Chapter 2
The first thing Wolverine saw when the doors opened was a Scott Summer sitting in front of the infirmary in a way that he would never find comfortable in anyway. By the way he stand it would have been appropriate consder a career as a contortionist in the circus. Maybe he should talk to Kurt, so he could jet some advice.
"How’s the sleeping beauty?" He asked, nodding his head towards the door. As soon as he spoke, Scott stood up, ready for action. He smell of fear and preoccupation, the guy realy had left his nerves on edge. To give to the Monocle credit, he put hiself back togher in no time once he noticed it was just him.
"They say everything is normal. Although I hate the fact that he’s locked in there with Jean." He said reaching out and taking his cup of coffee. " Thank you".
"For the record, it wasn’t for you, Buddy."
"If you took it for Jean, I’m sorry to inform you they have their car in there. How do you think Hank survived until now?" He said in between sips of coffee.
"He is really on your irritating you? Eh, Monocle. Almost more than me," Logan said once Scott threw away the empty coffee in to the bin next to the chair.
"You don’t know how much." he replied seriously. " But don’t worry, you’re just a step below." He continued with a more relaxed tone, making a mischievous grin.
"Hmm." Logan rolled his eyes.
For some time the offenses had turned into witty jokes. Often and willingly Scott could still a fuking dick, with his golden boy air and by be the perfect leader. God in tha moments he could not stand him. But in the end he barely tolerates anyone who gave him orders, so, probably the fault was not just of Scott.
Since Jean had bluntly told him that he had chosen Scott, the hostility between him and Summers had subsided, he saw it as progress in his personal growth. Besides the fact that Scott also seemed to be more conciliatory with him, he no longer treated him with superiority.
"All right, Bub, it’s my turn now. You have students that are waiting for you." he said, patting him on the shoulder.
"You know?I'm not so sure about the second part." Sigh Scott and pointing at the door of the infirmary, he said, "Call me if anything happens, I don’t trust that animal. Now it’s all yours, have fun." Then head for the elevator.
He stood alone in the corridor with his thoughts. He could understand Scott’s feelings for that guy, God, he wasn’t his biggest fan either, but he hasn’t been able to shake the anxiety since yesterday. He wasn’t afraid of him, he was afraid for him. He felt guilty for leaving him after they tried to kidnap them in Alkali Lake*. But they didn't found him in thery last big mission there. Anyway he should have tried to find him, to help him...
~~~
Jean wasn’t sure what else to do. The test results were back and they were worrying. Based on the results, if Sabertooth had been a normal man, he would have been dead by now. His regenerative cells were working at full capacity, yet on the surface he still looked like a man out of a bad bar fight.
She had already changed the bandages three times and his body did not seem to stop bleeding.
The blood samples showed traces of adamantium poisoning, as well as hair and fingernail analysis. Hank had tried everything to see how to help him, the genius intuition was to compare it to heavy metal poisoning. They were injecting him with acetylcysteine to help him get out of the intoxication, but they had difficulty balancing the amount. Too much and it would have made the situation worse, too little and with its increased regeneration he would not even have felt it. She felt like she was walking in the dark.
At times like these she hated mutations, how she could fight for the survival of people she didn’t know how to help in her ordinary job. She was exhausted, but still remained alert by his side. She did not want to sleep, Sabertooth have come here alive, and by any means he have to remane like that.
She took off her gloves and rubbed her face against with the palm of her hands. With her eyes clouded with fatigue, she looked at the figure lying before her.
He still had his mind in her head the moment before he pass out, their eyes had meet for a moment, he felt his thoughts clear and limpid, but his emotions were everywhere and mixed in confusione betwin them. Fear, anger, relief, sadness, desire for security. It was all so much, and all right on the surface that it was hard to tell if there was a predominant emotion.
Her pause was interrupted by the door that opened. Logan entered with arms folded going straight to the bed, remained a few moments to watch Sabertooth with a confused frown. It would have been so easy to read his thoughts, and understand what worried him, but she didn't look in the mind of someone without explicit permission, or at least not always.
