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The cigarette lodged between Wolverine's lips dropped to the pavement. It singed itself, starting to curl. The old doors to what had once been mutantkind's sacred sanctuary were torn down and busted through, wood splintering inward. The school's sprawling lawn, always carefully kept, was now adorned with a bloody dew.
Posters with red ink decorated the walls and coveted the plaque, singing litanies of END THE MUTANT THREAT and KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE or NO REGISTRATION ACT, NO MUTANTS.
Logan froze. He knew he didn't have time for this, he was screaming at every one of his old muscles to just fuckin' move. He couldn't.
He was too late.
The foul smell of the scene haunted his nose. It cut itself deep into his throat and made him dizzy. He had been on countless bloody battlefields and he was no stranger to death. Why did it shock him now?
Somewhere on the other side of the school, more glass shattered. Muffled shouts came from within, but Logan couldn't make out the words through the ringing in his ears. He couldn't even catch his breath, adrenaline building with nowhere to go.
This wasn't a battlefield or a muddy trench. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was a cemetery.
Then, before he realised it, he was running through layers of broken glass, clawing through splintered wood, and clambering over ruined stairs. His legs pushed him closer and closer to the shouting, which had come from the end of the second floor hallway. He didn't have the stomach to stop for each body, to see if anyone could make it out. There would be time for regret. He was owed an eternity of it.
Finally, he found them. They were crowded around the centre of the room, taunting and jeering as red bursts of light sputtered about the walls.
They were just people. No evil robot, no anti-mutant weapon. Just human people, like the ones he passed on the way here.
"Oh shit!" at the sight of Logan, the one watching the door shouted, and the whole group started immediately for the window. Rage that he had never seen before (and for Logan, that was saying something) boiled to the surface as he followed in tow, but a soft, familiar gasp had him stopping in his tracks.
Scott's breaths choked in his throat. His blue and yellow suit was stained with a dark, expanding red. Logan’s rage soured into angry desperation. He hastened to the dying man, taking him into his arms. He started to asses all of his injuries until he lost count. Then he was just focused on keeping him alive, putting pressure on the biggest wound he could find.
"Aren't you a— agh, sight for sore eyes?" Scott managed to say with a wheeze.
"It ain't your time yet, Slim, eyes on me. What the fuck happened?"
"The professor, he— he thought we could reason with them, thought bringing them in would show them that we—" he coughed again, blood sputtering from his lips and painting them a pretty red, "that we aren't threats. Then they opened fire."
Logan stared in horror. Had he seen red hair on his way up? He hadn't looked. He hadn't wanted to know. Below, Scott's breaths became more haggard.
"C'mon, Scotty—" Logan started to shake him, words guttural. "C'mon!"
The mutant in his arms started to jolt forward, mouth agape. He kept trying to pull breaths in, focusing his gaze on the gruff man shielding him from the carnage.
"Tell—" He coughed, bringing a hand up to Logan's cheek, focusing him again. "Promise me, you'll tell Jean we— agh, we love her. Okay?"
"Tell her yourself, you bastard. I ain't doing this shit without you. You're the hero, not me, it's not supposed to be you—"
As Logan bargained with Death herself, he noticed how rough his cheeks were under Cyclop's soft fingertips. It was the first time Logan realised maybe growing old just wasn't for them.
Scott sighed weakly, and when his hand started to drop, Logan held it up, pressing it to his cheek desperately.
"It's fine—"
"The fuck it is! Just tell me, damn it, how do I fix this?"
"Just remember that you're an X-Men, Logan." He spoke so earnestly it made Logan's blood boil. In his lover's final moments, he was getting a lecture. It made him want to scream and stomp around. It made him want to kill the idiot himself. It made him want to cry. Logan hadn't realised he had already started.
The mutant in Logan's arms smiled sadly, bringing his free hand up to his visor. Logan stared on, frozen in place again. The yellow visor got ripped from it's place, clattering to the floor. It shattered to pieces, the ruby quartz spreading like crystalline blood spilled.
Scott's eyes stayed closed. Logan could feel his heart rate through Cyclop's wrist. He held onto the feeling of it, gut wrenching as it continued to slow.
"Scotty—" he pleaded, as if begging would keep him around a little longer. He would be selfish til the last.
"Logan..." Cautiously, Scott's eyes opened. As he did, the scarlet blasts that fought their way out for so long sputtered out like a dying flame, finally blown out by some unseen force. He gazed up at his lover with all of the adoration of the world. "You and Jean are everything to me, as necessary as the air I breathe."
"Quit it, you bastard. Quit talking like you're dying— you're not!"
Maybe the pleading would work.
As if a threat from the universe herself, the thumb tracing Logan's cheek slowed.
"I love you, Logan."
Hot tears fell onto Scott's cheeks, and weak, bloodied lips pressed against Logan's arm, where he could reach.
"I.. I love you too, Scotty. I've got ya."
He had always wondered what colour Scott's eyes were. He had guessed brown. He was right.
A beautiful brown.