Minitooth.
Jan. 20th, 2007 03:12 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsDuring a trip to New York City, Kyle breaks from his group to go get lunch. He does a very foolish thing and follows his nose, instead of his head. Curosity doesn't kill the Kyle, but it comes damn close.
"I'll meet you guys at the bus, okay?" Kyle said, over his shoulder, and over the grumbling of his stomach. "I am a certified moron and totally skipped eating due to oversleeping, and if I don't find some food, I might go eat one of the squirrels. And catch, you know, squirrelitis or something."
Without waiting for much of a response, because the stomach was unhappy, and so was Kyle, he ducked out of the store in search of one of the millions of vendor carts in New York. Except that the first two smelled like the hot dogs would give him the poo gas, and he found himself crossing the street, letting his nose do the directing
A near-miss with a taxi cab who wasn't looking where he was turning (and Kyle not looking quite where he was walking) snapped him back to attention, and Kyle leaned against a light pole, stomach still growling. He'd passed two delis, and a bakery, and hadn't stopped. But there was something in the air he couldn't quite make out over the greasy smoke and smog smell of the city.
Million scents in this part of the city, better than camouflage. People always paid attention to what they could see or hear, but what they smelled always triggered that first rush, either excitement or memory or fear. Place like this, this many different odors, a body could be damn close to invisible unless you were really looking.
Or unless you got really lucky.
Kyle'd continued following the odd smell for a few more blocks, now and then taking breaks to lean against a wall or mailbox or car to try to figure out just what it was. That it might be a bad idea to follow a random scent in the air never occurred to him until nine blocks later, when he figured out that it was a person he was smelling.
He had his hand in his jacket pocket to grab his phone as he figured out who he was smelling, but by then, it was too late. The thought that if he was smelling them, they were smelling him occurred to him a second too late. ~Not fucking AGAIN!~
A larger hand closed over Kyle's, squeezing until the plastic buckled and snapped, sharp edges digging into Kyle's hand.
"Not gonna be a hero this time, whelp," the growl came from the shadows before Kyle found himself dragged into a doorway just off a darkened alley. "Curiosity's gonna get you killed. How many of them followed you?"
"All of them. The, uh, X-men are right behind me." Kyle said, voice breaking. Not that he thought it was really going to work, but what else was he supposed to do? He didn't know how far from the group he was, his phone was breaking in his hand, and he had no idea what to do.
And it was his own damn fault.
"I can smell a lie, boy," Sabretooth growled, yanking Kyle up the stairs with one clawed hand on the back of the boy's neck. "They wouldn't send a kid like you out as bait, ain't the way they operate. So that means you're either a damn idiot for tryin' to play hero, or you got some curiosity needs to be satisfied."
Once they'd reached the sixth floor of the abandoned tenement, Sabretooth dragged Kyle into the hall, kicking open one grime-covered door and shoving the boy into the room. "Make no mistake, whelp, I'm gonna gut you. But you got my curiosity up now, and I figure you can talk or I can cut the truth outta you, whichever's got my fancy."
Before Kyle could remind himself that "Talk first, think later." was a bad idea when dealing with a psychopath, his mouth opened, and the filter between his brain and mouth that kept all the stupid things from coming out had obviously stayed home that day. "Yeah, because telling someone you're going to kill them is a good way to make them want to tell you stuff."
In a flash, Sabretooth reached out and grabbed Kyle's left leg in his hand, claws digging deep into the thigh muscle. "Boy, you think you know who I am, but you don't have any goddamn clue how much pain I can put your scrawny body through before I bleed you out. Only question is if you want to die not knowing what you came here to know." He accentuated the growled words with a twist of his hand, tearing skin and muscle. "You think this hurts? Won't kill you. But you keep backtalkin' me, and I'll cut you in ways that'll make you wish you'd never been born."
It did hurt, enough to make Kyle grunt and try to twist his leg away, which only caused Sabretooth to dig in further, tearing more skin. "Fu-fuck you. I got no idea what you're talking about." He bared his teeth, and snarled, pulling his leg away, leaving strips of skin under Sabretooth's claws, and a bloody patch on his jeans. He wasn't just going to lay down and let the psycho tear out his throat.
