"When it happens?" He nodded in the clumsy and awkward way one does when their head is against a pillow. "Sometimes the healing hurts worse than the cause. People ain't made to live through the things I have."
Each event held its own trauma for him and by all rights, he should have been a broken man. He could not truly claim to understand what it was that allowed him and his brother to survive those things with their minds in tact. A romantic might claim it was these moments that allowed him to retain his humanity and if not that, it was the booze and vices that did it for him. It was possible that even a shattered mind could be made to stitch itself back together.
People weren't made to live through -- no. That path brought her to sour thoughts. Heartache. So much so that it threatened the precarious sense of peace that had until now pervaded the moment: the kind that comes only at rare times, where a moment of mutual surrender was shared with someone.
Selfishly, she wanted to let sleep take hold. If they slept, then she could pretend like the peace had never been disturbed by the crystalline understanding that his 'gift' was likely an ungenerous one. It took from him -- that's what she understood (feeling her by instinct) from what he said.
"So we will both of us be a little more careful from hereon in," she vowed. As though his transient pain was about as unacceptable to her as scars or bruises or wounds that would be harder to heal.
He feigned bewilderment. "Who me? I'm always careful."
Sleep would come easier for him however. He closed his eyes and began to run his thumb along her ear again. This was where he'd decided was the most calming for him. He had her most attention this way and though he knew she would not admit to it, Logan was convinced she was enjoying it. For all the trouble he'd caused her with the fall, it seemed the decent thing to do would give her a more pleasant distraction.
"Try'n sleep. If there's danger coming, I'll know well before you do, asleep or otherwise."
A second delicate chuckle, low and wry. Dovetailing into a sigh. Peggy wouldn't fool herself -- and she certainly wouldn't fool him -- into thinking this was anything but utilitarian. Or indulgence, at its most charitable. But as she shut her eyes, she realized the brunt of their earlier argument uncovered a kernel of thought worth thinking: he was indeed remarkable. This sudden surge of affection for him, built up in the wake of his mistrust and his blunt behaviour, was platonic. Redemptive.
And so it was no small wonder that her dreams were plagued by the last man of similar remark. Or else it was Logan's light touch, tapping into primal memories long since locked up. The dreams weren't sad. They weren't painful. A little melancholic, but no more so than usual. Glimpses of Steve Rogers and all that could-have-been-but-wasn't. The dreams didn't stir the surface. She slept soundly, lulled into a deeper slumber than she might have ordinarily permitted by the injuries sustained. Her body had begged to be put to rest, if only for a few short hours.
Once, she woke. There were no stars above but only inky darkness and shadowed spires. All was quiet, and she curled herself tighter against Logan. Cheek against his elbow, even breathing snaking down the half-length of his arm. By morning, the passcode would be well-charged indeed.
But before morning could break, there was a skittering of rocks some ten feet from the shallow cave's mouth. Activity in the riverbed.
Logan had slept soundly through the afternoon and early evening. As ever, his dreams were a max mix of the different lives he had led. As ever, there was the familiar mockery from his half brother. Yet not even that would stir him. He had someone to hold onto and so give him an anchor. He was ever a man without a home to go back to and so ever free to simply drift away and not be seen again. Often times he would wake to a new life, leaving the old one behind immediately. This time he woke being held and tethered, but with the rustling sound of danger to his new attachment.
Disentangling himself from around her was not easy, but he did so as gently as he could manage. One last brush of her hair and he was stalking away into the night, still as bare chested as he had been when he first laid his head down to sleep. From his wrists his bone claws slid free in a slick slicing sound, followed by a pop as they fell into place. Then he was on the move keeping to the edges of the cavern. Immediately he could smell something living out there. This was no metal automaton like they had faced before. This thing was alive, though it had no smell like anything he recognized. He moved forward until at last he was at the mouth of the cave. And then, there it was.
The shadow was man shaped, but larger than any person he'd ever seen. The creature had a stooped look to it like an old man might, but Logan could see nothing old and infirm in its wiry and surefooted movements. Though taller than Logan, it was spry and agile though it seemed to be choosing its footing carefully. Once or twice its head turned towards the cavern's mouth, but it did not seem to notice his presence. There was no sound, but for the sweeping of its feet that disrupted stone and dirt as it moved forward.