"So, what happened to him?" Wolverine asked, after a few minutes of contemplation, coldly.
Hank spoke first, hanging upside down from the ceiling at the bottom of the room where he had his lab, while labeling test tubes. "All the tests show he was subjected to a series of invasive experiments to inject the adamantium around his skeleton. I guess it could be something like what they did to you." Then he got back on his feet, fixed his glasses, took some x-rays scans and walked over to Logan and handed them to him. Wolverine took them cautiously trying to make sense of it.
Beast I try to explain wath he was seeing "His body is rejecting the surgery, but the most fascinating part is his brain. It not only tries to make up for the trauma both physically and psychologically, but has a deterioration that does not coincide with the stage of the other parts."
"What does that mean?" Wolverine asked unconvinced.
"It means that his body decided that it was better to cure that first than anything else." Helped Jean. "I think that’s why he decided to come here, he knew what he wanted and what he needed." She went on to pick up the scans form Wolverine hands.
"By the way he arrived last night it seemed he wanted a fight." Logan said putting his hands on hips
"No, Logan, he wanted help. I read his thoughts before he passed out, that’s all he told me."
Hank said, "And even without the Hippocratic oath, we would have done it. You can’t leave someone in that condition without at least trying to do something."
"Hey, man, that’s not what I meant." Logan said, putting his hands in the air as a sign of surrender and a frown on his face.
"I know, I’m sorry." He said as he walked away and took a syringe for blood samples. "I think I speak for both of us and said we’re tired."
"Hank’s right, we can’t wait to get some sleep, but we’re sure he’ll wake up in the next few hours." Jean lean closer to him almost wispering "Don’t worry, for neither of us, nor for him or me. Everything will be fine." Jean said in a sweet, slightly maternal way, looking him in the eyes.
"I’m not worried." Logan replied, angry, he knew that he had not read his thoughts, when she did, he always felt it. The worst part was that he had it written all over his face.
"Logan, would you give me your arm? I’d like to check you out as well." Beast asked, taking him away from his green eyes.
~~~
Noise. Indistinct. Annoying. Dark.
He had to open his eyes! He had to know where he was! He felt the panic growing, he wanted to move but he couldn’t. Had he been tied up again?
He had to open his eyes! An angry muffle sound came out of his mouth. His breath was heaving and he could hear the beep of a machine rising. By now he was used to that kind of sound, for months they had kept him tied to those things. That meant he hadn’t run away. He was still in that nightmare lab.
He had to open his eyes! He had to move, to run! He managed to lift his eyelids. He still couldn’t focus, but it was okay, that wouldn’t stop him. He hurls himself out of bed with instability, ripping out all the damn wires they had connected him to the vital supports, but he still put himself in an attack position. He could see two white spots moving, another figure standing in front of them. Great, just one guard to take down, and as weak as he was he thought he could win, or at least he would try anyway.
He could say that they were talking, but the words were confused, he didn’t want to hear them, they were probably calling other guards. Things were about to get bad. If he killed at least the three in the room, it could almost be worth it, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, right?
He was going to attack, when he hear a voice that was crystal clear and calm surpass all the other sounds, it make him stop.
"Sabertooth, it’s all right. We’re the x-men." He felt the presence in the head, a female voice with an almost apprehensive tone. The telepath, the redhead was talking to him. He had made it, he wasn’t on Three Mile Island anymore.
The moment this awareness sank he felt his strength abandon him, his legs gave way, but before touching the ground someone caught him.
"All right, big guy, it’s time to go back to bed." He couldn’t see the figure, but he could smell the distintive traits of sigars that the runt always had on him.
That idiot, he still hated him, but the more time he spent, the more he remembered why and the less he wanted. He wanted to be able to ask him questions, he asked if he still didn’t remember anything. He wanted to know if fhe other knew who they were. But all attempts to say something turned into low growls meaningless.
He felt dragged on the bed and something hairy that put back his IV and respirator.
"You need to relax and stay down, so you’ll feel better." said the female. "We’ll be here if you need us."
The bed was soft and although there has never been too fond, accustomed to sleeping on the ground, he feel transported back into unconsciousness.