Ashes

by Nepthys

He could feel it in his bones.

There isn't anything to separate this town from any other. It's small and dusty, with a couple of bars and a Starbucks at the corner. Doesn't need any more than that, either. There is wilderness to hunt in and even a little trouble every now and then to keep him from boredom.

Yet somewhere around when the waitress would simply sigh instead of glowering at him as she scrubbed the floor clean of the blood, and the bartender didn't care to charge him most of the time, the itch would start again.

What triggered it, he wasn't sure. Or what he was searching for. Maybe it's a half-assed attempt to find home that drives him. A belief that if he would wander long enough, he would eventually find it.

Sometimes he thinks it simply might be age that's getting to him. He's older than most people ever would be -- always has been, but this time it's years that he can remember. Remembers time spent with friends and loved ones, their names and what they once meant to him. And he is starting to wish he would not.

*****

It started when he came back to the mansion one day. It was as close to a home as he would ever get, and the people living in it as close to family as one could ever want.

Sometimes things had changed while he was gone, such as a wall rebuilt or a room redecorated into a nursery. The people changed too, but the differences were more subtle -- a few faint lines or hints of gray in the hair that you couldn't be sure hadn't been there before.

Jean who brought it up one evening when they were sitting out on the porch. He had finished telling her about the latest happenings in Madripoor, only she was silent and didn't comment as she usually did.

"What's wrong, Jeannie?"

"It's silly," she said, biting her lip. "I can't help it, but every time you come back..." Touches the silver at her temples self-consciously, tucking it back behind her ear. "It's hard for us sometimes to see you and feel, well... *old* in comparison."

He puffed dismissively on his cigar. "There ain't a time when I come back and don't envy Scooter and Remy and Warren for havin' the fine women in the mansion," he replied. "You'll always look beautiful to me, and everybody else, darlin'. Don't you forget that. Scooter's one lucky guy."

Jean smiled a little at that. "I'll be sure to tell him you said that. He could do with a reminder."

****

Luckier still, not having to bury her.

That was the bitch of it, wasn't it? Sometimes it wasn't even old age, but disease or wounds received in battle. He'll be there as it happens, feel his own wounds knit and heal without being able to do anything about theirs.

And losing loved ones isn't new to him, but it's almost as bad to return and find a stranger answering the door. Kurt falling asleep during conversation. Hank constantly forgetting his name. It doesn't take long until the visits are less frequent and finally cease completely.

He reads about them in the papers. Their obituaries and blurbs on how they did this or that. How many children or grandchildren they are leaving behind. Returns for the funeral if there's time enough. Maybe a little relieved if there isn't, paying his respects without having to face the dwindling number that's left.

Hank's grave is the last one, and the one he stays the longest at. It's the end of an era; remembered by him and the rest of the mutant legacy they are leaving behind. Heroes and legends to the rest of the world. Family to him.

He continues to heal from bullets and wounds that should have killed anyone else but him. He always heals.

And he is starting to wish he would not.

****

The forest is deep and lush, beckoning to him with enticing sounds of rabbits and foxes in the burrows beneath the ground. The animal inside him stirs, clamouring to hunt and bite down on soft furry flesh. What he always had feared, and wanted.

He used to believe that the end would come in battle, yet better here than on the wooden floor of a bar or a back alley. Decides there is more honour here anyway.

He sheds his clothes, throwing them down from the cliff into the wild river. Nothing would remain save the adamantium. Nothing left to be revived or experimented on.

"M'iko," he says, remembering her face. And lets his beast run wild.

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