It didn't look intimidating, but Logan wasn't fixing for a confrontation just yet. Just keep moving, bub.
Peggy slept. Undisturbed. And from his initial silence, the stooped-man began to sing. As creatures went, he was a cautious one. Certain of his footing, but pausing now and then to cock his head. Listened. He walked and listened and walked and listened and then he thought he heard a thing. He had no name, but he had a tune -- and he pledged it little by little to the ravine around him in brief breathy whistles. Chirrups, really. None of his people had ever had names -- identified instead by sequences of notes. Humming; whistling; clicking of tongues. Bizarre music. But his was exceedingly sad, because he sang it for no one. He forever pinged a world that didn't ping back. He was the last, and his tune -- thrust out into the open air -- was something of a swan song.
-- Peggy slept, and music wheedled its way into her dreams. Brassy trumpets, kicking off at unplanned intervals. Music fit for dancing, her heart decided. The mind followed suit, and she barely knew she was alone in a cave in an uncharted city. She barely knew she was anywhere but the Stork Club, a week next. Dancing, as promised. Her heartbeat sped to match.
The Tuneful Fellow came to a sudden halt. His breathy whistle raised; echoed; presented itself. There was a body with a drum trapped inside of it, he realized. Somewhere near. His head cocked again. Maybe two.
It made for a melancholy melody, but Logan was not moved. He could not feel whatever the creature was feeling, though he felt more the prey than the hunter while he watched. Though the creature was purely alien, there were some things that were universal for all creatures. This one could sense life and it was reacting in kind. The pinging and guttural language adopted because something of a query as it continued to repeat the same set of sounds. Thum thum it went, over and over. It occurred to him after a moment that the sound was a crude imitation of a heartbeat. Logan swore under his breath.
There was no sense in being secretive now. He stepped out into the open and retracted his claws. "Alright big guy, you just keep yer distance and there'll be no need for-"
The creature moved faster than Logan could have imagined. He had scarcely raised a hand in alarm before his back was suddenly against the wall being pressed there by a thin but powerful arm. From the creature's chest, three slender fingering appendages began to explore his neck and chest and face. The Tuneful Fellow had never known a creature such as this, but he felt as well as heard. This creature felt wrong and foreign. There was something toxic about it and it was shaped entirely wrong. This was far from being one of his own people. The sounds it made were meaningless and from probing, the sounds seemed to be produced by pushing air through two moving flaps of flesh. It was an interesting discovery. But it was made suddenly short when one of the three appendages was severed. The Tuneful Fellow lost all sense of the world and reacted violently.
Logan was soon facefirst in the dirt, broken and mangled. He was bleeding profusely and several of his bones had been broken and bent into directions they were never meant to go. He had lost sense of what had happened the moment he ripped off that freaky creature's tentacle. However much Logan might have desired for a peaceful communication, he was not about to let some alien asshole start frenching him without an invitation. After that, the creature had beaten the hell out of him before fleeing. Had Logan been any other man, he'd have been dead a hundred times over. Instead, he sat in the dirt groaning. From the top of the riverbed, the Tuneful Creature watched and wept because his own pain seemed unbearable.
Worlds away and dreaming, Peggy saw only stars and stripes. Red and blue with flickers of white. Feet so sore from dancing. Cheeks aching from too much smiling -- is there ever such a thing, Captain? -- and the newborn headache after a long and glorious night of drinking just a little too much. But as a screech tore open the pre-dawn glow, Peggy's body was forced to reacquaint itself with her injuries. She hadn't danced too much; she'd taken a tumble. She'd not drank too much alcohol but had certainly not had enough water. Her mouth felt dry and her heart felt fast. The shrieking had felt like a bolt through her head: like ringing, internal. Peggy whispered his name, and--
"Logan?" She sat up straight. The proper name was on her lips, now. But all she had was a discarded tactical turtleneck that had (somehow) gotten wound up in her fingers. She could chide herself for her sentimentality later; for now, she was far more concerned with a scuffle just beyond the cave's mouth.
