What The Cat Dragged In Ch. 21

He'd called Conlon and sent him on to a motel to wait. He didn't bother with an explanation. Conlon had seen the state the frail was in. He didn't need to know any more than that. He knew he should call Joe, but he didn't know what to say.

Sometimes, the one-eyed asshole sat with him. Staring at him from behind those fucking sunglasses. Creed kept his eyes on the frail. Those times, under that clearly disgusted glare, thoughts of revenge did nothing for him. Instead he retreated into his memories of the way she smiled at him. The sweet vanilla sugar smell of her when she relaxed. The way her fingers moved through the hair on his chest when she was coming down from an orgasm. An orgasm he had given her. How soft her skin was. The way she fit against him when they slept. The longer he stared at her still form, the more sure he became that she'd never look at him like that again.

Jimmy's ass occupied the other orange chair most of the time. Usually, he was nothing more than a silent, staring presence. Finally, Creed couldn't take the silence any longer. He turned to the smaller feral and stared back. "You got something to say?"

"You stink."

"Well thank you very much for your input. Asshole." Creed turned his eyes back to the frail.

"You asked. When was the last time you took a shower?"

"Don't know. Probably the evening before all this shit happened." The blood on his clothes had turned from smelling old to smelling rotten.

The runt got up. "C'mon."

Creed glared. "I'm not leaving her."

"Next time they come in, McCoy'll be here to change the dressing and check her incision. That'll take some time. Instead of standing in the hall staring at me you can get cleaned up. Might consider getting some rest too."

"I've been napping." Creed looked away and gave a little shrug. "Might shower though."

Jimmy nodded.

When the ape and one of the nurses came in, the runt led him a little to a room a few doors down. This room was a cell. A narrow cot was against one wall. A toilet, sink and shower were at the end of the small room.

Creed looked around the tiny, dank space and growled. "You gonna lock me in too?"

"Nope, but I'll wait." Jimmy lounged back on the cot, one foot on the floor, the knee raised in front of him.

Creed rolled his eyes and started to strip out of his bloody clothes. "Need to be reminded what a real man looks like, Runt?"

"I sure as hell ain't gonna leave you alone. Towels and soap are in there." He nodded toward the end of the bed. "Sweats should fit. They're clean at least."

Creed turned on the water. "You gonna tell me to wash behind my balls too?"

"That what she does for you?"

Creed dug his claws into the palms of his hands, feeling the flesh separate and then knit together again. He ducked under the low shower bar. The spray hit him in the chest. He closed the curtain. He pissed with more pressure than the shower had, but at least the water was hot. He turned to face Jimmy. "Told you, Runt, she's a job and that's all I'm gonna say. So, why aren't you trying to kill me?"

Jimmy shrugged. "You got me curious. I could ask you the same question."

Creed shook his head. He worked soap into his uneven hair. "This might come as a shock to you Jimmy, but there are whole weeks that go by when I don't think of you or Stryker or any of that shit." He ducked under the water and let it carry away the suds and sweat and tension.

"Especially recently."

Creed shrugged. "You said that, I didn't. One thing I am gonna say though, all the shit that's between us doesn't involve anybody else. You get bored or you get your curiosity satisfied you leave her out of it."

Jimmy growled. "I'm not the same kind of asshole you are."

Creed rolled his eyes. "I forgot. You're a special kind of asshole." He turned off the water and started drying off with the rough towel. He stepped out with it wrapped around his waist. He pulled on the gray sweat pants without looking at them. The shirt had the Xavier's School logo and name emblazoned across the chest. "Oh fuck no."

Jimmy shrugged. "Wear it or don't, I don't care."

Creed pulled the shirt over his head and walked back to the frail's room.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Another day of short naps, bad food and silence ticked by. If he hadn't grown so damn accustomed to the sounds the monitors made he wouldn't have noticed any change at all. Her heart rate was not as steady as it had been. The tracings on the screen were more erratic too. He watched those glowing lines. He watched the frail's chest rise and fall. Every minute that passed made him more certain that he was losing her. Every breath he took made his chest hurt more.

All of it pissed him off, and there wasn't a goddamn thing he could do about any of it. He should have left her in the woods. Should have fucked her and tore her apart right there in the snow. He would never have given her a second thought. She would have just been another victim.

