missingthekeep | Homeplot: Border Crossing

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Homeplot: Border Crossing

It's a long damn time before they manage to get a moment to themselves. The ride to the border had been miserable, dealing with awkward explanations in between jibes and taunts from a man who seemed more enamoured with the idea of killing the two of them than the target of his mission, so much so that by the time they came across Romanova's car abandoned by the side of the road about twenty miles out, Sean had been ready to put a bullet between Creed's eyes and try his luck on his own with Meredith. Still, the prospect of wandering stranded through Soviet territory with no reason for being there, legal or otherwise, struck him as marginally more insane than playing along with all of this, so he reined in the impulse.

They almost snagged a minute alone at the guard station, but Wolverine had vetoed his request to stay with her in the back of the truck at the last second, leading to an argument that had ended with his taking her along as they ventured out. It had ended both far better and far worse than it could have; the guards had all been dead, which made things pretty easy for them, but the perpetrator had insisted on tagging along with them the rest of the way, and if there was one person he trusted less in all of this than Creed, it was Mystique. Any chance they'd have had to break away from the group to talk after that had been lost when their hostage and driver, Ivan, had made a break for it and needed to be chased down.

All in all, the idea of ditching the lot of them and getting as far as his scream will go is starting to look more and more appealing. Eventually, though, they get their chance.

They're stopped at a small village for supplies to get them the rest of the way to Minsk, where Ivan's informed them the Black Widow is heading. For an interrogator, he sure doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. Stashing the truck behind a two-storey box of a building (the biggest one in the entire town), a discussion ensues about how to split everyone up to get everything they need. While splitting up at all strikes Sean as a truly terrible idea, given all the unknown factors in the group, it's exactly what he's been wishing for for hours, so he's not about to complain. It's another matter entirely to get them to agree to let he and Meredith go off on their own, but he's nothing if not persistent, and eventually, they strike off under the pretense of securing breakfast for everyone with a plan to meet back at the truck in half an hour.

Finally.

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"Nae an option," Sean says, shaking his head. Not when, for all he knows, Creed's out starting World War III just down the street. "God dammit."

Making potentially awful snap decisions is so much easier when he only has himself to worry about. Or people he's not in love with, terrible as that sounds.

"Stay in the truck," he finally says, gesturing roughly for her to move. It's been barely a minute since the gunfire broke out, but that's still far too much time already wasted. Pulling the gun out again, he hands it to her insistently. "An' take this. Keep the safety on. Lord knows it'll nae do much in case anyone makes it o'er here, but I'll nae let that happen an' it'll make me feel better, at any rate."

Meredith makes a noise of protest, but takes it anyway, if only for his sake, once she's in the truck. "I wouldn't know how to take the safety off anyway," she points out, smiling just a little. It fades a moment later as she leans toward him. "I'll stay put, I'll be fine. I'll be here when you get back." He will come back. He always has. That doesn't mean there won't be an exception one day, that they won't run out of time, but she won't think about that now. Not yet, at least. There are other things she wants to say, but they're in a rush and she doesn't want to hold him back. "Be safe."

"Ye jus' pull back that bit there," Sean points out, unsure why he's bothering to do so when he just told her not to do it. Just in case, he supposes. "Finger well away from the trigger 'less ye plan on pullin' it."

Exhaling sharply, he casts one last look around, as if some alternative to leaving her is going to suddenly manifest at the last second. For his part, Maverick just watches them, impassive as ever, and Sean knows better than to bother asking him to watch out for her, though he does wonder bitterly why he isn't the one about to risk his neck for a madman.

"Ye as well," he finally adds, casting a brief, pained look at Meredith before he takes off, not bothering with any manner of goodbye.

It's just as well. Meredith has no intention of saying goodbye or that she loves him or anything that might seem final; he'll come back. She shifts further back into truck, drawn in on herself, and reminds herself of that again and again. Whatever is happening out there, he'll be okay. In spite of what she said, though, she starts to wish she'd insisted on following, though she knows that would only have made things worse. It's not knowing what's going on that's hard, only being able to listen to what sounds make it down here and trying to piece them together, looking out the window to be sure no one's coming, not bothering to try and make conversation. Staying still doesn't suit her, but she's not equipped to plan ahead either, just to wait and keep watching, for trouble or for him.