Peggy came walking (carefully) out of the cave, her long-arm gun turned into a makeshift cane. But by then, the worst had been accomplished. He was a mess upon the ground, and a strange still-twitching fin or tail or something sat at her feet. Peggy swore colourfully -- only now began to realize that the crooning filling the whole ravine wasn't in her head but was a kind of echo bouncing off the rock.
It wasn't her first priority. Logan was: the man she'd silently vowed to redeem herself by, not keen to let another remarkable person slip through her fingers and be lost to the world. Three feet away from him (and her stomach churning to see the sight) she began pleading for him to do what he did before. Make himself right. Fix himself.
He was fixing himself, but his body was in such a mess that there was so much of him to be put back together. There was no true logic or intent behind how he was put together. It was the internal organs that were set to rights first. Organs that had been punctured or bruised were what went first. His heart began to beat again and then his lungs came to life. Immediately Logan began to move as he painfully coughed up the blood that had flooded inside. It was the bones that came next. Bones that needed to be set right had to be done so manually, for his healing factor could not draw together what had been separated. Broken ribs were mended the easiest, but his broken leg and twisted arm had to be pulled back into place.
When his lungs were cleared, he focused on the rest. He glanced warily at Peggy before he twisted his own arm back into place. The bone crunched and Logan's eyes filled with painful tears. His teeth were clenched tight enough to snap metal when he twisted his knee and foot back into place. His other leg split at the thigh was perhaps the worst of it, because the bone had pierced through flesh. But even that he had to manage himself, though he was near to passing out when he did. When it was all done, he fell onto his back. He was covered in sweat and blood and looked as though he had been through hell and back. Logan might have wept if he had the fluids for it.
"That... son of a bitch," he finally said it was only flesh wounds left for mending together. "Fucking dammit."
It was not much of any kind of explanation, but it summed up his feelings very concisely.
Wartime visited many a horror upon the soul. And many an affront to the sensibilities of mankind. Peggy had seen a lot. A lot. But these past twenty-four hours had vexed her heart something fierce. Her pulse quickened, and the keening from the cliff-tops seemed treble as frenzied. Until (all at once) it was cut silent. An emptiness yawned through the ravine, punctuated only by the popping of Logan's bones and the re-flooding of his veins. And when Peggy moved again, she felt a stiffness in every muscle for how tightly she'd been wound.
"--It doesn't make any sense," she ventured. By now, she was standing over him. Decency demanded that she offer him a helping hand, and she did, though she knew the ache along her ribs would pay the price for such goodwill. "How long was I --" asleep. "The code ought to have been well and truly charged. After all, we..."
Peggy's attention had been too rapt upon him as he'd knit himself back together. Only now did she think cast a wary glance 'round them. She made the mistake of thinking one of of the metal security machines had done this to him.
Logan did not take her hand. Not yet anyway. He rolled himself over to pick up the slithering tentacle and turned it over in his hand before holding it up for her to inspect. He picked himself up enough to be sitting while his eyes scanned the horizon.
"Whatever the hell that was, the code ain't got nuthin' to do with it." He didn't understand how, for surely that creature must be susceptible to the machines as well. And yet it seemed to have no problem going around making a racket. "The thing tried to get all friendly like with me. Cutting off whatever the hell this is sure pissed it off though."
Peggy asked the question that didn't need answering. Merely looking at the bit-of-flesh gave her all the information she need, and yet she still plucked it gingerly from his hand and gave it a proper squint in the almost-dawn light. More and more of it was spilling into the valley with ever minute. The tentacle twitched still, thrumming along to a beat she soon realized came in concert with her own pulse. Perturbed, she let the appendage drop.
"Likely native. Or else another opportunist of the same calibre as you and I. I'm not certain which possibility I prefer least. Although--" Peggy paused. Watched him. "Can you describe it?"
Perhaps she wanted to know the dimensions of whatever creature could do that to him.
Logan was scratching his head, though it only meant rubbing in warm blood to later dry and flake there. He sniffed for the creature's scent, but aside from the creature's tentacle, the beast itself was long gone. But there was at the very least a trail, should they decide to follow it.
