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Midlife Crises
by Pirate Turner
He was already growling when he rounded the corner and nearly ran face to face into a dark-skinned woman prattling on about mid-life crises and the depression that followed. Her image flashed across the multitude of television screens in the shop's window as she explained to her audience the crazy things that a man caught between wanting to relive his younger days and having to face the reality of his older self might do. Sabertooth growled again, his fangs glistening and claws unsheathing as she went on and on about buying expensive cars, having affairs with secretaries, and running against the law.
She had no idea what she was talking about. His last few days had been a blur, but he had not lost track of time on purpose. Time simply didn't matter to him; there was no reason for it to when he could live practically forever and had already seen more than three times the number of years that the self-possessed and bigoted talk show host would ever see. His clothes were torn and soaked with blood, none of which was his, but he hadn't picked any of the fights as an effort to relive what she referred to as his glory days. Every one of the idiots had deserved exactly what he'd given them.
It didn't matter that his birthday had been three days ago and had gone unnoticed by the world. He wasn't getting old. He hadn't found any gray hairs amongst his shaggy, blonde mane, and he wasn't going to. He grew older, but he didn't age. Time went on all about him, progressing and worsening its surroundings constantly, but it didn't affect him. He was a free man. He lived between time's pages, and the years had no control over him.
Yet, as Oprah talked on about what growing older meant to men and how much harder it was for them to settle with its terms than for most women, Sabertooth felt that old, fiery anger burning within him again. She didn't know what she was talking about. She didn't know him. If she knew him, she'd be dead by now. One time of her mouth opening around him, and he'd have gutted her like a fish. He grinned, amusement touching his feral, green eyes for the first time in days. She didn't know him. She was just talking to her audience in general about aging, the effects of time, and the struggle of men who tried their hardest to ignore those effects.
But time, Victor reminded himself again as he started to walk pass the display televisions, didn't matter to him. It had no affect on him. He wasn't having a mid-life crisis. He wasn't hiding from the turning of his year. He wasn't running from his birthday, or from the fact that it had been forgotten by every one else.
He was just . . . here. He just happened to be in this Gods-forsaken town, because it's where he had finally ran out of juice. He'd crawled into a hotel bed at dawn and had slept away most of the day before finally coming out into the harsh rays of the sun that pounded into his groggy brain. He'd had his claws full the last few days, full of fights that hadn't had to have been his but might as well have been picked with him, full of blood that, no matter how thick or brightly crimson it ran, wasn't enough to make him forget what had set him to running in the first place.
Victor shook his head and growled again. Damn it, he wasn't running! He never ran! He was Sabertooth, and he'd gladly rip apart any one who said he ran!
Oprah faced her cameras as she spoke to the audience beyond her stage. "Could this be you?" she asked. "Are you suffering a mid-life crisis, or do you think you might be? You don't have to be afraid," she cajoled. "You don't have to go through this alone. I'm here. I want to help you. Just pick up the phone and dial -- "
She never got to speak her number in the window of that little store as Sabertooth roared; spun around, the tails of his heavy, black trench coat whirling around him; and sliced into the televisions. The screams of the people watching his fury greeted his ears, and he smiled like a satisfied cat licking the last drops of cream off of a platter. Electricity sparked and lit the air around his arms, but still he continued the work that pleased him at the moment, slicing and dicing the televisions until, suddenly, applause wrent the air.
Creed glowered, and his growl filled the otherwise hushed street. He sniffed the familiar scent punctuating the air and turned slowly to face him. "Runt," he growled, facing Logan who stood, leaning against his bike and clapping his hands in approval. Victor's claws arched as, in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to wipe the amused, depreciating grin off of Logan's face. "Come fer a fight?"
"Nah," Logan drawled. "Not unless ya need one. Figured ya might could use one o' these, though." He tossed Victor a beer can.
Victor glowered at the one man in all the world who matched his fury, claws, and heart, but he caught the can nonetheless, ripped the top off of it with his claws, and pressed his lips to the jagged edge. He drank the beer in a single gulp, then wiped his mouth off with his forearm, crumpled the can in a single squeeze of his hand, and tossed the remains into the shop through its busted window.
"Pay the man for his TVs," Logan told him, jerking his head to the brand new and shiny bike that waited next to his, "an' let's ride."
Victor glared at the bike and the offer Logan made him that he was so confident he'd accept. The runt had known he'd be there. How else could he have had the bike waiting right there for him? The fact that he'd known where he would wind up should have made Creed even angrier, but then he knew that Logan knew him just as well as Vic knew Logan. How many times had he found him on his days despite Logan's determined struggles to hide?
Logan watched the emotions warring in Victor's glowing, primal orbs and shrugged as he casually lit a cigar. "Yer choice," he stated with a roll of his muscular shoulders. "Mountains're waitin', but they can wait. Time ain't gonna get rid o' 'em no more than it is us."
A slow grin tugged at the corners of Victor's lips which still wore dried splatters of blood from the fights and killings which had filled his last few days. He pulled a bill out of his wallet and tossed it at the shopkeeper who, up until then, had been too scared to speak. Then, as Victor headed for Logan and both the offer he was making verbally and the one that lay unspoken, the shopkeeper lifted the bill off of the dirty floor and exclaimed. "Hey, this isn't enough!"
Logan's eyes glowed with the same primal force which lit Victor's as he looked at the puny man. "It's more'n he gives most o' th' time," he said, "an' yer damn lucky he gave it to ya an' didn't just kill yer ass."
Victor's claws unsheathed again. He looked at Logan with a teasing grin. "It's not too late," he growled. His voice now held an air of playfulness to it that only Logan could hear and recognize. "I could go back an' finish th' job."
The shopkeeper screamed and ran. Laughter barked out of Logan's throat. "Come on, Creed. He ain't worth it. 'Sides, aren't ya tired o' waitin'?"
Victor was at his side now, and he gazed down deeply into Logan's eyes. "Where were ya?" he asked.
Logan took a puff on his cigar. "Really wanna know?"
Victor snorted. "Savin' th' world again?"
"'Course. Do I do anythin' better?"
"Hell, yeah," Victor breathed against his lips as he lowered his head down to his. Logan moved his cigar, and they kissed, Victor's tongue thrusting deep into his mouth and uncurling to play with his tongue and tease his fangs. Victor cupped a hand around the back of Logan's head, his fingers entwining in his graying hair. He slipped his other arm around his waist and brought him closer to him until he could plainly feel every inch of his need and desire, each emotion just as primal and even more ferocious than his prior anger. He drank long and hard of the man he loved, and when he finally lifted his head, every one in the street had scattered and Logan gazed up at him with his eyes twinkling.
"Let's ride," Logan whispered hoarsely, and Victor nodded before jumping on his new bike and riding away into the sunset, leading them back to their cabin and the future that awaited them both, forever entwined and glorious in their intense and never ending love and that would never be dulled or otherwise touched by time.
The End