Maybe he'd just leave. Go find Cavallo and Stan, make them both suffer and then keep right on going. She didn't need him. She sure as hell wouldn't want him after he fucked up so bad. She deserved better. Deserved normal.

A little whimper from the bed drew his attention. At first he thought it was his imagination, but then she reached toward the tube in her throat. He got up quickly and stopped her hand. She held on to him awkwardly.

He looked at Jimmy. "Get someone. Now!"

Her eyes were open. He could tell she was still drugged, but she was fighting it. He put the side rail on the bed down. Terror suffused the bloody scent around her. "It's alright frail."

She whimpered and reached for the tube again. He stopped her.

"You need that for now." He looked at her eyes more closely. Her pupils were unevenly dilated. "Told you I'd bring you someplace where they'd help you." He shifted his hand in hers. She held on tightly.

The ape rushed in. She shifted closer to Creed.

"When did she wake up?"

"Minute or two ago." Creed kept his eyes on hers. She was calming and he could see that she was shaking the effects of the drug.

The ape looked in her eyes and then checked the IV pump. He made some kind of adjustment and her consciousness started to fade, but he could see her fighting it. "Get some sleep frail. You get cranky when you don't sleep and that pisses me off." His voice was soft.

The fight went out of her and she went back under again. Creed set her hands down carefully, then glared at the ape.

The blue doctor opened his mouth, but Creed shook his head sharply.

"Not in here." Creed adjusted the side rail again. He walked out into the hall and waited for the others to follow. He kept his eyes on the frail. "What the fuck was that?"

"I don't know. From what I can see, all the equipment is functioning as it should. I've never seen anyone build up a tolerance for that drug so quickly." The ape seemed genuinely shaken.

Creed looked at the still form in the bed and then back at the doctor. "She is human, isn't she?"

"I ran a basic DNA screen to make sure she was as part of her pre-surgery blood work. Why?"

Creed looked from Jimmy to the ape and back again. "No reason." He started back into the frail's room. Jimmy stopped him.

"Bullshit. You wouldn't have brought it up if you didn't have a reason."

He growled. "Get the fuck out of my way, Jimmy."

"She's severely weakened. If I have to keep raising the dose to keep her under, that could further compromise her condition." The ape said.

Creed looked at him. He knew the statement was true. He stared at the frail, trying to decide how much he was willing to risk sharing. "She took Hypnocyn once. Took her twice as long to fall asleep and she was awake a few hours before I figured she should be." Creed heard a pen scratching.

"What was the dose?" The doctor asked.

"Don't know."

"Was it a tablet or a capsule?"

"Light blue tablet."

"Is that all?"

"For drugs, yeah."

"What else?"

He turned. The ape's eyes were focused on the notes he was making. "She said she hasn't scarred since she was a kid. Had her appendix out or some shit like that, but nothing after."

"I'm going to run a more sophisticated genetic profile. I'll let you know what I come up with."

Creed nodded and walked back into the frail's room. Jimmy sat down in his usual spot and stared. "I saw how you touched her. She's not a job."

He glanced over at Jimmy. "Not every job's the same."

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next day, Jimmy showed up with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. The ape walked in a few minutes later.

"C'mon," Jimmy said.

"No. I don't wanna leave her alone."

"I'll be with her." McCoy said. "I'll need an hour or so to do some tests. If you aren't back, I'll make sure that someone sits with her." Either the scents of medicine and antiseptic were dulling his senses, or some of the anger was leeching out of the ape's scent.

Creed nodded and got up. He didn't necessarily care to spend time with Jimmy. He was pretty sure he knew what his brother was going to ask. He went for the whiskey and the promise of fresh air.

"So, your boss isn't afraid I'm gonna piss on the carpets or blow the place up?"

Jimmy glared at him. "You ever stop being a pain in the ass?"

"Not usually."

They moved upward through the mansion. Jimmy stopped in a rear hallway and pulled on a jacket. Creed headed out the door onto a snowy stone patio. As soon as he was outside, he took a deep breath, clearing the stink of illness from his nose. Jimmy stood next to him and handed him a glass full of dark amber liquid. Creed drained half of it. It felt like swallowing fire.

