beastandwolverine

[beastandwolverine]

I cannot art. But for all that is good and holy I would love to see Hank in these:

And I can picture him wearing this when he was in his bs "I'm gay" phase, just to deepen the trolling:

Finally, I would go feral if he wore this (despite the fact I would remind him the pocket square should not match the tie):

[beastandwolverine]

(fragment)

Dark Beast suggests something Beast has already done.

Starts and ends abruptly, because this is meant to be part of a rp yet to be written.

NSFW; violence, language, and mentions of explicit sex

“Hank!” she cried out, before a large hand slapped her so hard her head rang. She couldn’t keep her feet, either; the blow sent her spinning to the floor. She barely caught herself before her face smacked it. Lifting a shaky hand to her cheek, she realized it wasn't just his palm that caused the pain; his nails had left furrows in her skin too.

“Brie!” Hank roared, panic making his voice crack.

Her vision became blurry with the tears produced by pain and fear. She wanted to reach out to him, but the heavy bulk of the man she had thought was Hank stepped between them. If she stretched out her arm, she had no guarantee he wouldn’t just snap it. Just because he could.

Clearly the thought of another display of casual violence towards her must have crossed Hank’s mind as well, because he stopped dead in his tracks instead of continuing to rush forward. On all fours, he looked more a beast than the man standing over her. He snarled, “I fucking swear to god, Henry--I’m going to fucking end you!”

Henry clicked his tongue. “Such language, Hank. I thought you were above such bombastic, visceral drivel.” He flicked a glance down to her. She couldn’t help but cringe. “Then again, perhaps she has inspired you to lean into your animalistic side, hmm?”

Hank’s twin in body and intellect, the one who fooled even her, dropped to a crouch. As if he cared, the same nails that opened her cheek gently brushed her hair out of the blood on her face. She tried not to cringe again.

“She is pretty, I suppose. And she loves you!” he continued nonchalantly as he pushed my hair back. “I’d have fucked her in your stead, Hank--she was quite insistent! I could barely keep her off me!--but that would have given away the game too quickly. I doubt we have similar styles of lovemaking. And then I wouldn’t have witnessed this touching reunion.”

He laughed as if that was a fine joke.

“You bastard--”

“Now, now. No need to bring up whether or not my mother whored around, Hank. We have more important things to discuss.”

Hank pushed himself up to stand, not wanting to give any further advantage to Henry. He refused to dust off his hands, however, keeping them loose at his sides. “We have nothing to discuss. I have nothing to say to you, and you’ve nothing I want to hear. Let Brie go.”

Henry clucked his tongue again in disappointment and shook his head as he stood as well. “No no no. The time has come, Doctor McCoy, to talk of many things! Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings--”

“Shut the fuck up--”

“--and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings,” he finished. He gestured to me again. “This pig in particular. Can she grow wings, Hank? Have you even attempted to discern the extent of her fascinating ability?”

Hank’s voice dropped an octave, to almost a growl. “Let her go, Henry.”

“She’s a teacher here at Xavier’s little soldier factory playacting as a school, but she’s also a student, is she not? She told me as much, when I asked her how her classes went.”

Brie squeezed her eyes shut so hard they hurt. It was true; she’d been duped and believed this imposter to be Beast, her Hank, and she’d stupidly answered him just as she did every night as they retired to their bedroom. She had assumed he was asking about her training, and not what she’d been teaching. It never even dawned on her that the person she’d cuddled up with for weeks wasn’t the man she’d been dating for almost a year. Not until--

“Didn’t you, Brielle my dear? You told me how frustrated you were. How you wanted to be able to do more, how you wanted to be stronger, and that nothing you did seemed to yield the results you desired.”

She hung her head.

Henry chuckled. She hated that it sounded exactly like Hank because she loved to hear it. He used his foot to nudge her jaw. When she resisted, his toes curled around her chin as easily as fingers and he forced her to look up at him.

In his distraction, Hank growled and bounded forward, intent on knocking his counterpart aside. Balancing effortlessly on one foot, Henry immediately shifted his grip on her face to her shoulder and shoved her over. His toenails pierced the thin skin of her neck, a subtle threat to tearing her throat open. Brie squeaked wordlessly in terror. More pressing, literally, was the sole of his foot standing directly on her trachea.

