The Streets

He was the streets.

Some would say that with bravado, a sneer on their face. Others would say it, beaten down and weeping. He was neither. He just accepted. He was the streets. As much a part of a city as the buildings that tried to reach the sky, as much the pavement that provided way for the ants nest movement of people through it, as much the sewers that washed away the stink that thousands of bodies produced.

All the people that walked through it and went on their way – they couldn’t understand the streets like him. He’d grown there, like the mould that seemed to magically creep its way up everywhere, no matter how much you tried to wash it away.

Not this city, perhaps, but it was still a city. Its ways still were his own. He was one of the people that you wouldn’t look at, until you wanted him. He smirked. Then they looked. And he’d survive; move on as he needed, take root when you weren’t looking.

Not to say that it was easy. Some thought surviving the wilderness was the ultimate show of hardiness. They were fools. It was surviving this.

As he watched the man approach, two more suddenly appearing behind him, his welcoming smile quickly faded. Seemed that he was going to have to test that ability again.

***

Rain sucked.

Sleet sucked even more.

He didn’t know which person had decided that leather would be a good uniform for fighting in, but when he found out who they were, he was gonna gut them. It clung uncomfortably to his body, cold and stiff and chafing in the most god awful spots. His hands were nearly numb, lacking some warm pockets to tuck them into in this inclement weather.

Bobby, following behind him like a small bright eyed puppy, looked remarkably cheerful considering the fact they’d been wandering around aimlessly in this crap for well over an hour. Mind you that’s probably because the blasted kid was in his element.

They’d found no sign of this mutant that Chuck’d sent them out to find. That was another frustration of its own. According to him, it had been of enough urgency to yank him out of his warm bed, and toss him and Bobby out on this whole needle in the haystack search. Some days he wondered about the ‘new’ Xavier. Hell, he’d wondered enough about the old one. But he stayed; and in staying he ended up having more reasons to stay.

Damn it anyway.

‘Ro would have been a better one to send on this goose chase, he thought as it started to sleet even harder. At least she could have stopped this shit. But she was off with McCoy at another conference, so needs must. He would have preferred taking Marie with him over Bobby, but this kinda misery called for different company, cause he didn’t want to subject her to this. Company that chose to speak up at that moment.

“Um...I just thought of something.”

He swung on Bobby, who suddenly looked about ready to swallow his tongue. Oh. He must be projecting his general pissedness of the weather and this whole fucking situation in his expression. However Bobby recovered quickly, being the object of his black looks too many times to get rattled that long.

“I’ve been practicing something new in the danger room...seeing heat signatures.
Uh...maybe I should do that in the empty alleyways and stuff?”

“You think?” He spat out, and resumed walking. His mood had also been furthered by the fact that in this mishmash of human detritus his nose had been useless. Maybe if he’d known the scent of who he was looking for, but Chuck’d just tossed them out with a general impression of where this ‘mutant in trouble’ was and that’d been that. Oh and the fact that they probably didn’t have a lot of time cause said mutant had been projecting extreme distress. He’d wondered why he couldn’t nail it down to a more specific area, but Chuck had just said something about the mutant projecting some sort of ‘interference’.

They back-trailed, navigating the streets and alleys that they’d already combed over, bypassing many of the downtrodden citizens, eyeing up some that crouched under overhangs, trying to avoid the miserable weather. This entire neighbourhood was coated in that particular apathy that came with the peeling paint, crumbling mortar and the heaps of garbage. No one had time to spend on other people when their own plight was so desperate.

He was about to call Chuck again to give it up as a bad thing...maybe this mutant had managed to get away or something, cause they weren’t finding a thing. But then Bobby had picked up his pace, passing him just as they entered a thin alley, giving a small shout of victory as he started to dig in a pile of cardboard and trash.

It was Bobby that uncovered the kid’s face, battered and still bleeding, but at least the gentle ooze of blood showed life was still within him. Lips were blue with cold, his clothes – what of them there were – soaked. “Well Chuck...guess you were right about the distress.” He heaved the limp body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and headed back for the car.

***

Warmth. Oddly noisy warmth. Not the honk and growl of cars, or the chatter of people or the general clanking melee of the streets, but a steady whirr of...something. Pleasant as it was, he snapped his eyes open, too wary and too aware to ever take more than a moment to enjoy anything. It was the ones that didn’t keep their eyes open that were stepped on and crushed.