"Big. Ten feet tall at least. Thin and wiry, more leg and arm than anything else. The bastard didn't seem to have a face. Just three of these things in its chest. But he was fast. I ain't ever seen anything move that fast. The goddamn thing tried to french me."
Her attention lifted to the jagged cliffs above. Peggy wanted to look anywhere else but at him -- in a flash, she'd grown less transfixed by the horrors of his healing body. There was an unpleasant tension in her throat, and she was forced again to estimate how long it had been since she'd last lost the contents of her stomach. Long enough to make the prospect all the more unwelcome. Her guts weren't made of steel, and so she maintained a pedal note of distress.
"Our absentee landlords," she decided. Hosts; citizens; aliens, perhaps. So long as she wasn't looking at him, she could keep a kind of calm certainty about her words. Sentimentality was kept at bay. "--French...?" The SSR agent didn't bother turning her gaze while she worked through Logan's complaint. She damn well knew what such a kiss was, but her mind was at work and work had nothing to do with kissing. She sighed her mild hindsight's amusement through her nose when she realized the what exact wry comment Logan had been trying to make.
"I don't fancy a snog like that," she answered -- implying (of course) that the creature's affections had left him rather worse for wear. Perhaps she didn't yet understand the probing appendage had caused the kerfuffle, rather than assuming it had been the kerfuffle entire. "Bloody continental, isn't it? Kissing on the cheek when one first meets. Awful. Do you know which way it went?"
At long last she turned, leaning heavily upon the rifle.
Were it not for the taste of blood in his mouth, he might have been gagging at the taste of the creature being in his mouth still. For all the pain he'd just went through, he somehow found that aspect to be the most offensive. He'd never given much thought to aliens before, but he always expected them to be somehow more humanlike in appearance and mannerism.
"Up there." Logan pointed a bloodsoaked hand up the steep incline above the river. How the creature had made it up there so fast he could not say, but the two of them certainly wouldn't be doing it without the use of some rope and climbing. "The bastard's in a hurry. Probably warning his buddies."
Peggy clucked her tongue. Hurried was the last word she could ever hope to use to describe the nature of their theoretical pursuit. If he was right -- if this was some sort of forward scout now rushing back to raise an alarm -- then they might be overrun in due time. Only she'd thought the city was meant to be abandoned. Life-signatures clocking in at next to nothing. Only birds, Howard had assured her. Birds and rats and whatever vermin persist after the death of civilization.
"Then we should work on not being here when it returns. Can you--" she softened. It was one thing to know a man healed quickly, and quite another to take it on faith that he was ready to but out. Her own bruises were showing purple and blue on her cheek, and there was a stiffness in her body that couldn't quite be argued with. But she'd move, if she had to.
Logan hadn't been eager to pursue, but he liked the thought of hiding even less. He staggered to his feet and stretched his back and knees in the process. They seemed to pop into place as he did before he at last knocked out one last crick in his neck. His eyes settled on her with dull acceptance.
"I can move. But you ain't lookin' so hot right now."
He did not doubt she would make a solid effort of it, but she would certainly be slowing them down. Cut her loose, runt. The thought came without bidding and he worked his hand in and out of a fist. The two of them were in it for the long run.
Peggy turned on one heel and started her careful walk back towards the cave's mouth. Their makeshift bed -- she thought of it almost with sentimentality, she found -- would have to be packed away into their satchels. Stored. Any hint of their presence scrubbed from the earth, and then (contrary to what Logan hypothesized) Peggy would want them venturing deeper into the city itself. Perhaps not by the higher road, for she didn't relish the thought of the climb. But so long as the river-bed could be followed in a direction that was once up-stream, she wondered if they might not locate a better point of egress.
"I can manage. And I'll manage better yet with a gentlemanly arm, which I have every scrap of faith will be offered me once we begin again--"
The sweetness -- the warmth -- of the night had seeped away. Horror and her unwavering sense of duty had shoved affection rudely aside, so that the steady tap-tap of her pulse as he'd caressed her neck and ear was a forceful but distant memory. Kept under lock and key for both their sakes.