Once more Hank skidded to a stop. His chest heaved. He still couldn’t risk a frontal assault.

“I can give you what you want,” Henry purred to her.

Brie's hands clawed at his foot and leg. She struggled for even the tiny sips of air he allowed. Ignoring her efforts to move him, he continued.

“You just never asked, my dear. I suppose the prudent Doctor McCoy never offered any true experimentations. The two of us, however, would have started out with simply learning the limits of what your mutation grants you, and then I--ahem, we--would have stretched them. I’d have made you powerful, Brielle. A veritable hybrid of any and all abilities! And more than that, I’d have worked to make them truly yours, so you would have no need to continue consuming anything you’d like to gain. One and done, perhaps.”

The pressure from his foot eased; She slowed fighting against him. She had been speaking the truth when she said she wanted more--how could she not? She was surrounded by people with full time powers, not ones that faded. She could envenomate someone if she ate a wasp, but had to constantly pop the insects into her mouth if she wanted to hold on to that ability.

Something to make it permanent was enticing.

“Brie! He’s a liar!” Hank insisted.

“Hush, Hank. Let the woman think,” Henry replied dismissively, still looking down at her. “I adore strong women, especially those with abilities that give them an advantage over others.”

“Henry, I swear to god--”

Henry snorted. “So you’ve said. Tell me, Hank, what was your involvement in her training? It seems to me dear Brielle would require a little scientific expertise, not just ‘let’s fight hard light holograms in the Danger Room.’ What did you do to help her achieve her goals?

“Did you feed her raw steak to see if she would gain the mass of the modern bovine? Did you suggest trying tree bark for an upgrade to her skin? Something less functional but pretty, perhaps, such as force feeding her a peacock? Hmm?

“Did you consider cutting her open and harvesting some liver, for a closer look at the cells?”

He paused. A slow smile that showed too many teeth by the time it ended crossed his face.

“You see, my dear, this isn’t for you." His voice shifted from a purr to a hiss, and he winked at Hank. “It’s for him. Hank, together we can discover just how far we can push her boundaries. We can feed her slices of anyone’s flesh, have her drink anyone’s blood to see what characteristics she takes on, and then we can sculpt her into something spectacular--”

Hank’s hands curled into tight fists at his sides. He shook. His jaw tensed. “You shut your mouth, you fucking degenerate--”

Brie watched Henry’s gaze slip down Hank’s body, reading the unspoken language there. His jaw dropped and he said in a lighter voice full of wonder, “You already have.”

Hank bit off his sentence with an audible snap.

Another laugh passed Henry’s lips. This time it actually sounded delighted. “Oh my god. How did you do it? Who was it? Was it intentional? Did she ask? Or . . .”

His voice trailed off and his eyes widened as realization dawned on him.

“She swallowed your come!” Henry actually clapped his hands in glee. “She sucked you off and you blew your load right in her mouth and she swallowed like a good little slut--”

This time his distraction was too great, and Hank didn’t announce his intentions. He didn't make a sound as he launched himself at his twin.

[beastandwolverine]

Raw.

Next question.

[beastandwolverine]

Any headcannons for Beast and Logan if they saved an abandoned child?

Sorry if that's a little out of left field.

Queries out of left field are more than welcome, because it gets the creative juices flowing! Both Beast and Logan would think they're not the right person to be the primary caretaker for a child. Hank because "I don't know what to do with this" and "I'll inadvertently injure this kid", while Logan is "I don't have time for this" and "I'll inadvertently injure this kid". But in Logan's case we know that is categorically untrue. He's mentored lots of younger X-men and while an abandoned child might not be in the typical age range he takes under his wing, he's more patient than he wants to admit. There would be lots of rough and tumble play, the best hide and seek sessions, and survival training that leaves that kid muddy as hell and tough as nails. Hank has been shown holding babies and young children in the comics but not actively engaging with kids on a regular basis (the exception would be Earth-41001, where he has three kids). However, once the initial shock dissipated, he'd be an excellent teacher . . . but too lenient. Too unstructured. He'd love that kid to explore whatever caught their interest, and his attitude would be there isn't anything that child could do that he couldn't undo, so why be worried if a wall was on fire, or some of the fish in the tank were beginning to grow legs? Both would be fiercely protective of a young charge. Do not mess with that kid or they will make you regret it in many unorthodox ways!