It's bad. Sean wasn't expecting a walk in the park, naturally, but as he cautiously peers out past the edge of the last building in the row that he can use for cover, it still manages to strike him just how bad it is. About a dozen or so soldiers are firing on their own truck, behind which he can only assume Sabretooth and Silver Fox are pinned down. If that were it, it would be manageable, but before Sean has the chance to get over and loudly defuse the situation, a group of four start stupidly advancing on the truck, and Creed's not about to sit on his laurels while he waits for them.

So much for not killing anybody, Sean thinks, wincing to himself as he enters the fray too late to keep Creed from appearing and tearing out the throat of the nearest Russian soldier with that ridiculous manicure of his. A blow to the head plainly snaps the neck of a second, even as the other two punch a whole lot of holes in his hide with their rifles. There's nothing to do but leave them to his wrath, though, since Sean's garnering attention of his own, now, by the group still assembled loosely by the refueling station that Team X had evidently been going for.

He screams, blowing a pair of them back off their feet, though only one of them stays down. Then he's on the defensive, focused on deflecting the truly absurd amount of bullets coming his way. He contemplates going airborne, the better to stay out of harm's way, but with the way his control over his voice is still shaky, it seems like more risk than it's worth.

He doesn't start when a few bullets slip through his defenses and pass disconcertingly close to his head, but his voice picks that moment to hitch in his throat as if on cue, his scream cutting out abruptly and forcing him to dive to keep from getting torn to pieces while he readies another. When another bark of rifle fire breaks out off to his right, though, it sends the soldiers scattering for cover and Sean jumps back to his feet to see Silver Fox wielding one of the dead soldier's Kalishnikovs to lay down suppressive fire.

Just in time for two trucks' worth of reinforcements to come rumbling down the street. Of course.

Though Meredith can't see anything from where she is, she stays close to the window anyway, peering intently out as if she might catch a glimpse of the battle. She watches and she listens, trying to track their progress by the sound of gunfire, straining for some hint of the scream that has to be Sean. It's a chilling sound and one she's desperate to hear, proof he's still in good enough shape to keep fighting back. The fight itself beyond that isn't anything she wants to consider. The group she's fallen in with won't hesitate to kill and once she considers the injuries that could be piling up, she wants to be there, too, to help with that, the only thing of worth she can do in a situation like this. Sitting here leaves her restless, palms pressed hard into her knees as she tells herself she has to stay here, she can't just go running right into the middle of that.

Creed's finished mauling the four over by the truck and has picked up a rifle of his own, but instead of mirroring Silver Fox's deliberate cover fire, he starts strafing the refueling station without abandon, forcing Sean to get the hell out of the way in order to avoid getting hit.

"Friendly fire, my arse," he mutters under his breath before turning to take care of the few soldiers who dare to come out of hiding to try taking advantage of his retreat. At first, it seems downright suicidal, but given the way Sabretooth is going at the fuel reserves in addition to whoever he can see, they're probably better off without the cover. It doesn't make a difference either way, their motivations not changing the effect that Sean's scream has on them. He has to force it this time, though, the toll it takes on his throat making itself known as he hits them hard and fast, throwing them back against the wall of the station. If they survive it, he'll have saved their lives, but that's cold comfort with the body count that's already been racked up, that continues to rise as Creed starts picking off the remaining soldiers when Sean finally joins them behind the bullet-ridden truck.

None of it's going to count for anything either way now that reinforcements are starting to pile out behind them, and all Sean can think is that he's going to die trying to look out for these lunatics. He's going to get Meredith killed because of them. He's... going to get let off the hook entirely, apparently, because a commanding Russian voice cuts through the din, shouting something about a training exercise and causing the soldiers to immediately stand down. Sean whirls around to see a man in a Major's uniform barking orders, but it isn't until he spots Wolverine lurking off to the side does it click that this was the plan all along. He still won't trust her for an instant, but at least Mystique's managed to prove her worth somehow. Without even waiting for the area to start clearing out, Sean takes advantage of the momentary confusion to extricate himself and quietly start making his way back down the street to their makeshift base camp.

It's only in the sudden quiet that Meredith tears her gaze away from the window, looking the other way and back out again before she opens the car door and climbs out. Something's happening — something's not happening — and somehow that's much worse than the screams and shouts and gunfire. She should stay where she is like she said she would, but she can't bring herself to sit still when she doesn't know what's happening. When there was distinct and definite fighting, at least she had a reason to stay out of the way. Even now, she's so far out of her element that she sticks close to the car, mostly pacing, trying to make up her mind or at least make herself wait a little longer. When she catches sight of him in the distance, that's enough. She sets the gun back in the car and takes off toward him.