He still felt stiff and sore as he labored his way in after her. Even if he could heal fast, it seemed like he could never quite mentally catch up to how his body healed. He seemed to hobble a few steps before falling into a more natural rhythm as those last bits of damaged bone and tissue knitted themselves back together. Right now would have been a fine time to wash off all the blood and grime, but there was little enough water for that. He knelt to the task of clearing away their supplies and rolling up the blanket and tarp. Just as it had been before falling asleep, the job was far less laborious for him. The downside to being what he was is that no one would ever get to coddle him.
By the time he had shouldered the supplies again, it already felt as though they'd taken too long. Just as she'd suggested, he presented himself as a solid support to hold and lean onto. "Going back the way we came'll take hours. More with it darkening. Could be worth risking going forward. It's gotta level out eventually."
He might have been the hardier of the two, but she was still the one in command. Logan was, as ever, a soldier.
Her sensibilities met with more resistance than she could have ever anticipated: here she stood, staring for a moment at his blood-streaked arm. Minutes earlier, it had been a crushed and pathetic thing. Broken; busted; beyond bruised. Now it was whole again -- he was whole again -- but she couldn't shake the memory of how he looked. It wasn't decent of her, she realized, but she felt a true hesitation when it came to settling her hand on his. She was ginger. Gentle. Behaving as though she feared the touch would bring pain -- to him, to her, or to both of them. Her mortal mind was trying very hard to wrap itself around what happened to him. Superior strength and resilience might not have been strange concepts to Peggy Carter, but she'd never seen the Captain half-so-hurt as she'd now twice seen Logan. It was a lot to take in.
"You're right," she conceded. And found the courage to lock her fingers up with his. Arm curled 'round his elbow, and her weight favoured onto the side where he was helping her. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Yes?"
A bluster of good old British pliancy found its way back into her speech: justifying risk by imagining the reward.
He had the decency at least to don his jacket again, though he had not bothered to fasten it in the front. Now that she knew what he was, there seemed little to gain in burdening himself with extra layers he did not need. He preferred to feel the wind against his skin. It made him more alive. It made him the hunter and not the prey. His fingers curled up with hers and he began to lead them through the slow and unfriendly terrain that they now new was filled with monsters. Or at the very least, one monster.
"Kinda thinkin' we're lookin' at the raw end of that metaphor." A man who could recover from anything ought to have had a more optimistic perspective, but his ability to survive this mess did not mean that they would come to a good end.
She had no fuller name for him than that. Or -- the SSR had its guesses. Aliases used over time, perhaps. But nothing concrete. But when Peggy wanted to put a bit of emotional distance between herself and someone, she fell back upon the easiest method: Misters. Ma'ams. Ranks.
"But there is great potentiality to be found in all that's raw. Even metaphors. I'll take raw over rancid any day."
"Easy there with the food talk, teacup. My stomach's growling enough as it is." He might have been healthier than she was right now, but he was by far much more ravenously hungry. A healing factor took a lot of energy and he didn't just generate that from nowhere. He was hungrier now than before they had ate their rations hours ago and that was only going to get worse before it was better. It made him wish that he had simply just ate that bit of whatever that he had ripped from the slim creature.
"--On the brighter side of things," she ventured. "If there is a biological presence in the area, we might find ourselves fortunate. All life requires sustenance of some sort: let's hope your new sweetheart likes the same manner of dinner we do."
If aliens were among them -- if they lived, breathed, ate, and ruled still in these lands -- then Peggy and Logan might experience something of a windfall. Provided the strange creature he described ate anything remotely digestible by humans.
The prospect of finding sustenance was a welcome one and it would be one area which Logan could prove exceptionally useful, even if he did not particularly relish the idea of becoming Peggy's food taster. But that was going to be later before it was sooner, because the way ahead was long and there path was going to be slow going. Because the river seemed to be at always a constant curve, it was impossible to tell if there was any place to climb until the wall of rock and dirt was right in front of them.
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munebox2015-05-16 10:12 pm
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Each event held its own trauma for him and by all rights, he should have been a broken man. He could not truly claim to understand what it was that allowed him and his brother to survive those things with their minds in tact. A romantic might claim it was these moments that allowed him to retain his humanity and if not that, it was the booze and vices that did it for him. It was possible that even a shattered mind could be made to stitch itself back together.