Sabretooth laughed, walking across the room to a small cooler, withdrawing a can of beer and popping the top to drain it in one long gulp. "Like I told you before, kid, you got more guts than brains. So I'll spell it out for you. You got something driving you here. You want to know if you're like me. No, fuck that. You knowyou're like me. Your question is how much."
"You started it." Kyle snapped. "And you're thinking it too. Because if you weren't, you wouldn't know I was." He tested his leg, putting his weight on it and holding back a wince. "You made the crack about my mom." And they had almost the same mutation, and almost the same hair color, and he'd tried not to think about it and it kept coming back to bother him.
Sabretooth paused at that, looking over at Kyle with an unusual look on his face. It could almost have been a mixture between surprise and something not unlike recognition. Walking over, he grabbed Kyle by the jaw, lifting him up to the taller man's eye level, leaving the younger mutant's feet hanging off the floor. He turned Kyle's head from side to side, then leaned in to sniff at his skin.
"If that don't fuckin' beat all," he growled, dropping Kyle to the floor. Almost thoughtfully, he lifted his hand to his mouth, tasting Kyle's blood, then shaking his head. "Funny thought, kid. But I can count the women I've fucked and left alive on one hand, and you ain't got the scent of any of 'em. That what you were looking for?" He threw back his head and laughed, his leonine mane of hair shaking. "You wanted to see if I was your old man, then what? Go out for beers? Have a fishing trip? Try and throw down? Whelp, you are stone dumb, you know that?"
"To know." Kyle answered flatly. "Believe me, you're the last guy in the fucking world I want to be related to. But I gotta know." He snorted, and pulled himself to his feet, again testing his weight on the leg. It held this time. "Cause the guy I thought was my dad -ain't- my dad, and my mom and I aren't talking right now, on account of, you know, she fucking lied to me." He took a step back, steadying himself.
"The fuck do I look like, some kind of shrink who gives a shit?" Sabretooth grumbled, wandering over to the lone table that stood in the room, a few scattered photographs and maps strewn over its surface. Pausing with his back to Kyle, Sabretooth looked down at the table, then rumbled out a question. "What's your name, whelp?"
"What kind of question is that?" Kyle asked. "What, so you can go look up more people to slice up?" He backed towards the window slowly. Sabertooth wasn't looking, he could go out the window. Yeah, it was six stories, but it was out and away and how hurt could he get? He knew how to fall.
"Only concerning myself with one right now," Sabretooth said coldly, dragging his claws over a photo, then throwing it down to the floor in front of Kyle. "Hadn't have been for you, old man's blood would be all over that stage and the matter'd be done with. Instead, I gotta keep goin' until it's done. Personal, see?" He turned to narrow his eyes at Kyle. "You know how it is, don't you? The hunger, the drive. You got that same killer instinct, they're just trying to make you hide it, ain't they? How many times they feed you the bullshit about control? Discipline? Bein' civilized? When inside you know damn well they can't cage you. Men like me, you? We can't be caged, whelp. You want to know about family, about blood? I'll give you a shot, then." He nodded down at the photo. "You tell me what you think you know about me, and I'll give you your answer."
"What, am I some kinda shrink who gives a shit?" And there was that speak first, think second problem again, and Kyle visibly flinched back from the look on Sabretooth's face, and then bent to pick up the photo, not taking his eyes off the large man until he had the picture in his hands. It was of Senator Creed, one of his publicity photos from the campaign. "So, you're supposed to be killing him, why? Because your bucketheaded boss says so?" He looked back up at Sabretooth, and then down at the picture.
And then back down at the picture, scrutinizing it. The same high forehead, and despite Sabretooth's beard, the same cleft chin. "Holy fuck." Kyle said. "Holy... he's.. . your his.."
"This ain't got a damn thing to do with Erik," Sabretooth growled. "This is about me. Me, Victor Creed, getting what's mine, and that old bastard getting what's coming to him."
Kyle's eyes were wide, and he took another step back. Picking up the photo had taken him further away from the window and he was too far away now to just make a leap for it. And -he'd- messed up Sabretooth's plans for revenge against the senator and if Sabretooth kept a grudge for that long, he wasn't just going to let Kyle get away with making a break for it. "This is.. so fucked up." Maybe he could get the phone working, maybe it wasn't too crushed, he thought, and tried to reach into his jacket pocket where he'd shoved it when Sabretooth was dragging him up the stairs.