[beastandwolverine]

For what it is, this has done better than I expected! 😀

[beastandwolverine]

Beast loves you!!

[beastandwolverine]

I WANT THIS ART

Hank McCoy aka Beast from X-Men

The original art is for sale in my shop: https://www.ebay.com/usr/justmadart

[beastandwolverine]

lookit him breaking it down and logic-ing it out

He's a clone with a memory several decades behind everyone else but he's still got it! ❤

[beastandwolverine]

Why did Wolverine’s MASK CHANGE after his debut? 🦸🏻‍♂️

[beastandwolverine]

Killer Instinct

There are a thousand other things I should be doing but instead this is what my brain has decided to focus on: A filk for (sung by) Dark Beast.

Killer Instinct from Bring It On The Musical

(Here's the karaoke version if you'd like to sing it yourself! Marion Abbott is the goat for accompaniments.)

Dear God up in heaven, a prayer for Henry Once he was my hero, now he's a disgrace I'm here on top and he's less than zero Dragging me down to save face He always worked hard, he was trusting and fair And Lord, that's the crux of his problem right there

You need that killer instinct to give you the nerve To grab everything you want in life but may not deserve Like if some Beast’s in your way, there's only one thing to do You escape your dimension to Earth-616 To get Henry bricked up and ripped from the life that he knew!

And your dreams come true (Your dreams come true) And your dreams come true (Your dreams come true) And your dreams come true (Your dreams come true) And your dreams come true, oh, oh

It takes that killer instinct, that killer desire (Killer desire!) Are you the little ant or do you set the ants on fire? And if you’re tired of helping X-men there’s only one thing to do You use an explosion to explain why you can’t Use machines that you built or know anyone’s past And they’re mostly trusting so they keep you around Plus no one does medical things so they turn to you! (They turn to you!)

And your dreams come true (Dreams come true, they do, yeah yeah)

Do I sound awful? What have I become? Who's that man in the mirror I see? (Who is he? Who is he? Ooh...) Some backstabbing whack-job I'd run screaming from Oh God, I just love being me! Wouldn't all of you kill to be me?! (Aw shit)

You need that killer instinct since time first began From Genghis Khan to Bristol Palin, you need a killer plan You need to reach the top, if it's the last thing you do I'm the Beast to beat, a grey-blue machine The X-men kiss my ass and I’ll remove their spleen (And soon the world will know his name) I'm raisin' hell and I'm a felon in a 6-foot frame I just use my killer instinct and my dreams (dreams) come (come) true--

(Your dreams come true And your dreams come true I use my killer instinct)

–uuue

(Killer! Instinct!)

Oh yeah-eah-eah!

[beastandwolverine]

Hank McCoy tends to be "older coded" compared to most of the other X-men, despite being about the same age.

Maybe if he didn't call someone who is like a year younger than him "young man" condescendingly like a gdamn boomer he could shake that misconception.

[beastandwolverine]

That's how I pour coffee. Because I hate it.

*pours coffee angrily*

[beastandwolverine]

Every healthy relationship should consist of a pickle lover and a pickle hater.

Pass those pickles here, Henry.

I can help you skin things too.

[uncanny xmen v5 #13]

i mean, I don't think he should do all that, but we've all been there

[beastandwolverine]

Lark

Reply to this beginning by @thebettermccoy

⁂

It was too bright. The artificial lights in the pens made it difficult to sleep sometimes, but she always had the option to turn over or bury her face in the crook of her arm to block it. Quickly, here and now wherever here and now she happened to be, she discovered she could not move her limbs freely. Sharp bands of metal bit into her wrists and ankles when she attempted to lift them. Turning her head did nothing to alleviate the light piercing her eyelids either. She grimaced. Ambient sounds--beeping, mostly--filtered into her consciousness.

Something touched her forehead and automatically she flinched away. The next touch wasn’t nearly as gentle. That something became heavy enough to painfully press the back of her skull into the unforgiving metal table below her.

Her jaw loosened; a thin whimper that threatened to become a scream crawled out.

“Keep your mouth shut. I’m not ready to examine it yet.”

She knew that rich voice. The Beast. The Butcher.

She closed her mouth with a snap.