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Selfishly, she wanted to let sleep take hold. If they slept, then she could pretend like the peace had never been disturbed by the crystalline understanding that his 'gift' was likely an ungenerous one. It took from him -- that's what she understood (feeling her by instinct) from what he said.
"So we will both of us be a little more careful from hereon in," she vowed. As though his transient pain was about as unacceptable to her as scars or bruises or wounds that would be harder to heal.
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Sleep would come easier for him however. He closed his eyes and began to run his thumb along her ear again. This was where he'd decided was the most calming for him. He had her most attention this way and though he knew she would not admit to it, Logan was convinced she was enjoying it. For all the trouble he'd caused her with the fall, it seemed the decent thing to do would give her a more pleasant distraction.
"Try'n sleep. If there's danger coming, I'll know well before you do, asleep or otherwise."
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And so it was no small wonder that her dreams were plagued by the last man of similar remark. Or else it was Logan's light touch, tapping into primal memories long since locked up. The dreams weren't sad. They weren't painful. A little melancholic, but no more so than usual. Glimpses of Steve Rogers and all that could-have-been-but-wasn't. The dreams didn't stir the surface. She slept soundly, lulled into a deeper slumber than she might have ordinarily permitted by the injuries sustained. Her body had begged to be put to rest, if only for a few short hours.
Once, she woke. There were no stars above but only inky darkness and shadowed spires. All was quiet, and she curled herself tighter against Logan. Cheek against his elbow, even breathing snaking down the half-length of his arm. By morning, the passcode would be well-charged indeed.
But before morning could break, there was a skittering of rocks some ten feet from the shallow cave's mouth. Activity in the riverbed.
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Disentangling himself from around her was not easy, but he did so as gently as he could manage. One last brush of her hair and he was stalking away into the night, still as bare chested as he had been when he first laid his head down to sleep. From his wrists his bone claws slid free in a slick slicing sound, followed by a pop as they fell into place. Then he was on the move keeping to the edges of the cavern. Immediately he could smell something living out there. This was no metal automaton like they had faced before. This thing was alive, though it had no smell like anything he recognized. He moved forward until at last he was at the mouth of the cave. And then, there it was.
The shadow was man shaped, but larger than any person he'd ever seen. The creature had a stooped look to it like an old man might, but Logan could see nothing old and infirm in its wiry and surefooted movements. Though taller than Logan, it was spry and agile though it seemed to be choosing its footing carefully. Once or twice its head turned towards the cavern's mouth, but it did not seem to notice his presence. There was no sound, but for the sweeping of its feet that disrupted stone and dirt as it moved forward.
It didn't look intimidating, but Logan wasn't fixing for a confrontation just yet. Just keep moving, bub.
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-- Peggy slept, and music wheedled its way into her dreams. Brassy trumpets, kicking off at unplanned intervals. Music fit for dancing, her heart decided. The mind followed suit, and she barely knew she was alone in a cave in an uncharted city. She barely knew she was anywhere but the Stork Club, a week next. Dancing, as promised. Her heartbeat sped to match.
The Tuneful Fellow came to a sudden halt. His breathy whistle raised; echoed; presented itself. There was a body with a drum trapped inside of it, he realized. Somewhere near. His head cocked again. Maybe two.
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There was no sense in being secretive now. He stepped out into the open and retracted his claws. "Alright big guy, you just keep yer distance and there'll be no need for-"
The creature moved faster than Logan could have imagined. He had scarcely raised a hand in alarm before his back was suddenly against the wall being pressed there by a thin but powerful arm. From the creature's chest, three slender fingering appendages began to explore his neck and chest and face. The Tuneful Fellow had never known a creature such as this, but he felt as well as heard. This creature felt wrong and foreign. There was something toxic about it and it was shaped entirely wrong. This was far from being one of his own people. The sounds it made were meaningless and from probing, the sounds seemed to be produced by pushing air through two moving flaps of flesh. It was an interesting discovery. But it was made suddenly short when one of the three appendages was severed. The Tuneful Fellow lost all sense of the world and reacted violently.