"So you got questions about family?" Sabretooth - no, Victor- taunted, lumbering over towards Kyle. "You think you gotta know? Then lemme oblige. Round about thirty-some years ago, there's this brand-new Senator makin' the rounds in his home state. Gets some local girl knocked up, pays her a lot of money to stay quiet. Figures he don't need to worry about some bastard kid off in the red states. She didn't worry much neither. Took his money, bought enough booze to try and forget. Can't forget much when your bastard kid grows claws like these, now, can you?" Victor leaned in, spreading his fingers towards Kyle, then clenching them into his fists, letting his own blood well up between his fingers. He seethed for a moment, then laughed.
"She didn't even know who it was killed her, that's how drunk the bitch was. Hamstrung her like a deer in the middle of the kitchen. That was number one. And I just been goin' ever since." He stopped to slash out at the photo in Kyle's hands, one swipe of his claws rending it into confetti. "So you tell me, whelp, when it's time for your momma to open that door and see her last sight on this earth, who's it gonna be? You, or me standing there?"
Kyle might have been angry with his parents, but they were his parents. At least, his mother was his mother and there were just things you did not accuse him of doing. Or wanting to do, or thinking about doing. "It sure as fuck isn't gonna be me." And he'd be damned it if was going to be Sabretooth. You did not fuck with family, that was just how it was. Even if you were totally pissed off at them.
Victor laughed long and hard, glancing over at Kyle. "Maybe. Maybe you could beat what's inside you, dress up in their clothes, pretend to be one of them. Maybe you might have been able to live their lie. Friends, family. You got spine, whelp. I can almost respect that. If you was mine, I'd even be proud of you, son. But time for talking's done. Now I'm gonna take that spine and show it to you."
With that, Sabretooth sprang forward, one hand holding Kyle off the floor by his shoulder, claws digging in. The other hand cocked back, ready to disembowel the boy. "All about blood in the end, ain't it?" he asked.
Kyle had claws too, and his mom hadn't drunken herself into a stupor over it. And he would not end up like Sabretooth even if it killed him trying. Even ending like like Logan was better than -that-.
Kyle's upper lip curled back in a snarl, and he struggled, kicking his legs at Sabretooth. And then he went still and tense, ignoring the claws shredding his shoulder as he hung. A moment later, the tension was released, all in Kyle's free arm, and he grabbed at Sabretooth's face, digging his own claws into the man's cheek and forehead. "Fuck. You." he spat while raking down and across.
His claws cut into skin, catching briefly on a thick eyebrow and then tore down. Angelo had said it just a few weeks before in class. The eyes were the most vulnerable part of the face. Kyle let out a harsh growl, and dug his fingers into Sabretooth's eye socket, and then tearing through the skin of his cheek.
Sabretooth howled like a wild beast, dropping Kyle to the floor and holding both hands to the ruins of his right eye. He fell to a knee, throwing his head back and roaring loud enough to shake the walls of the decrepit tenement before snapping his head forward to stare at Kyle.
Anything resembling human thought or reason was gone, the lone eye that looked out from Victor Creed's blood-smeared face was that of a rabid animal. And like an animal, he pounced, his body weight smashing himself and Kyle through one of the thin plasterboard walls.
One hand curled around Kyle's neck, while the other stabbed upwards into the boy's abdomen, muscle and tissue being torn under the fury of Sabretooth's claws.
Panic took over from fury, and Kyle kicked wildly, trying to free himself. The ripped-out toes of his sneakers left the claws on his feet exposed, but it was the rubber tread of the shoe that had the most effect, scraping across Sabretooth's groin, pulling the material of his pants and the flesh underneath under Kyle's foot.
The hand around Kyle's throat released just long enough for Kyle to push it away, and scramble to where he could smell the fresh air from the open window. He couldn't see, not clearly, the pain in his stomach made his eyes water. And he couldn't plan, or think much past "Get Away, Get Away Now."
He turned as he pushed away, and leapt for the window, vaulting the windowsill and not even trying to grab the wall. Over and out, into free air. He couldn't see, and didn't know what was below him, but instinct took over, letting Kyle finally land in a low crouch in the alley below.