He didn’t let up on her forehead. She’d lost the privilege to move it. His finger--thumb?--pressed to her eye, harshly enough for stars to erupt in it and for her stomach to roll. The beeping at the edge of her hearing began to slow. She felt cold, then hot. An odd heaviness began in her fingertips and began creeping up her hands and wrists, then forearms--

“Vasovagal response in conjunction with oculocardiac reflex intact,” Beast muttered. Not to her, of course.

The pressure on her eye let up. Everything began to feel normal again. The relief was short lived, however; the same digit forced her eyelid open. Although she tried, she couldn’t blink or even squint. While a brief shadow gave her a reprieve from the overhead brightness, that original light was nothing compared to the thin, concentrated beam flicked at her, burning out her vision.

Her eyelid was released, thankfully, but he repeated it, flashing the harsh penlight into her other eye as well. Tears involuntarily rolled down her cheeks from the pain.

“Dazzle reflex attempted. Pupillary light response intact. No anisocoria. Menace response--”

She blinked to try and reset her vision, and the grey mass standing near became clearer. Not just the features of Doctor McCoy came into focus, but other, unexpected colors as well. Before she had a chance to determine what, exactly, those colors were, a hand snapped close to the side of her head. She flinched violently to avoid it.

“--intact.”

The clawed hand did not strike her. The sharp edge of a nail drew along her cheek, however, following the trail of wetness. She watched the Butcher lift his hand suck the taste of her tears off his thumb.

He leaned in to examine her more closely. She watched his own eyes saccades between hers before he seemed satisfied and straightened again.

“Open.”

She blinked once.

“Open,” he said with more menace, as if repeating the word would make his meaning clear. He raised his hand again. This time the threat of physical contact was not implied, but promised.

She opened her mouth immediately.

The Beast hooked the thumb he’d put into his own mouth into her inner cheek, pulling it away so he could have a clearer view of her teeth. The same claw that graced the skin on the outside did the same on the inside, although here it sliced her open, forcing her without words to keep her mouth loose. As blood pooled at the back of her throat, she struggled not to move. Her instincts told her to cough but she didn’t dare. Not while he was systematically examining her teeth, making quiet verbal notes to himself about whatever he saw.

More tears fogged her vision. When she blinked, they followed the tracks laid by the others before them. The Beast scowled in disgust.

“Swallow, you dumb cow.”

He didn’t remove his thumb, making it impossible to close her mouth properly. Still, she obeyed the best she could, making sure as she closed her jaw she did not bite him. He watched with interest the mechanics of her tongue and throat work to prevent her from choking. Only when she managed to swallow the blood did he release her.

“Very good,” he praised absently, patting her cheek. The wetness he smeared on her skin--she didn’t know if it was spit or blood, or both--quickly cooled. The Beast brought his hand back to his mouth. She watched, curiously, as a faint red haze trailed after his hand as he moved it. The color dissipated once he sucked the taste of her off his digit again, muttering to himself, “Involuntary reflexes overridden, voluntary reflexes intact. All positive. Expected. But extrapolating from previous data--”

Her gaze dropped from his face. Now that she concentrated, more colors became clearer. The Butcher was grey and wore a white lab coat and dark trousers, but as she stared red and orange and white and blue became visible--

“Stop that. What are you doing? What is--”

Before she could react, his clawed hand was on her forehead again, applying the same painful pressure it had before. The Beast’s face filled her vision again, his own gaze sharp under furrowed brows.

“How did you do that, little Lark? I saw the change--explain yourself!”

Frightened, she shook her head as best she could. She had no idea what he was talking about. A change? A change in what? And whatever she’d seen, whatever she thought she’d seen, had fled. All she saw now was an increasingly interested Doctor Henry McCoy, and that was much worse than when he was simply going through rotely and making notes on routine observations.

At her refusal to elaborate, he lifted his upper lip in another scowl. Narrowing his eyes as he straightened to tower over her again, he released her. Not feeling like her skull was about to be crushed gave her so much relief she almost sobbed, but held any noise in.

The Butcher Beast stared down at her for another long moment, then, muttering to himself too softly for her to catch his words, he turned abruptly and strode behind her, out of her vision.

“Do not disappoint me, little Lark,” he called out over his shoulder before his footsteps retreated and the sound of a heavy door closed.