"Goddamn, what is that, lighter fluid?"

Jimmy glared. "You've had worse."

"I know that, but it ain't usually my choice. You picked this shit out."

"Kickin' redneck ass don't pay like it used to. If you don't want it, give it back."

"Fuck that." He drained the rest of the glass and focused on the burn.

"Thought so." He offered the bottle and Creed filled his glass again.

"I know you wanna ask, and you know I ain't gonna tell you so you might as well not bother."

"I've never seen a woman reach out to you and I've sure as hell never seen you reach back without your claws. I could see you sitting there if she was a job, but not touching her like that." Jimmy was looking out across the wide lawn.

For some reason, hearing that description of such an intimate and private moment pissed Creed off. He turned toward Jimmy and threw the glass on the ground. The growl that erupted from his chest was laced with danger. "What the fuck do you want from me?" He advanced on the smaller feral, his claws extended. He heard the runt pop his claws too. "You want ammo? You want something to tell the old man so that the next time we're on the opposite sides of something he has a good fucking threat? Maybe you think you can get some of your own back. Maybe you think you can take my mate from me like you think I took yours from you."

Jimmy lunged and Creed countered, knocking the other mutant onto his back. Jimmy slashed the back of Creed's calf, cutting down to the bone. He roared and planted his boot in the soft part of Jimmy's side. If it hadn't been for the adamantium, Jimmy's ribs would have been crushed. The runt rolled away and got to his feet.

"You did take something from me!" The smaller feral roared.

"If you think that was my decision you're dumber than you look."

"You didn't stop it."

"Yeah, cause I was right in the loop during the planning process."

Jimmy's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean Kayla was already with you by the time I heard about her. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Call you up? 'Hey Jimmy, I know you hate my fucking guts but guess what? That girl you've been living with and making plans with is working for Stryker. Just thought you'd like to know.' You'd've ignored it on principle and don't tell me you wouldn't."

Jimmy stared at him for a long moment, then retracted his claws. "Suppose that's all you think you did."

Creed shrugged. "Kept your skinny ass alive. If you're pissed about that, that's your problem. Where the fuck is that bottle?" He found it laying in a small heap of snow. He took the cap off and took several long swallows.

"Gimme some of that." Jimmy took it from him.

Creed looked at the back of his leg. It was mostly healed already. Probably draw some looks when they got back inside.

"Mate?" Jimmy cocked one eyebrow. Creed fucking hated it when the runt did that.

"Maybe you're too fucking domesticated to remember what it means, but I'm sure as hell not." Creed used his claws to slice through the torn and blood-soaked fabric around his calf. For a few minutes, there was silence.

"You love her?" Jimmy asked.

"What? No!" Creed walked to the other end of the patio. "I don't know. What the fuck has that got to do with anything?"

Jimmy suppressed a little laugh. "Whatever you say." He took a long swallow and handed the bottle back to Creed. "Who's after her?"

Creed looked at the smaller feral through narrowed eyes. "Why're you askin'?"

"Well shit, I don't know. You show up here out of the blue asking for help for a human girl that you didn't hurt in the first place. You tell me you had half your head blown off trying to keep her away from somebody. All of that makes me just a little curious."

Creed took a generous swallow and handed the bottle back. "This you who wants to know, or your boss?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Chuck has his own sources. He probably had his own version of the story the morning after you got here."

Creed took a deep breath and started the story from the beginning. Jimmy stood there and listened. Even after Creed finished, Jimmy stood there silent for awhile.

"You're going after them, aren't you." Jimmy asked.

"Wouldn't you? C'mon, they're probably done with her by now." He headed back inside and tossed the bloody fabric into a small wastebasket by the door.

Jimmy followed him and the two ferals walked through the wood-paneled main entrance hall. Creed found himself wondering if the frail would like it. Her tastes tended to run toward the simple, though. The blue doctor was wearing a bright white lab coat when he approached them there.

"She's been moved back into the main medical unit," he said.

Something in the way the ape said it made Creed suspicious. "Why?"

"We need to talk about that." Creed could smell the tension around the doctor.

The three walked in silence back to the same conference room they'd taken him into when they arrived. Jimmy sat down in a corner.

"I told you Kelly has some brain swelling."

