author: Lucinda
rating: pg13
main character: Logan (Wolverine) and Angel
disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to Angel, the creation of Joss Whedon for the series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. I hold no legal rights to Logan, the creation of Marvel Comics
distribution: Jinni, Paula - anyone else just ask.
notes: this takes place just after WWII and before the Weapon X program.
Considerably before the BtVS series takes place.
There was snow all around him. Something in the back of his mind suggested that this was somehow wrong. The man shook his head, his dark hair damp with melted snow and blood. Where had the blood come from?
He wasn't certain. He didn't seem to have any injuries, but... there were quite a number of bright purple-pink marks, slashes and dots over his body. Bits of wire and tubing seemed to be attached to him, but it looked as if they had been torn away from whatever they had once connected to. Those were the only adornments other than more streaks of blood and a few of ashes that covered his muscles. Something suggested that this wasn't right either.
Frowning, the man tried to follow that feeling. What wasn't right? Pain flared in the back of his head, radiating around his skull and down his spine, tracing out along every bone in his body, a deep burning ache. Something was howling, and it had to be very close...
He was howling.
The throbbing burning pain turned his vision red and then black. For a moment, he was dimly aware that the howling had stopped, and then everything faded into cool, dark nothingness.
Awareness returned, and he could feel every bone, as if they were trying to drag him down, too heavy to move. A blanket was covering him, and it smelled of cool earth and pine needles. He could hear a fire, smell smoke and earth, roasting rabbit and a man.
"You look like hell, Logan." The voice was calm, and carried a faint accent that his mind identified as Irish.
Part of him wanted to ask questions, to ask who the Irishman was, how he knew who he was. Surely he was this 'Logan' that the man had addressed? Nobody else was in the area with them. But everything hurt, and thinking didn't seem to help.
He made a noise, nothing quite coherent enough to be words, let alone questions.
"It's only me - Angel." There was a pause, and it sounded like the other man stirred the fire. "You were out in the snow. Do you remember what happened?"
"Nnnggh." The noise was hardly better, but it did seem to convey to the other man, this Angel person, that he didn't remember.
"Huh." Angel moved closer, and cold fingers touched his forehead. "At least you don't seem to have a fever. From anyone else, I'd ask if you had a death wish, running around like that."
Had Angel been a friend of his? How much about him did this person know? Why were they in some sort of earthen cave? He tried to shape the words. "Whhhrrr."
For a moment, there was silence. "We're in Canada, far away from anywhere that anything is supposed to be. No towns, no recorded military bases or research centers..."
Logan growled, something about the words striking deep inside, where the burning pain lived, and he had a momentary flicker of images, steel tables, glass tubes with men writing inside, a man with cloth over his face holding a scalpel... His hands clenched into fists, and there were tiny spots of pain and this odd grating sensation, and six gleaming lengths of metal emerged from his hands.
He froze, staring at the metal, watching the firelight shimmer over them. That was... new. Wrong. Those shouldn't be there.
"Those are new." Angel's voice was soft as he stared at the metal. "Apparently, there are things that the Canadian Government isn't sharing."
Slowly, he lifted his eyes from the metal to Angel. The man who seemed to know him looked taller, probably by about another foot. He had dark eyes and dark hair worn long, and he looked a bit ragged, as if he'd been traveling hard, and out of the way. But he didn't look or smell afraid of the metal, wasn't afraid of Logan. Actually, there was something about his smell that wasn't... Something inside said that it wasn't right, wasn't human.
"You look worse off than I was the last time we met." Angel's voice was quiet, and hinted at painful memories.
Logan made another sound, full of the questions that he couldn't find the words for. Pain throbbed again, and he grabbed at his head with his hands, heedless of the metal.
"I'm here, Logan." Angel offered him the half-roasted rabbit. "I'll try to help you get through this."
For a moment, Logan wondered what would happen, what the future would hold. But the questions made his head hurt, and instead, he took the rabbit, biting deep into the meat. For now, he'd eat. Questions could come later.
Angel watched for a while, not so much focusing on the rabbit, but looking at Logan, as if comparing him to a past memory. "Somehow, I don't think you'll be buying any whiskey in the near future."
Pausing, Logan tried to make sense of that. Flashes of almost memory tried to rise inside his mind, but vanished before he could get more than a vague sense of something lurking. Whiskey... it was a drink, not water, but something that burned in a good way, not like the throbbing pain. Reminded of his own nakedness, Logan sighed, certain that he couldn't buy anything.
"Don't worry about it right now." Angel offered. "I'll help you get better. Whatever happened, it must have been pretty bad."
One eyebrow raised, and Logan wondered why Angel would help him.
"You were almost family once." The words came slowly, as if there was something somehow shameful about them, which didn't make any sense. "If you had become family, it would be my duty and responsibility. But... well, things didn't go that way. It's still my choice. I'll help you."
Parts of it still didn't make sense to Logan, but for now it would be enough. He could eat, and rest. Angel would help him recover.
End D&BM3: Wild Feast.