Kitten
"Youre cold."
"I'm always cold Victor, I'm dead."
"I know."
Arkady stops his pacing and shivering and sits down beside Victor on the ratty couch, reaching out to take both his hands in his.
"I'm not going anywhere." He whispers, Victor nods. His eyes drift closed and he traces a few small circles on the inside of Arkady's wrists with the tips of his claws. Circling around the spot where Arkady's coils break skin.
"Thats not what I'm worried about." Victor hangs his head and brings one of Arkady's hands up to press a kiss to his knuckles. "I left you last time, remember?”
"I couldn't forget if I tried Victor."
"I know."
"I don't hate you. You saved us, doing what you did. You had to and I understand."
"I should have come back to you."
Arkady rolls his eyes.
"You didn't remember and look," Arkady grabs Victor's chin between his thumb and forefinger, gives his head a little shake, and smiles. "You did come back to me. It just took some time."
Victor pounces, he tackles Arkady to the ground and they roll across the floor until the coffee table stops them. He laps at Arkady's face and when Arkady opens his mouth to complain he kisses him slow and deep.
It's Victor who rolls off of him and to the side. Still holding hands with the both of them laying on the floor. But it's Arkady who rolls onto his side and kisses Victor again, on the side of his neck.
"Tease." Victor mumbles, Arkady just laughs. And that's a gift in itself, that Arkady can laugh. These days it happens often.
They lay there side by side for a long time, long enough for stomachs to grumble and the sun to paint its practiced swatch across the floor from the bay window on the front side of the house.
"I've got to keep going." Victor whispers, more to himself than anything else. All the same Arkady rolls over onto his side and kisses his cheek, all sweet like.
"I'll be waiting." He said, Victor stands with a groan and stretches out his back with both hands on his hips. After a fair amount of snapping and popping he walks over to the record player and picks up the cardboard that holds the record with him and Clara on it.
On the back by their song is an arrow that when Victor holds the record out in front of him points down.
He looks down and almost slaps himself in the face when he doesn't see anything. Instead he puts the record down and gets to his knees with a shake of his head. Under the coffee table where the phonograph sits is a small package.
He pulls it out and unwraps it, undoing the twine and pulling the old worn paper away to reveal a pile of letters.
He flips through them and every single one, in his mother's hurried handwriting, is addressed to him.
Well.
To Chaton.
Victor scratches at his scalp and glances up to find Arkady nowhere to be found.
He signs and carefully rips the first one open.
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To Chaton,
I'm sorry. That's all I have for say now but it has to be said. Oh you'll kill us one day. I can see it. So when you do I'll leave you this.
I have to say sorry.
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Victor growls and flips to the next letter, he's less careful in ripping it open this time.
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To Chaton,
The night you were born the road was flooded out, you were born in the downstairs bathroom, bloody and mewling on the floor.
You nearly took me away, nearly killed me that night. I didn't wake up for a month and your father no doubt took it out on you. He's wished you were dead for a long time, trying to find something wrong with you. I'm afraid it's my fault. That because I wasn't strong enough when you were born you may always be seen as that bloody mewling baby in his eyes.
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He already knew that, his father had told him all his life. The only thing he was good for was taking, taking, and taking.
He rips open the next.
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To Chaton,
Today you scared me. Or rather you tried to. But I can never be scared of you, my baby I'm so sorry. You deserve to punish us for what we've done.
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He stops reading after the first paragraph and drops it to the ground next to where he sits to rip open the next, this one bigger than the others.
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Chaton,
My love. I'm sorry. I can't say that enough. I know you won't care what I saw now when I've left you down there, begging for me-
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He shouldn't be reading this,-
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-how it hurt to walk away. But you must know your father has taken me hostage too. A long time ago be got his hands in me.
Did you know your oddities come from me my love?
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He can't seem to stop. As Much as he wants to throw it across the room and leave it there to rot.
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I see the way you do. Those extra colors my love, don't fear then. And your nose will tell you everything you need to know.
Watch your claws.
I file them everyday my love and it's still not enough.
You must be careful.
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Victor shakes, trembling, as he turns the page over the read the backside.
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If this advice is all I leave you with I will be happy. Though you deserve so much more.
All I ask of you now my darling is to watch over your sister, she's had to take care of your brother and she cannot do it alone for much longer.
I'm sorry I sullied you with my curse Chaton. I won't fight when you kill me, I couldn't bear to, not when I know this is my fault.
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Victor isn't sure what happens.
He hears a roar he knows is him, paper fluttering to the ground, cries that can't be him.
All he knows is that his eyes open, crusted shut with dried tears, to Arkady's boots by his face.
Red is crouched down and petting Victor's hair from his face, mumbling something that could be sweet nothings or a description of a favorite murder. Victor doesn't care. He pushes himself to sit up, hunched over and hiding behind his hair, with another weak mewl. Like a kitten he trembles.
"My mother-" his voice cracks. "She was a mutant Arkasha. She blamed herself." He shakes harder and drops to the floor again, nearly breaking his nose with how he lands. "My ma was a mutant like me and I killed her." He whimpers. Before he can stop it he's crying, open and ugly. "I miss my ma red! She was good and I killed her! Whyd i…whyd I have to kill her?!" Victor claws at the floor, Arkady doesn't say a word. He only stays nearby. Keeps a hand on Victor at all times. "I didn't think she cared…" Victor wails, he doesn't have the energy to care about his reputation anymore. "I thought she didn't care, that she'd given up." He isn't really sure where he's going, just talking to get it out of his system.
Eventually he does get it out. At least enough to breathe again. It's difficult to do, when his entire family is rotting under him.
He cries.
For the first time in over a century, sabretooth cries.
It hits him like a truck, all the memories of that night that he pushed deep down and lied to himself about. He wasn't some avenging angel- he was crying and he was scared.
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He almost wants to say sorry, his mother cries so quietly. He knows she's holding back and that hurts much more.
Something in her eyes, in the dead flower scent of her, tells him that she never meant it to be this way.
But more than that, the whispered words she pushes close to speak tells him clearly.
"I forgive you."
He cries and grabs her throat, her head starts to bleed after he cracks it against the floor. He's crying, been crying for some time. Ever since he pounced on his mother and dragged her to the ground.
He doesn't want to do this. He's sick with it. The repulse, he wants nothing more than to puke and take back the scratches and say that he's sorry. But his mother is already- she's gurgling in her lungs and shaking in her last moments. Her eyes are dead and gone. She's dead and gone.
Victor falls back onto his back with a wail, beside him he hears his sister scramble to his side but he pushes her away. No doubt nicking her qith his claws. Victor Graydon Creed cries. Loud and weak. Like a newborn kitten, he rolls and grabs his mother's hand. Quickly growing cold he hugs her close.
"I'm sorry-" He cries, "I'm sorry mama." He wails and claws at her. Anything to get her to wake up. But she doesn't. Her clothes tear, then her skin, in one last affront to her memory. Victor rips her apart, and he doesn't even mean to.
In this moment he is born and just like the first time he takes his mother as sacrifice.