Chance Encounter - Wolverine/X-Men Fanfic

Chapter 9: Fuck or fight, old man. Pick one.

Professor Xavier sat behind his desk, his fingers steepling slowly as he peered over them at Max.

She felt the intensity of his gaze as he asked, "How long have you and Logan been travelling together, Max?"

She pulled her legs up under her as she replied, "About several days."

The professor blinked and placed his hands flat on the desk before him, leaning forward. "I'm sorry – did you say several days?"

Jean shifted in her seat beside Max, looking perplexed as well.

"What?" Max wondered what the big deal was.

The professor leaned back, asking, "I'm curious. During this time, has anybody else tried to come after him?"

"Four men in military uniforms shot us with darts a day or two ago. I wasn't really sure what was going on, but he reacted as if they were enemies and I backed him up." she explained.

"When you say you backed him up.." The professor raised an eyebrow in query.

"We killed them." Max looked back at him, matter-of-factly.

The room stayed silent for a moment. Max felt a palpable wave of unease coming from both Henry and Jean.

Max let out a sharp bark of laughter and said, "Hey, if you want to try to stop him when he goes into that fine red rage he slides into when he's being attacked, you go right ahead. Me?" She leaned back in her chair, placing her hands on the handrests. "My father taught me better'n to get between an Alpha male and his prey."

Professor Xavier became very still as he said, "Max – I need to speak with Miss Grey and Doctor McCoy alone for a few moments. Would you mind? If there's anything you find that you need, Miss Ororo Munroe should be able to help."

"Sure."

Max nodded, relieved that she'd be able to leave the room now that everybody else seemed distinctly uncomfortable. She knew that pinks tended not to like it so much when one of them died. Her own father had drilled it into her family's heads, over and over – you don't kill the two-leggers. And yet – she'd had to, do keep them from killing her, or worse. She felt no remorse or guilt about it. It was simply what needed to be done.

Pinks were weird when it came to killing most things. They didn't realize that it was a substantial part of life. It was all part of the struggle.

But then, that was the way of the Pinks, wasn't it? They didn't want to see where their meat came from – not wanting to rationalize that it had once been a living, breathing creature, enjoying its life. Everything killed everything else to live. That was the name of the game.

They didn't call it survival for nothin'.

She let herself out and quietly closed the door behind her and made her way towards the sitting room, wanting to get outside for a bit to clear her head.

Killing other Turnskins was anathema, but almost everything else was prey. The wolf's base instincts were always very clear cut: hunting, killing, fucking, eating, sleeping. The flip side was where the rules came in. They couldn't all live like rabid, feral dogs, tearing each other apart every five minutes. Wolves in the wild had their own pack structure – their own rules to keep chaos from ripping the fabric of their society apart.

For Turnskins, it was much the same – although their rules were a great deal different from the Pinks.

They didn't kill their own. There were only a finite number of Turnskins. Litters as large as the ones she'd been in were unheard of. Most mated pairs could only have a single pup at a time, if that. It made what her father did to her brothers such a betrayal of everything the Pack stood for.