Logan was soon facefirst in the dirt, broken and mangled. He was bleeding profusely and several of his bones had been broken and bent into directions they were never meant to go. He had lost sense of what had happened the moment he ripped off that freaky creature's tentacle. However much Logan might have desired for a peaceful communication, he was not about to let some alien asshole start frenching him without an invitation. After that, the creature had beaten the hell out of him before fleeing. Had Logan been any other man, he'd have been dead a hundred times over. Instead, he sat in the dirt groaning. From the top of the riverbed, the Tuneful Creature watched and wept because his own pain seemed unbearable.
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"Logan?" She sat up straight. The proper name was on her lips, now. But all she had was a discarded tactical turtleneck that had (somehow) gotten wound up in her fingers. She could chide herself for her sentimentality later; for now, she was far more concerned with a scuffle just beyond the cave's mouth.
Peggy came walking (carefully) out of the cave, her long-arm gun turned into a makeshift cane. But by then, the worst had been accomplished. He was a mess upon the ground, and a strange still-twitching fin or tail or something sat at her feet. Peggy swore colourfully -- only now began to realize that the crooning filling the whole ravine wasn't in her head but was a kind of echo bouncing off the rock.
It wasn't her first priority. Logan was: the man she'd silently vowed to redeem herself by, not keen to let another remarkable person slip through her fingers and be lost to the world. Three feet away from him (and her stomach churning to see the sight) she began pleading for him to do what he did before. Make himself right. Fix himself.
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When his lungs were cleared, he focused on the rest. He glanced warily at Peggy before he twisted his own arm back into place. The bone crunched and Logan's eyes filled with painful tears. His teeth were clenched tight enough to snap metal when he twisted his knee and foot back into place. His other leg split at the thigh was perhaps the worst of it, because the bone had pierced through flesh. But even that he had to manage himself, though he was near to passing out when he did. When it was all done, he fell onto his back. He was covered in sweat and blood and looked as though he had been through hell and back. Logan might have wept if he had the fluids for it.
"That... son of a bitch," he finally said it was only flesh wounds left for mending together. "Fucking dammit."
It was not much of any kind of explanation, but it summed up his feelings very concisely.
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"--It doesn't make any sense," she ventured. By now, she was standing over him. Decency demanded that she offer him a helping hand, and she did, though she knew the ache along her ribs would pay the price for such goodwill. "How long was I --" asleep. "The code ought to have been well and truly charged. After all, we..."
Peggy's attention had been too rapt upon him as he'd knit himself back together. Only now did she think cast a wary glance 'round them. She made the mistake of thinking one of of the metal security machines had done this to him.
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"Whatever the hell that was, the code ain't got nuthin' to do with it." He didn't understand how, for surely that creature must be susceptible to the machines as well. And yet it seemed to have no problem going around making a racket. "The thing tried to get all friendly like with me. Cutting off whatever the hell this is sure pissed it off though."
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Peggy asked the question that didn't need answering. Merely looking at the bit-of-flesh gave her all the information she need, and yet she still plucked it gingerly from his hand and gave it a proper squint in the almost-dawn light. More and more of it was spilling into the valley with ever minute. The tentacle twitched still, thrumming along to a beat she soon realized came in concert with her own pulse. Perturbed, she let the appendage drop.
"Likely native. Or else another opportunist of the same calibre as you and I. I'm not certain which possibility I prefer least. Although--" Peggy paused. Watched him. "Can you describe it?"
Perhaps she wanted to know the dimensions of whatever creature could do that to him.
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"Big. Ten feet tall at least. Thin and wiry, more leg and arm than anything else. The bastard didn't seem to have a face. Just three of these things in its chest. But he was fast. I ain't ever seen anything move that fast. The goddamn thing tried to french me."
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"Our absentee landlords," she decided. Hosts; citizens; aliens, perhaps. So long as she wasn't looking at him, she could keep a kind of calm certainty about her words. Sentimentality was kept at bay. "--French...?" The SSR agent didn't bother turning her gaze while she worked through Logan's complaint. She damn well knew what such a kiss was, but her mind was at work and work had nothing to do with kissing. She sighed her mild hindsight's amusement through her nose when she realized the what exact wry comment Logan had been trying to make.