He shouldn't change his demeanor any, Sean knows, should just keep walking, meet up with her, and then chew her out some for leaving the truck. But, while he may not have been looking right into her eyes this time as he parsed the moments where he'd been quite possibly about to die, the way she looks right now makes him feel like he might as well have been. So he says to hell with how it looks to anyone else, picking up a bit of speed to close the gap between them as quickly as he can, his arms around her as soon as she's within reach.

"It's okay," he says, his voice rough-edged and low. If he tells himself that it's all for her sake, to keep her steady and solid in the midst of all this madness, he can justify it.

Arms wrapped tight around him, Meredith rests her face against his shoulder. What she should or shouldn't have done doesn't matter, she needs this now, heart hammering in her ears, caught somewhere between relief and belated panic. "You're okay?" she asks, muffled against his shirt. How she thought she could put up with him doing this kind of thing for a living, she isn't sure, though it might be easier to bear when she's not in earshot, but that's something to deal with another time. All that matters now is that he's back and in one piece.

"As okay as I e'er am," Sean assures her, whether it's true or not, as he tries to nudge her back toward the truck without actually breaking away. "Jus' a mite worn out, is all." Physically as well as mentally.

Following his lead, Meredith pulls away enough to face forward, keeping his arm around her. "It sounded pretty bad," she says, intent more on watching him than looking where she's going, "but I don't have anything to compare it to and then it all stopped and... I'm glad you're okay."

"It... was bad," Sean admits darkly, feeling no call to lie to her, at least about that. Like it or not, she's a part of this, and she deserves to know how it's going. "But we're gettin' out o' here anyhow, so let's get everythin' set t'go in the truck f'r when the others finish cleanin' up."

It's not something Meredith wants to think about, not now when she's just trying to stay as calm and together as she can. She just nods, sticking close until she can climb back inside, and finding his hand to hold. "Is everyone else alright?" she asks, though she's not sure she actually cares much about any of them. It's not like the feeling would be mutual. At least they'll be leaving soon, and then they're one step closer to getting safely out of all this.

"Either they are or they will be," Sean says, nodding, though Meredith's well being is the only one he particularly cares about at the end of the day. Maybe it's cruel, especially considering that even now, he gets along better with Wolverine than with most people, but the others are just a means to an end. "Creed ate a lot o' bullets, but he's survived worse. Here, put this on." He passes her some clothes from the back, scrounged by the others so that they can finally pass for something approaching civilians. It's still not perfect cover, of course, but it's a step up.

Meredith gives them a quick glance before she starts to pull them on. What they look like doesn't matter so long as they blend in. It's awkward, doing so in the truck, but she manages as quickly as she can. "He doesn't need medical attention for that?" she asks, hoping in spite of herself that the answer is no. She has no particular desire to help the man, but she will if it's needed.

"He'll be fine," Sean says as he gets dressed himself, and the unfortunately is implied. Even if that weren't the case, he's pretty sure he wouldn't want Meredith within thirty feet of the man if he could help it, anyway.

Once she's got herself sorted out, Meredith leans over to kiss him quickly while they still have a moment's privacy. "What happens now?" she asks. "We just get back on the road?" They still haven't found what they came out here for, after all, and she's not entirely sure she wants them to. She has to remind herself it's what has to happen if they're going to get out of this, but that only makes her question what it is she's looking to avoid.

"'Less ye wanna stick around here an' try ta make friends wi' the locals," Sean says wryly, too on edge to play the supportive role continuously. "The pile o' bodies might'n make it tricky, though."

The others finally catch up at that moment, Wolverine cutting Sean off with a few barked orders of his own as soon as they're all within earshot. "As I'm sure you've guessed, we've officially worn out our welcome." This part in particular seems to be addressed to Sabretooth, who just flashes him a bloodstained grin in reply. "Finish packin' it all up, we're eating on the road."

She's wasted her chance, Meredith thinks, to ask how his throat's holding up, but then, she doubts he'd get an answer out of him she couldn't supply for herself. If he's to be believed, he's fine, always fine. She settles in, drawing a deep breath. "Guess that's one decision out of the way," she says to him anyway, though she wasn't going to choose anything else.

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Homeplot: Border Crossing

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