The howl from the broken window above echoed over the New York streets, anger mixed with pain and a bloodlust that had people blocks away shivering in instinctive terror. Not even remotely recognizable as words, the howls were punctuated by the sounds of breaking wood but nothing landing in the alley.
Bolt. Like a rabbit. That was the only thought going through Kyle's head, and he sprang up, only to fall back down, grabbing at his leg with the arm that wasn't pressed close to his shredded and bloodsoaked shirt and lacerated stomach.
His right leg bent wrong above the ankle, and the canvas of his sneaker bulged, the leg already starting to swell. Kyle bit back a yelp of pain, and pushed himself back up. He could ignore it. He had to. Sabretooth could move fast, even if he didn't leap out the window just like Kyle had, and he had to get away.
He could smell his own blood strongly, and his fingers were sticky with it, and Kyle knew Sabretooth would be able to smell it too. He had to be not seen, and not heard, but most importantly, not smelled out. He took a few careful steps, staggering to stay upright, and blinked back tears of pain. No dumpsters, no open doors in the alley, and running out to the street would only get more people hurt.
It would be his fault if anyone else got hurt.
Another stop, and Kyle did yelp, catching his dragging foot on the metal cover of a manhole. The pained roars were louder, he thought, or the thudding heartbeat in his ears was quieter. Either one, he had to hide, and the manhole smelled like sewer shit. It was perfect.
Kyle waited, agonizing minutes, curled into a tight ball at the bottom of the manhole, holding his stomach and trying not to think about how much blood he was losing. He'd stopped feeling the blood seep between his fingers for what he thought was thirty seconds by his very inaccurate count before he mustered up the guts to pull one arm away from his abdomen and dig the damaged phone from where it still sat, jammed into his jacket pocket.
The emergency button did nothing. The case had smashed around it. But when Kyle pressed "Talk" on the slender phone, he got a beep. And the cracked screen lit up. He dialed a phone number they'd all been made to memorize, in case of emergency, and hoped the phone was working and that someone would answer.
"Infirmary, this is Dr. Voght."
The gruff Russian accent could have been a choir of angels at that moment.
"I'll meet you guys at the bus, okay?" Kyle said, over his shoulder, and over the grumbling of his stomach. "I am a certified moron and totally skipped eating due to oversleeping, and if I don't find some food, I might go eat one of the squirrels. And catch, you know, squirrelitis or something."
Without waiting for much of a response, because the stomach was unhappy, and so was Kyle, he ducked out of the store in search of one of the millions of vendor carts in New York. Except that the first two smelled like the hot dogs would give him the poo gas, and he found himself crossing the street, letting his nose do the directing
A near-miss with a taxi cab who wasn't looking where he was turning (and Kyle not looking quite where he was walking) snapped him back to attention, and Kyle leaned against a light pole, stomach still growling. He'd passed two delis, and a bakery, and hadn't stopped. But there was something in the air he couldn't quite make out over the greasy smoke and smog smell of the city.
Million scents in this part of the city, better than camouflage. People always paid attention to what they could see or hear, but what they smelled always triggered that first rush, either excitement or memory or fear. Place like this, this many different odors, a body could be damn close to invisible unless you were really looking.
Or unless you got really lucky.
Kyle'd continued following the odd smell for a few more blocks, now and then taking breaks to lean against a wall or mailbox or car to try to figure out just what it was. That it might be a bad idea to follow a random scent in the air never occurred to him until nine blocks later, when he figured out that it was a person he was smelling.
He had his hand in his jacket pocket to grab his phone as he figured out who he was smelling, but by then, it was too late. The thought that if he was smelling them, they were smelling him occurred to him a second too late. ~Not fucking AGAIN!~
A larger hand closed over Kyle's, squeezing until the plastic buckled and snapped, sharp edges digging into Kyle's hand.
"Not gonna be a hero this time, whelp," the growl came from the shadows before Kyle found himself dragged into a doorway just off a darkened alley. "Curiosity's gonna get you killed. How many of them followed you?"
"All of them. The, uh, X-men are right behind me." Kyle said, voice breaking. Not that he thought it was really going to work, but what else was he supposed to do? He didn't know how far from the group he was, his phone was breaking in his hand, and he had no idea what to do.