At the moment that’s pretty much what it had felt like had happened to him. It was bright here though, driving away the memory of that dark alleyway. Clean a very stark, crisp way. Hospital then. They all had that same look, same damn smell. This one was a bit more expensive looking by far. No peeling linoleum. No puke green walls. Lots of stainless steel. But hospitals were all the same, no matter which cloth you cut them from.

And the people in them always had one of two looks. Disgust or worse - pity. He wasn’t something to be pitied. He knew more than them, had done more than they could imagine. Their lives were narrow. They never looked beyond their noses. He experienced. He saw. It was them that were to be pitied.

Sitting up he ripped the tubes traveling to his body out, wincing as one machine began to squeal in protest. Stabbing at a few buttons in attempt to silence it, he gave that up for a bad job, turning instead to step out of the bed. Fight the rise and fall of the floor, that whirl in his head that let him know he was doing things too fast too soon. Others would stop, slow, lay back down. They were the weak. They were the dead.

He just fought through it, the cold tile under his feet grounding him, shocking him into awareness. First thing first, he needed to find his clothes. Usually they’d store them in a small bag under the bed, but there was nothing to be found, and that pissed him off, his temper spiking more as he heard the clatter of the enclosing curtain being shoved back.

Turning, a practiced look on his face, he watched as the nurse - well at least that’s who he assumed the blue haired chick was – as she took a surprised step back, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times before she fisted her hand and put it on her hip. “What are you doing?”

“Y’re damn slow if y’ haven’t figured dat out yet, chere.” He purled out, watching as she frowned in further consternation. That was the trick. Keep his face hard, his eerie eyes snapping, and his voice soft and tempting, his words mocking. Keep his body language confusing, conflicting. It tossed them every time, kept them confused long enough for him to get what he wanted and get the fuck out of there.

He was the streets. This softness wasn’t for him.

She fell back as he approached her, freeing him to find his clothes, or hell, someone else’s – he wasn’t picky. He didn’t find the expected bustle of a hospital beyond his curtain though. It set him on edge, this unknown. She made some sort of noise of protest and he turned to her with a look that shut her up, sent her walking in another direction. Probably for security or a doctor, he didn’t care which. He was gonna blow this joint before she was back.

Literally if necessary.

His bare feet made faint slapping sounds as he pushed one door open, instinctively feeling it was the best way out. He was only further stumped as it led to a semi darkened hallway – everything metal and tile, gleaming. Sterile...but this hall was definitely not-hospital. It closed up his throat a little in panic, but then it still was a hallway. Hallways led out. He tried the first doorway that he came to, but it was locked. So was the next. Not with simple locks either – these were expensive coded ones, not the keyed ones that he could flick open with a simple twist of a pick.

When he found the elevator, he could have cared less about finding clothes. He just needed out of this creepy place. It opened with a smooth movement that spoke of well maintained and costly mechanisms, the interior of it shrieking of wealth to his practiced eye. This was one of a kind, designer model. Looking at the glowing key pad, he had no idea which button to press. He gnawed his lip as he stared aimlessly at the cryptically labelled buttons. Up? Down? He’d seen no windows in the area he’d woken up in, but a hospital in a basement? The doors swished shut while he was trying to make his decision, and he lunged for them, clawing at them just a little too late. The elevator started to lift and he found his choice had been made for him.

With nothing else to do but wait, he took a few steps back from the door, muscles held tight and ready. He wasn’t the weak. This was new, certainly, but he’d be ready. His eyes tracked the lights as they pinged through one level and then held on the next. He tensed for a run when the doors parted with their near silent whoosh, ready to belch him out on the level, their job done.

He couldn’t have been ready for the absolute rush of solid muscle that came at him. Guards, sure. Guns, maybe. A bare-chested, growling, messy haired man that barrelled him into the back of the elevator he was not. If he’d been a lesser man, he’d probably have shit himself as three blades slipped through the fragile skin of the man’s knuckles, coming to hover inches his throat.

Red blood, not his yet, ran down the man’s wrist to pat in perfectly round circles on the bumpy floor of the elevator. This was like a bad acid trip.

