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He'd seen the fire from a mile away, flickering through the window of someone's cabin, like a homing beacon in the killing night.
Logan breathed slowly, trying to stop shivering.
Toad's mud-colored eyes glinted gold in the firelight as he stared at Logan from the ceiling. "If you're going to try to kill me, then just fucking do it," Toad said.
Logan's nose warmed up enough to register scent again. His nostrils flared. Blood. Toad was injured--that explained why he hadn't attacked.
Logan hadn't attacked because he wasn't wearing a coat. He'd been caught flat-footed in this leather queen X-Man getup that might as well be tissue paper in real Canadian cold. His battles could tear apart even sturdy buildings... With no coat and no shelter he'd freeze to death--or close enough to death that he wouldn't mind dying. He'd done that once already in his life. That was enough.
"Truce," Logan said, shivering.
Toad didn't blink. His eyes weren't human. His scent wasn't human. He smelled like mud, like the underside of rocks. His blood was human, though. "Yeah. Okay. Truce."
"You don't attack me. I don't attack you. And when the sun comes up, we go our separate ways."
"I know what a fucking truce means." Toad's tongue flicked in and out of his mouth as he talked.
"Just stating the terms." Wolverine forced himself to blink and break eye contact. He looked around the tiny shack, acutely aware of Toad's position on the ceiling.
"There's some blankets in the corner," Toad said. "And a bed."
"You sleep on the ceiling?" Logan glanced up again. Toad was wrapped in a blanket directly over the fire.
"Yeah. Can't stand beds."
"Fair enough." Logan investigated the corners; sure enough, there was a cot piled with blankets shoved against the wall. Logan dragged it as close to the fire as he could get.
Shreds of blanket and drips of blood dotted one side of the room. Logan wondered where Toad was injured, and how badly, but didn't ask.
Logan bundled himself under the blankets--they stunk; what he'd give for a cigar--and felt better. Felt like he wasn't going to die by morning. He closed his eyes.
He wondered where the rest of the team was. He could only hope they hadn't gotten themselves killed.
Flash of movement by his head. Logan jumped upright.
Toad crunched, chewed, swallowed. "Not you. Mouse."
Jesus. Logan looked into the fire.
"Wolverine," Toad breathed.
"Yeah?"
"Heard you're working with one of us now. That true?"
"Who's 'you' and who's 'us' here?"
"You. The X-Men. And us. Mutants who can't hide." Toad's green skin and inhuman eyes both were gold by firelight.
Logan opened his mouth, then shut it again, thinking of all the kids at the school. All the normal-looking kids, plus Hank, smiling and spectacled and blue. "Beast," Logan said. "Yeah."
"Why?"
"We don't have anything against mutants who look weird. That would be pretty fucking fucked up." Logan glared.
"I meant why's he with you and not us."
"Why wouldn't he be? We don't go around kidnapping little girls." Shit. Temper. Temper. No picking fights tonight, no matter how much he wanted to slice Toad's face off.
"None of you X-Men have a clue how it is not to be able to hide like you hide. Not to look human. He said anything about it?"
"No."
"Ask him, maybe," Toad said, and closed his eyes. "Tell him the Brotherhood gets it, even if Xavier can't."
Logan didn't answer.
He watched the fire and didn't let himself sleep.
end.