And it was his own damn fault.
"I can smell a lie, boy," Sabretooth growled, yanking Kyle up the stairs with one clawed hand on the back of the boy's neck. "They wouldn't send a kid like you out as bait, ain't the way they operate. So that means you're either a damn idiot for tryin' to play hero, or you got some curiosity needs to be satisfied."
Once they'd reached the sixth floor of the abandoned tenement, Sabretooth dragged Kyle into the hall, kicking open one grime-covered door and shoving the boy into the room. "Make no mistake, whelp, I'm gonna gut you. But you got my curiosity up now, and I figure you can talk or I can cut the truth outta you, whichever's got my fancy."
Before Kyle could remind himself that "Talk first, think later." was a bad idea when dealing with a psychopath, his mouth opened, and the filter between his brain and mouth that kept all the stupid things from coming out had obviously stayed home that day. "Yeah, because telling someone you're going to kill them is a good way to make them want to tell you stuff."
In a flash, Sabretooth reached out and grabbed Kyle's left leg in his hand, claws digging deep into the thigh muscle. "Boy, you think you know who I am, but you don't have any goddamn clue how much pain I can put your scrawny body through before I bleed you out. Only question is if you want to die not knowing what you came here to know." He accentuated the growled words with a twist of his hand, tearing skin and muscle. "You think this hurts? Won't kill you. But you keep backtalkin' me, and I'll cut you in ways that'll make you wish you'd never been born."
It did hurt, enough to make Kyle grunt and try to twist his leg away, which only caused Sabretooth to dig in further, tearing more skin. "Fu-fuck you. I got no idea what you're talking about." He bared his teeth, and snarled, pulling his leg away, leaving strips of skin under Sabretooth's claws, and a bloody patch on his jeans. He wasn't just going to lay down and let the psycho tear out his throat.
Sabretooth laughed, walking across the room to a small cooler, withdrawing a can of beer and popping the top to drain it in one long gulp. "Like I told you before, kid, you got more guts than brains. So I'll spell it out for you. You got something driving you here. You want to know if you're like me. No, fuck that. You knowyou're like me. Your question is how much."
"You started it." Kyle snapped. "And you're thinking it too. Because if you weren't, you wouldn't know I was." He tested his leg, putting his weight on it and holding back a wince. "You made the crack about my mom." And they had almost the same mutation, and almost the same hair color, and he'd tried not to think about it and it kept coming back to bother him.
Sabretooth paused at that, looking over at Kyle with an unusual look on his face. It could almost have been a mixture between surprise and something not unlike recognition. Walking over, he grabbed Kyle by the jaw, lifting him up to the taller man's eye level, leaving the younger mutant's feet hanging off the floor. He turned Kyle's head from side to side, then leaned in to sniff at his skin.
"If that don't fuckin' beat all," he growled, dropping Kyle to the floor. Almost thoughtfully, he lifted his hand to his mouth, tasting Kyle's blood, then shaking his head. "Funny thought, kid. But I can count the women I've fucked and left alive on one hand, and you ain't got the scent of any of 'em. That what you were looking for?" He threw back his head and laughed, his leonine mane of hair shaking. "You wanted to see if I was your old man, then what? Go out for beers? Have a fishing trip? Try and throw down? Whelp, you are stone dumb, you know that?"
"To know." Kyle answered flatly. "Believe me, you're the last guy in the fucking world I want to be related to. But I gotta know." He snorted, and pulled himself to his feet, again testing his weight on the leg. It held this time. "Cause the guy I thought was my dad -ain't- my dad, and my mom and I aren't talking right now, on account of, you know, she fucking lied to me." He took a step back, steadying himself.
"The fuck do I look like, some kind of shrink who gives a shit?" Sabretooth grumbled, wandering over to the lone table that stood in the room, a few scattered photographs and maps strewn over its surface. Pausing with his back to Kyle, Sabretooth looked down at the table, then rumbled out a question. "What's your name, whelp?"
"What kind of question is that?" Kyle asked. "What, so you can go look up more people to slice up?" He backed towards the window slowly. Sabertooth wasn't looking, he could go out the window. Yeah, it was six stories, but it was out and away and how hurt could he get? He knew how to fall.