"Yeah." Creed knew it was going to be bad. He fought the urge to sit.

"She's too weak for surgery, so I've been trying to manage it with medication. Nothing I've tried thus far is working. The swelling is starting to compromise her vital functions."

"How long." Creed's voice was flat.

"It's difficult to tell. I've switched her to a different drug at a higher dosage; it's possible that it'll help. She's already fought harder than I would have thought in the beginning."

The corner of Creed's mouth twitched in a proud little smile. "She don't look like much, but she's scrappier than a one-eyed alley cat."

The ape smiled a little. "That she is. I finished the more detailed genetic profile as well."

"And?"

"She has dormant mutant genes."

Creed gave a derisive snort. "Like a quarter of the human population."

"True, but one cluster of those genes isn't quite so dormant." He turned on a lighted panel. The images that resembled clouds of stars were laid out.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Creed sat down.

"Genes, both human and mutant, are only potentials. Experience is needed to activate or deactivate them. Logan, your healing factor became active when you were in your early adolescence, correct?"

"Yeah, so?"

Creed could smell confusion and incredulity.

The doctor looked at Victor. "And yours?"

"I don't know, six or seven. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Is it safe to say that your early life was significantly different than Logan's?"

Creed could feel the rage surging through every cell in his body. His muscles tensed. "That's none of your fucking business!"

"I'm not asking to pry."

Creed growled. "Then what difference does it make?"

"Only that if you endured more physical difficulties the gene cluster that controls your healing factor would have been bombarded with need signals. It would have become active sooner to keep you alive. I think that's what happened to the gene cluster Kelly has. I can see that she's suffered prolonged malnutrition, though it's abated fairly recently. What else can you tell me about her background?"

"She's been through hell." It was as much as Creed was willing to say. When she woke up, if she wanted to, the frail could tell him herself.

The ape nodded and pointed to the three images. "These are graphical representations of the gene cluster responsible for mutant healing factor. The bright spots are methyl molecules. They either attach to gene signaling it to turn on directly, or they act on the histones that wrap the molecule so that certain parts of the sequence become available or hidden depending upon the action. The image on the left is an ordinary human with a dormant mutant healing factor." It was mostly dark with a couple of bright spots scattered haphazardly across the field. "On the right is Logan's. You can see the difference." Jimmy's looked like a nebulous image of a bright galaxy.

"And the frail?"

"She falls right in between the two." He pointed to the third image. "She heals at a normal rate, but I think the partial activity of those genes prevents her skin from scarring. I think it's also why she's so resistant to medications as well."

Creed stared at the images. "Well that's just terrific. I'm sure you'll win first prize at the science fair. What good is it going to do her?"

The ape took a deep breath. "I might have a way to fully activate the genes."

"Might?"

"It's experimental."

Creed shook his head. A growl erupted from his chest. "Hasn't she been through enough? Now you want to turn her into some kind of fucking lab rat?"

"Epigenetic therapies are in use for certain cancers-"

"She hasn't got cancer!"

"I've done everything I can do for her. Her body is either resisting it or she's simply too weak to bounce back. I can't promise this treatment will work, but it's the only thing I can offer."

Creed started to pace. "What if it does work? Will she be a mutant?"

"I'll target the treatment to her healing factor genes, but I can't make any guarantees."

It was too much to think about and just trying to sort through it hurt. "This gonna hurt her more? Because she's been through enough shit already."

"She won't feel anything. I'll prepare an IV solution and she'll receive it with the rest."

"How many times have you done this?" He was avoiding it. Why were they asking him anyway? Didn't McCoy of all people know that he fucked everything up?

From the look on his face, Creed knew it wasn't a question the ape wanted to answer. "Five people have received similar treatments."

"And how many did it work for?"

"One saw limited methylation. Their circumstances were far different from Kelly's though."

Creed's eyes narrowed. "Different how?"

"All of those patients had completely dormant genes. For Kelly, it's still a long shot but it has a chance of succeeding enough to bring her out of this."

Creed thought back to the first time they'd seen Stan on television. She'd been terrified and then the next night she'd wanted to go out alone just to prove he hadn't won. She'd probably view dying as a win for Stan and Cavallo. She'd fucking hate that. He nodded. "Do it."