Now that she was alone with a machine ominously beeping in time with her heart rate, Lark gave in to the sobs she’d held back.

⁂

While strapped to the table in Doctor McCoy’s laboratory--his main lab, he called it--Lark learned a few things.

One, she had survived the injection. Serum XM-4001. She’d never forget its designation; the Beast muttered it to himself frequently enough it was seared into her memory.

Two, the Butcher liked to talk.

He talked to himself. He talked to her. He talked to his equipment. All of his conversations, unless he ordered her--forced her--to reply, were one sided. Sometimes he hummed. It was never a melody she was familiar with. Not that she would have joined in! He had never been human. He wouldn’t have been whispered the same songs the cattle in the pens sometimes sang to each other, passed down like an oral history of times long past.

He made his notes verbally; his words appeared on a monitor she could see if she stretched her neck. And that was how she learned:

Three, something had changed in her. Whatever chemicals he’d injected her with had done their job. She was no longer a mere human, although the Beast didn’t seem quite sure that she was a mutant either. She didn’t understand the medical jargon he used. Tapetum lucidum. Heterochromia. Pigmentary dispersion. Some terms he seemed to be confident in, others, lilted as if they were only speculation. She gathered that some tests he would like to run on her were not readily available.

Which led her to lesson number four, which she was proud she came up with on her own: she did not tell him there was a change in her vision. He could run a million tests on her physical body, but he had no access to what she thought, felt, or experienced. What changed in her seemed the most minor thing anyway. Hardly worth mentioning.

If something was warm or hot, she saw it as red with orange outlines, fading to yellow. If something was cold, it was greens and blues. She could still see other colors; nothing degraded into only basic shapes. Nothing was less clear, only enhanced. Overlaid with the colors. As much as she hated it, she could still make out all the features of his face and hands.

Lark simply kept this development to herself.

Oh, and five.

Doctor Henry McCoy did not give her preferential treatment. Unless said preferential treatment meant finally being unstrapped from a table but placed in a holding cell that barely granted her enough room to lie down. It wasn’t even in his lab; it was located in a corridor between his workspace and the pens. The other cells around her were empty. He collected her whenever he wanted to run more tests. There was no schedule to them that she could determine. He also dragged other subjects passed her, either breathing as they entered his laboratory or still as he removed the corpses.

She was bathed. Bathed-ish. A bucket of foul-smelling soapy water was placed near the bars of her cage and she did her best, but before she could begin to truly get clean the cold water was impatiently dumped over her, leaving her sputtering and gasping. A second bucket with no soap followed the first.

Shaking with the chill, she eventually stripped out of the soiled, sopping tunic she had worn as long as she could remember. In the pens she had been taught her skin would dry more quickly without it, and once her clothing was dry too, she could wrap it around herself again. The unexpected drenching had left her exhausted and despite her shivering, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, her one piece of clothing was gone. It was never returned. Lark took to huddling on the bare floor of the cage, her knees tucked to her chin and her arms around her legs.

For some reason--although if she dwelled on it, she could most likely come up with more than one--Doctor McCoy wasn’t pleased with her. She’d survived, yes, but whatever he saw within her eyes wasn’t enough to convince him his trial was a success. In fact, he seemed to hate that there was a physical change in them. What that was, she didn’t know, having no reflective surface to see herself in.

Lark still kept mute about what she could see.

She got proof of his anger at the--in his mind--only partial success when, after another painful examination of eyes, teeth, and nails, he spit that, “if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out”, which left her cold to her core in a way that had nothing to do with being nude.

She’d have fought him for the few seconds it would take for him to subdue her if he’d attempted an enucleation.

Instead, she was fitted with a device that covered the upper portion of her face. While it prevented the Beast from having to look at her eyes, it also blinded her. Leather straps and locks secured it to her head; although she tried to dislodge it when she was shoved back into her cell, she broke fingernails in the futile attempt.

It was then she learned another thing:

Doctor McCoy considered her too valuable to simply dispose of. He didn’t just kill her and dissect her. Whatever was in her that made his serum work, it wasn’t common and hadn’t been repeatable. And that tiny bit of information gave her a tiny bit of hope.