"Only concerning myself with one right now," Sabretooth said coldly, dragging his claws over a photo, then throwing it down to the floor in front of Kyle. "Hadn't have been for you, old man's blood would be all over that stage and the matter'd be done with. Instead, I gotta keep goin' until it's done. Personal, see?" He turned to narrow his eyes at Kyle. "You know how it is, don't you? The hunger, the drive. You got that same killer instinct, they're just trying to make you hide it, ain't they? How many times they feed you the bullshit about control? Discipline? Bein' civilized? When inside you know damn well they can't cage you. Men like me, you? We can't be caged, whelp. You want to know about family, about blood? I'll give you a shot, then." He nodded down at the photo. "You tell me what you think you know about me, and I'll give you your answer."
"What, am I some kinda shrink who gives a shit?" And there was that speak first, think second problem again, and Kyle visibly flinched back from the look on Sabretooth's face, and then bent to pick up the photo, not taking his eyes off the large man until he had the picture in his hands. It was of Senator Creed, one of his publicity photos from the campaign. "So, you're supposed to be killing him, why? Because your bucketheaded boss says so?" He looked back up at Sabretooth, and then down at the picture.
And then back down at the picture, scrutinizing it. The same high forehead, and despite Sabretooth's beard, the same cleft chin. "Holy fuck." Kyle said. "Holy... he's.. . your his.."
"This ain't got a damn thing to do with Erik," Sabretooth growled. "This is about me. Me, Victor Creed, getting what's mine, and that old bastard getting what's coming to him."
Kyle's eyes were wide, and he took another step back. Picking up the photo had taken him further away from the window and he was too far away now to just make a leap for it. And -he'd- messed up Sabretooth's plans for revenge against the senator and if Sabretooth kept a grudge for that long, he wasn't just going to let Kyle get away with making a break for it. "This is.. so fucked up." Maybe he could get the phone working, maybe it wasn't too crushed, he thought, and tried to reach into his jacket pocket where he'd shoved it when Sabretooth was dragging him up the stairs.
"So you got questions about family?" Sabretooth - no, Victor- taunted, lumbering over towards Kyle. "You think you gotta know? Then lemme oblige. Round about thirty-some years ago, there's this brand-new Senator makin' the rounds in his home state. Gets some local girl knocked up, pays her a lot of money to stay quiet. Figures he don't need to worry about some bastard kid off in the red states. She didn't worry much neither. Took his money, bought enough booze to try and forget. Can't forget much when your bastard kid grows claws like these, now, can you?" Victor leaned in, spreading his fingers towards Kyle, then clenching them into his fists, letting his own blood well up between his fingers. He seethed for a moment, then laughed.
"She didn't even know who it was killed her, that's how drunk the bitch was. Hamstrung her like a deer in the middle of the kitchen. That was number one. And I just been goin' ever since." He stopped to slash out at the photo in Kyle's hands, one swipe of his claws rending it into confetti. "So you tell me, whelp, when it's time for your momma to open that door and see her last sight on this earth, who's it gonna be? You, or me standing there?"
Kyle might have been angry with his parents, but they were his parents. At least, his mother was his mother and there were just things you did not accuse him of doing. Or wanting to do, or thinking about doing. "It sure as fuck isn't gonna be me." And he'd be damned it if was going to be Sabretooth. You did not fuck with family, that was just how it was. Even if you were totally pissed off at them.
Victor laughed long and hard, glancing over at Kyle. "Maybe. Maybe you could beat what's inside you, dress up in their clothes, pretend to be one of them. Maybe you might have been able to live their lie. Friends, family. You got spine, whelp. I can almost respect that. If you was mine, I'd even be proud of you, son. But time for talking's done. Now I'm gonna take that spine and show it to you."
With that, Sabretooth sprang forward, one hand holding Kyle off the floor by his shoulder, claws digging in. The other hand cocked back, ready to disembowel the boy. "All about blood in the end, ain't it?" he asked.
Kyle had claws too, and his mom hadn't drunken herself into a stupor over it. And he would not end up like Sabretooth even if it killed him trying. Even ending like like Logan was better than -that-.
