and the defiance and anger in his eyes. He smelled like betrayal and helpless rage, and Victor wanted to eat it up.



“Still sweet,” he muttered. “It’s a damn shame, darlin’. Damn shame.”



Logan marshaled his last drop of strength and charged him from behind.



Victor’s cruel smirk changed to gaping disbelief at the long, blood-streaked silver blades protruding from his chest.



“I told ya ta get off him,” Logan slurred grimly, satisfied as Victor attempted to crane his neck to stare up at him. He heard him huff and pant, weighing down his claws. Victor stared down dumbly at Remy, who stared up at him in horror.



Tears leaked from those red-on-black eyes. “Merde…aw, Gawd,” he whispered.



“I…did…get off…” Victor muttered. “Heh. Heh-heh…run…r-runt…” Gouts of blood spurted out from his mouth, and Remy nearly vomited from the sight as well as the shift of Victor’s heavy thighs clamped around his ribs shifting and tightening briefly as he pitched forward. Logan hauled him off his teammate with a savage shove.



His stomach turned at the sight of long, thick trails of viscous white discharge spattered across Remy’s belly and chest, mingling with the blood. “Shit,” Logan murmured. “Remy…” He wanted to comfort him, because he was already trembling even as he tried to right himself.



“That…the best…ya’ve got, Jimmy?” Logan recoiled at the sound of his birth name. It was a sin coming from Victor’s mouth.



“I’ve had enough of yer mouth fer tonight, bub.” Logan walked with purpose to Victor where he lay on his stomach, struggling up on his forearms.



“That right?”



“G’night, Vic.” He buried his hand once again in that temptingly thick, gleaming hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. Remy did vomit this time, rolling over just in time at the sound of claws tearing through flesh and tendon with a lurching, deep crunch. He released him, letting him hit the floor with a hollow thump. “C’mon, Rem…damn it, kid, I’m sorry…I’m sorry…c’mon. We ain’t finished, Cajun. We gotta go. Gotta help the pretty lady. Yer good at that,” he reminded him in an attempt to comfort him. Remy stood with his help, leaning on Logan and retrieving his fallen staff. He spat and wiped his mouth with his bruised wrist. It felt fractured.



Logan spared the cabin one last glance before he led Remy back out to the car. Shirley’s eyes were wide with horror as she took in both of them, but she said nothing, holding her hands over her mouth and huddling more deeply into Remy’s coat.



Logan thought better of it. “Wait. Just start it, Rem. Gimme a minute.”



“Hurry.” Remy didn’t bother telling Logan that Creed might not be down long. Logan marched back inside, taking in the scene around him. His wife’s killer lay sprawled face-down on the floor. The walls leaked blood and the hardwood floors and shabby rugs were a lost cause. Logan strode over to Victor and bent down by his head, extending one claw. The wood rolled up in long, thin shavings as he scrawled. There. Satisfied but grim, he left.



*



Fifth street ’76 station, twenty minutes later:



Victor staggered out of his car after illegally parking it in the red zone. Passerby nearly broke their necks doing double takes as he lurched into the small convenience store, ignoring the cold, old asphalt beneath his bare feet.



Droplets of blood splatted against the cheap gray floor tile. The door dinged as he wandered inside toward aisle five, and the previously bored clerk at the register dropped a Playboy magazine from nerveless fingers. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Victor called out.



He returned to the front counter with a six-pack of Heineken and a pack of Camels, munching on a glazed donut.



“I’ve called the police, don’t try anything,” the clerk warned him.



“Whatever, pal. Look, ya can stand there starin’ or ya can ring me up so I can go enjoy my smokes.” It was impossible to stop his frightened eyes from roaming up and down the stark naked, nearly seven-foot-tall blond wild man streaked in blood from head to toe and grinning back at him like he didn’t have a care in the world. He shoved a twenty across the counter and sighed. “Fuck. Keep the change, Petunia.” He took his supplies and wandered back out of the store.



No one stopped him.