Blinded in a cell only four by five feet across, Lark only had her thoughts, hearing, and physical touch to focus on. At first. She learned each and every inch of her confinement. Which thin bar of the cell had rusted and had some give. Which brick had the most crumbly mortar around it. She filed both pieces of information away. Her ears began to pick up subtle sounds; some that meant the Beast was pleased, others--especially when more subjects were being worked on--she wished she could scrub from her memories. Sometimes those sounds overlapped.

And then, to her surprise, the colors returned.

At first she couldn’t quite understand it. She knew the entire area of her cell, but a red drifted through where she knew the door and wall to the lab was. With this surprising stimulation, with something new to occupy her, she concentrated on that.

Red was always the easiest. It was heat. It took time, but since most of it was stationary, she learned to see the equipment in the lab first. Then, with more practice, she began to differentiate mechanical from organic. The Beast became easy to discern; his bulk and his familiar movements through the space made it simple. And as much as she hated it, his subjects became useful too--fiery bright with fear and adrenaline that faded to the cooler colors when they expired. Lark could watch it all in real time.

She successfully hid her capability until one day, hunger driven--Doctor McCoy’s preferential treatment did not include much better rations, despite his “promise”--and by her new vision alone, she snatched a rat that wandered between the bars of her cell. She barely snapped its spine before gnawing into its belly, and had the damn misfortune of not realizing the Beast just happened to glance through the window of the door at the same time.

He saw what she did and slammed the door open so hard she almost dropped the first warm meal she’d had in . . . ever.

⁂

“Lark!” he snarled. “How did you--”

Lark crouched, the mangled rodent held tight to her chest, glaring up in his towering direction. She snarled back.

The Beast’s query choked itself off at her animalistic response. He held his tongue as she returned to her meal, the rat’s thin bones crunching between her molars. She attempted to crack its skull before spitting it to the floor, clearly determining whatever calories she could suck from it weren’t worth the effort. It landed in tufts of bloody fur.

Doctor McCoy broke into booming laughter. “Is this the end for you, little Lark? I’ve given you a chance at something better, and instead you’ve forsaken even humanity? You’ve sunk lower than the degenerates that occupy the pens?”

She licked the palm of one hand. “No. I was just hungry.”

If her unexpected hunting prowess had surprised him, if her wordless growl clearly warning him away startled him, neither of them stunned him like her lucid, full sentences.

“My, my. This is an intriguing development."

Lark lifted her chin to look him blindly in the eye. She tracked his movement with uncanny precision as he sank to his heels in front of her.

“Tell me, Lark,” the Beast said in a quieter voice, “how did you catch that rat? How did you even know it was there?”

Now it was her turn to laugh. The noise was thin, as if she was attempting the sound for the first time. Instead of answering him verbally, she grabbed the rat’s head from the floor in front of her and threw it, also with uncanny precision, at him. It was only his own quick reflexes that deflected it, a swipe of his hand preventing it from hitting him in the face.

All pretense of a gentler, simply curious Doctor McCoy vanished. The Beast pushed off from the floor with all the power in his legs, launching himself the short distance to the bars of her cell. The entire structure rattled at the impact, the thin metal bending inward on itself.

“Tell me how you caught that rat blindfolded!” he roared, reaching through the bars to grab her, to take her by the scruff of her neck, throttle her, rend the answer from her via lacerations and blood.

Instead of being caught, though, Lark slipped out of immediate reach of his clawed hand. Her escape wouldn’t last long; the Beast was quicker than she was and the cell wasn’t that large. She only had the element of surprise this one last time, and only a split moment before his rage continued to erupt.

Lark took hold of the bar that had been loose before he slammed bodily into the cage. She had heard it snap on the impact; what could hold a human was balsa wood to the Butcher. With a desperate tug, she managed to pull it completely free. It lacerated her hand. She ignored the sharp pain and shoved the broken tip against her neck.

She pressed it in hard enough that blood spurted around it.

“I’ll tell you!” she agreed. “I’ll tell you, Doctor--but you have to take this thing off my head! Or I’ll slit my throat and you’ll never have an answer!”

The Beast’s voice dropped an octave. “And if I simply tear that arm off at the elbow, little Lark, then drag you out of this cage to slowly dissever you until you answer me? I can make a dismemberment last a very long time. Whatever shall you do then?”

Immediately she shifted the position of her makeshift weapon to the front of her throat. She swallowed, and the sharpened tip bobbed against her skin.