Kyle's upper lip curled back in a snarl, and he struggled, kicking his legs at Sabretooth. And then he went still and tense, ignoring the claws shredding his shoulder as he hung. A moment later, the tension was released, all in Kyle's free arm, and he grabbed at Sabretooth's face, digging his own claws into the man's cheek and forehead. "Fuck. You." he spat while raking down and across.
His claws cut into skin, catching briefly on a thick eyebrow and then tore down. Angelo had said it just a few weeks before in class. The eyes were the most vulnerable part of the face. Kyle let out a harsh growl, and dug his fingers into Sabretooth's eye socket, and then tearing through the skin of his cheek.
Sabretooth howled like a wild beast, dropping Kyle to the floor and holding both hands to the ruins of his right eye. He fell to a knee, throwing his head back and roaring loud enough to shake the walls of the decrepit tenement before snapping his head forward to stare at Kyle.
Anything resembling human thought or reason was gone, the lone eye that looked out from Victor Creed's blood-smeared face was that of a rabid animal. And like an animal, he pounced, his body weight smashing himself and Kyle through one of the thin plasterboard walls.
One hand curled around Kyle's neck, while the other stabbed upwards into the boy's abdomen, muscle and tissue being torn under the fury of Sabretooth's claws.
Panic took over from fury, and Kyle kicked wildly, trying to free himself. The ripped-out toes of his sneakers left the claws on his feet exposed, but it was the rubber tread of the shoe that had the most effect, scraping across Sabretooth's groin, pulling the material of his pants and the flesh underneath under Kyle's foot.
The hand around Kyle's throat released just long enough for Kyle to push it away, and scramble to where he could smell the fresh air from the open window. He couldn't see, not clearly, the pain in his stomach made his eyes water. And he couldn't plan, or think much past "Get Away, Get Away Now."
He turned as he pushed away, and leapt for the window, vaulting the windowsill and not even trying to grab the wall. Over and out, into free air. He couldn't see, and didn't know what was below him, but instinct took over, letting Kyle finally land in a low crouch in the alley below.
The howl from the broken window above echoed over the New York streets, anger mixed with pain and a bloodlust that had people blocks away shivering in instinctive terror. Not even remotely recognizable as words, the howls were punctuated by the sounds of breaking wood but nothing landing in the alley.
Bolt. Like a rabbit. That was the only thought going through Kyle's head, and he sprang up, only to fall back down, grabbing at his leg with the arm that wasn't pressed close to his shredded and bloodsoaked shirt and lacerated stomach.
His right leg bent wrong above the ankle, and the canvas of his sneaker bulged, the leg already starting to swell. Kyle bit back a yelp of pain, and pushed himself back up. He could ignore it. He had to. Sabretooth could move fast, even if he didn't leap out the window just like Kyle had, and he had to get away.
He could smell his own blood strongly, and his fingers were sticky with it, and Kyle knew Sabretooth would be able to smell it too. He had to be not seen, and not heard, but most importantly, not smelled out. He took a few careful steps, staggering to stay upright, and blinked back tears of pain. No dumpsters, no open doors in the alley, and running out to the street would only get more people hurt.
It would be his fault if anyone else got hurt.
Another stop, and Kyle did yelp, catching his dragging foot on the metal cover of a manhole. The pained roars were louder, he thought, or the thudding heartbeat in his ears was quieter. Either one, he had to hide, and the manhole smelled like sewer shit. It was perfect.
Kyle waited, agonizing minutes, curled into a tight ball at the bottom of the manhole, holding his stomach and trying not to think about how much blood he was losing. He'd stopped feeling the blood seep between his fingers for what he thought was thirty seconds by his very inaccurate count before he mustered up the guts to pull one arm away from his abdomen and dig the damaged phone from where it still sat, jammed into his jacket pocket.
The emergency button did nothing. The case had smashed around it. But when Kyle pressed "Talk" on the slender phone, he got a beep. And the cracked screen lit up. He dialed a phone number they'd all been made to memorize, in case of emergency, and hoped the phone was working and that someone would answer.
"Infirmary, this is Dr. Voght."
The gruff Russian accent could have been a choir of angels at that moment.
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Date: 2007-01-20 08:33 pm (UTC)...Sorry. Not usually that violent.
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Date: 2007-01-20 08:40 pm (UTC).. well, actually, right now he says "Oh God can I have some morphine please." but you get the idea.