"I don't fancy a snog like that," she answered -- implying (of course) that the creature's affections had left him rather worse for wear. Perhaps she didn't yet understand the probing appendage had caused the kerfuffle, rather than assuming it had been the kerfuffle entire. "Bloody continental, isn't it? Kissing on the cheek when one first meets. Awful. Do you know which way it went?"
At long last she turned, leaning heavily upon the rifle.
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"Up there." Logan pointed a bloodsoaked hand up the steep incline above the river. How the creature had made it up there so fast he could not say, but the two of them certainly wouldn't be doing it without the use of some rope and climbing. "The bastard's in a hurry. Probably warning his buddies."
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Peggy clucked her tongue. Hurried was the last word she could ever hope to use to describe the nature of their theoretical pursuit. If he was right -- if this was some sort of forward scout now rushing back to raise an alarm -- then they might be overrun in due time. Only she'd thought the city was meant to be abandoned. Life-signatures clocking in at next to nothing. Only birds, Howard had assured her. Birds and rats and whatever vermin persist after the death of civilization.
"Then we should work on not being here when it returns. Can you--" she softened. It was one thing to know a man healed quickly, and quite another to take it on faith that he was ready to but out. Her own bruises were showing purple and blue on her cheek, and there was a stiffness in her body that couldn't quite be argued with. But she'd move, if she had to.
And had to trust that he would too.
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"I can move. But you ain't lookin' so hot right now."
He did not doubt she would make a solid effort of it, but she would certainly be slowing them down. Cut her loose, runt. The thought came without bidding and he worked his hand in and out of a fist. The two of them were in it for the long run.
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Peggy turned on one heel and started her careful walk back towards the cave's mouth. Their makeshift bed -- she thought of it almost with sentimentality, she found -- would have to be packed away into their satchels. Stored. Any hint of their presence scrubbed from the earth, and then (contrary to what Logan hypothesized) Peggy would want them venturing deeper into the city itself. Perhaps not by the higher road, for she didn't relish the thought of the climb. But so long as the river-bed could be followed in a direction that was once up-stream, she wondered if they might not locate a better point of egress.
"I can manage. And I'll manage better yet with a gentlemanly arm, which I have every scrap of faith will be offered me once we begin again--"
The sweetness -- the warmth -- of the night had seeped away. Horror and her unwavering sense of duty had shoved affection rudely aside, so that the steady tap-tap of her pulse as he'd caressed her neck and ear was a forceful but distant memory. Kept under lock and key for both their sakes.
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By the time he had shouldered the supplies again, it already felt as though they'd taken too long. Just as she'd suggested, he presented himself as a solid support to hold and lean onto. "Going back the way we came'll take hours. More with it darkening. Could be worth risking going forward. It's gotta level out eventually."
He might have been the hardier of the two, but she was still the one in command. Logan was, as ever, a soldier.
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"You're right," she conceded. And found the courage to lock her fingers up with his. Arm curled 'round his elbow, and her weight favoured onto the side where he was helping her. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Yes?"
A bluster of good old British pliancy found its way back into her speech: justifying risk by imagining the reward.
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"Kinda thinkin' we're lookin' at the raw end of that metaphor." A man who could recover from anything ought to have had a more optimistic perspective, but his ability to survive this mess did not mean that they would come to a good end.
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She had no fuller name for him than that. Or -- the SSR had its guesses. Aliases used over time, perhaps. But nothing concrete. But when Peggy wanted to put a bit of emotional distance between herself and someone, she fell back upon the easiest method: Misters. Ma'ams. Ranks.
"But there is great potentiality to be found in all that's raw. Even metaphors. I'll take raw over rancid any day."
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If aliens were among them -- if they lived, breathed, ate, and ruled still in these lands -- then Peggy and Logan might experience something of a windfall. Provided the strange creature he described ate anything remotely digestible by humans.
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The prospect of finding sustenance was a welcome one and it would be one area which Logan could prove exceptionally useful, even if he did not particularly relish the idea of becoming Peggy's food taster. But that was going to be later before it was sooner, because the way ahead was long and there path was going to be slow going. Because the river seemed to be at always a constant curve, it was impossible to tell if there was any place to climb until the wall of rock and dirt was right in front of them.
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