“Then I’ll shove it right here, and I’ll never speak again.”

⁂

He let her out of the cage. Not gently, but not with his claws buried in her either. Keeping tight hold of the wire pressed into the front of her throat--her only leverage--she was allowed to stand and walk on her own feet. She stumbled over the entryway into his lab.

The Beast made a noise near her, something that indicated he’d seen her trip and was calculating what it could possibly mean.

Lark was guided to a table and told to climb onto it. When she paused, feeling the edges to gauge how much effort she needed to do as ordered, he took a moment to watch before repeating the command with more threat this time. He wasn’t accustomed to any hesitation when he spoke. Any pause felt like disobedience, and that would never do.

She didn’t hurry. In fact, Lark took even more time to determine exactly where each side of the table was. As a low growl filled the air menacingly behind her, she said,

“If you hadn’t forced this contraption on my head and blinded me, I’d already be on this table.”

The growl grew, but she remained unmolested as she finally climbed onto the metal examination table. Her feet dangled and she kept close track of where, exactly, the Butcher was in the room. In front of her, then at her side, then behind her. He could easily disarm her, so she pushed the sharp edge of the wire even more tightly against her larynx. To the point that it was more than an ache, but actually painful. A necessity, so only a quick sharp jab would drive it into her voice box and render her--hopefully--mute.

A warm trickle dripped to the hollow between her collarbones, pooling there before continuing down her sternum. Her blood mixed with the rat’s she’d smeared on her chest.

The Beast shifted on his feet behind her. Lark heard the subtle whisper of metal on metal as he picked something up. She tensed; this was the moment that would prove how valuable she truly was to the Butcher. Pulling air laced with the smell of disinfectant into her lungs, it may be the last breath she ever took.

He took hold of one of the locks holding the leather around her head. There was still no gentleness in his touch. He twisted her neck to one side to maneuver the hardware into a position that he could use the key on it. She both felt and heard the lock release, and some of the pressure she’d grown accustomed to lessened.

Two more locks followed, and suddenly, the whole apparatus loosened and came away. It stuck to her skin in a few places before falling off due to its weight. Lark gasped at how light she felt.

Blinking rapidly, real vision returned as if she hadn’t been blinded for . . . she had no way to tell time here. Glancing around her, she was able to match all the machines she knew by their heat signatures. She turned further and caught sight of the Butcher dropping the leather headgear carelessly onto a mayo stand. She’d seen him intimately too: his chest always red, the hair on his head always blue and green, and the rest of him various colors in between.

With startling speed he stepped in front of her again.

“Well, little Lark--I’ve upheld your request. You’re free of the harness. Now do not make me wait to learn your secret.”

She knew that once revealed what his injection had done to her, that would be the end of her life. No one survived the Butcher’s experiments. She had no expectation to be the first. Lark felt, however, that she gained a small victory. She’d stayed alive, she’d forced him to release her from the cell and free her from the leather that blinded her. She’d been able to see again. She didn’t die in darkness.

Lark smiled, her lips cracking as they widened. “I can see colors,” she told him. “More than normal. Heat and cold. More than I’d ever seen before in my life.”

Instead of striking her down, clawing out her throat or disemboweling her as she expected, the Beast stared at her, processing her words. “Temperature? You see thermal signatures?”

She nodded, and licked the fresh blood off her lips. “Yes. I could see that rat. Its body was red, its tail was green because it had less heat. Through the wall, I could see all the machines you have in this room. I could--I can see you, and the heat coming off your body. I could see every person you brought in here, red and orange at first, then blues and greens when they stopped breathing. I could see your arousal as you watched them die.”

He narrowed his eyes, still absorbing what she told him. His large clawed hand--yellow, but his nails were green--grabbed her upper arm. Lark barely flinched, even when he yanked her off the table, ready for the end.

To her infinite surprise, Doctor McCoy shoved her towards a scrub sink. “Go clean up. You’re covered in rat blood, and that’s disgusting,” he commanded.

This time the water was warm and the soap actually worked. It made her smell fresh. The Beast threw a lab coat at her as she finished. “Cover yourself. I don’t need you distracting me, little Lark. We have a lot of discovering to do together.”