***

Annie had called him, frightened out of her wits, just as he’d finished his morning workout. Something about the patient and him freaking out and just...leaving. He’d cursed the fact that Chuck’d not had the balls to cuff the kid or post someone down there with Annie – but then they’d left him alone with Jean as well when they’d first brought him in. Showed what they’d learnt.

He’d seen that the elevator had been opened on the bottom level. Well saved him a trip then, he thought as he pushed the call button on his end, but it also brought that street kid up to the main level, where he was with the other kids. It was just some punk though. Bedraggled street rat by his looks and smell. But the kid was still a mutant. And for that, he’d take no chances, not with the children he was supposed to protect mere rooms away.

The minute those doors were opened, he was through them, seeing only big red on black eyes, the pupil nearly swallowing up the red of the iris when he held his claws under the kids chin. “No sudden moves, bucko.”

The kid had merely looked at him and down at the hand he held under him for one long moment. Then in a move that completely confused and unnerved him the kid reached one finger up, so slowly that it didn’t appear a threat, and ran a finger down the warm metal that was an inch away from spearing his flesh.

“Metal, hein?” A smirk lifted the split lip up, contorted the nasty black bruise that marred nearly the entire left side of his face. “Y’ know...y’ should choose better who y’ shove these into.” Where his finger touched his claw, a pink glow started, running along the length of it, tingling and starting to burn a bit where it chased along the metal that was cased within his flesh.

“What the fuck are you playing at kid?”

Any fright and surprise that had been on that face was gone, his eyes hard and...glowing? “Let me outta here. I wasn’t botherin’ y’ none.” The smirk widened slightly. “If y’ really wanna go toe t’ toe over dis, I can just let go.”

Ok. So he didn’t know exactly what the hell the kid meant by that, but he recognised the tone, and he didn’t like it any. Growling, he thrust the claws up further. What had started as a pure intimidation move suddenly was serious. The pink glow burned enough that he felt beads of sweat break out on his brow. “Playing chicken kid? Wanna see if these’ll cut right through your neck before you can do whatever you’re doing?”

He was just about to push up hard enough up to pink the kid’s throat to let him know how serious that he could be with this, when he found that he couldn’t move an inch. Which could only mean one thing. “...Hey Chuck.”

Neat steps stopped behind him, a sigh of breath that spoke of a semi-weary face that he couldn’t see, held immobile as he was. The kid’s eyes had gone back to wide again, probably freaked at the sudden paralysis.

“Logan.” Different voice, and yet it was the same. Xavier had taken over a bigger body with a deeper chest. It gave his words more vibration, made it deeper in tone. His accent had remained the same though. His way of speaking in that crisp enunciated way that spoke of private schools and a rich upbringing. “May I ask that you release our guest?”

He found himself able to move again and shifted, ready to retract his claws when the kid yelped in warning, hurrying to explain, his cajun accent nearly blurring the words together. “Wait. Wait. He can’t.” Something about that had held him still, even when he knew that the kid was as helpless as a bug in a jar right about now.

“Y’gotta let me go. I gotta take d’ charge outta him. If I don’ he’ll blow...an’ probably take d’ whole wall out wit’ him. An’ y’ an’ me, monsieur.” The words held a thin veneer or politeness, but he could see right through it, just as Chuck probably could. Kid was saving his own ass there.

Turning to look at Chuck, they shared a look. Well...ok that explained what the kid had been up to with the weird pink light show. Chuck gave a short nod and the kid’s posture changed, but at least he kept his word, the pink fading and then disappearing altogether. The Cajun withdrew then, sliding to one side, eyeing the pair of them like a sheep wondering which would wolf would try to eat him first. No, not like a sheep. Maybe a fox. There was that tight cunning that lurked in his eyes, whip thin body tense beneath the ridiculous hospital gown.

Xavier cleared his throat. “If you could excuse us Logan, I think that Mr. LeBeau and I have some things to discuss.”

The kid had flinched at that, barely visible, but there if you were looking for it. Understandable, since having your name yanked out of midair like that would unsettle anyone. It was almost amusing to him, knowing that no matter what threats he could offer to this street smart and scarred kid, probably Xavier’s way of dealing with him would be frighten the shit more thoroughly out of him.

Just as years ago, it had frightened the shit out of himself.

Leaving Chuck to his newest prey, he turned and left them, withdrawing his claws, feeling the faint pain and itch as the skin healed over.