Slipping her arms into the the labcoat sized for him, it draped Lark as though she was a child playing dress up. His attention sharp on her, he grinned. Just before he showed too many teeth, the smile almost looked pleasant.

⁂

[beastandwolverine]

It was difficult to stay clean in the pens. Difficult to get enough to eat. Difficult all around. She did her best, which mostly meant trying to keep quiet. Not draw any attention to herself, keep the eyes of the Butcher or any of his assistants from landing on her.

It was barely anything, but it was survival.

This is a one-shot for you, @hoodoo12.

(Yes, I also do one-shot requests. They are less mentally taxing than juggling RPs, too!)

McCoy wiped the blood from his nose. Alex Summers had a little tantrum again, and he had happened to be in the firing range.

The Prelate was a toddler who floundered for daddy's approval without having any qualities worth approving. If the manchild wasn't busy claiming leadership in the pens -- which was Henry's domain, he was whining about his brother Scott. Scott -- who everyone knew was the far superior brother not only in abilities and leadership but in his propensity to not make his drama everyone else's problem.

Now, Lab C was entirely out of order and would most likely be out of commission for six months until they could get the supplies to fix the delicate equipment inside. Two months of prior research were also lost because of fucking Alex Summers -- meaning Henry would be at least eight months behind on his research.

The worst part was that he could do nothing about it, the Prelate outranked him. What a fucking joke.

He slammed the door to Cell 27 of the Pens open, charging down the hallway with barely-contained rage. The damp stink of sweat and filth mixed with the sharp tang of antiseptic. The shuffling bodies in their cages stilled, all instinctively lowering their heads, pressing themselves against the bars, against the walls, anywhere that might make them smaller, less noticeable.

He would select one at random. Cell 27 was nothing but flatscans, so it hardly mattered. Since his little side-project had already had a large sample of male candidates, he supposed his next subject should be female so as not to skew the data.

His golden eyes scanned the squalid room. The inhabitants cowered, many of them tightening themselves into a fetal position to protect their most vulnerable parts from the predator among them.

They fell on a young woman near the corner of the room. Small, emaciated like the rest. Her hair color was hard to make out when shaved short and covered in dried filth. Nothing about her stood out from the rest of the vermin --

"You…” He found her in the dim, locking onto her as easily as a hawk spotting a wounded rodent in a field. “Yes. You’ll do.”

He watched as her fingers clenched into the fabric of her ragged tunic as if grasping something—anything—could ground her, could make her invisible.

It didn’t matter.

He moved without hurry, without concern, his clawed fingers brushing along the bars as he passed others—half-dead, broken things who dared not even breathe too loudly. He enjoyed this part, the anticipation, the fear.

The subject fussed as he dragged her by the wrist out of the cage. Not too much -- the Brains ensured that -- but enough to irritate him. Enough to add to the rage burning inside him.

His hand shot out, wrapping around her throat.

Not enough to choke. Not yet.

Just enough to hold. To remind.

She wilted in his grasp, complying the rest of the way to the lab.

Henry inhaled the mix of chemicals and cleaning agents. The perfect scent. His domain.

He grabbed her throat again, this time to hold her neck in place while he scanned the identification chip.

"Ah, welcome to Lab A, 10007326-M. Aren't you so lucky? Usually, a flatscan like you would be in Lab C, but you get to experience the opulence of my main laboratory."

He wasn't surprised that she didn't answer.

"Tell me, 10007326-M, do you have a name?"

She murmured something.

"Louder."

Her voice raised, barely above a whisper, and even with his heightened hearing, he barely caught it.

"Lark?" McCoy laughed. "Do you even know what that means?"

Again, she did nothing but tremble. This little Lark was no fun.

“Well, Lark, I had a rather disruptive evening,” he continued, his voice dripping with casual menace. “A little… havoc in one of my labs. Unruly leadership. Messes to clean up. I do so despise cleaning up.”

Her watery, wide eyes stared up at him in pure horror.

"But you see, Miss Lark, you have the potential to end my day on a spectacular note. You'll have the pleasure of testing serum XM-4001. If it's successful, you'll successfully create and express the mutant gene."

He let the rest hang in the air between them.

"You could be the first-ever synthetic mutant. With one injection, you could live a life outside the pens. Indulge in healthy rations, actual clothing, and frequent baths. Doesn't that sound exciting?" He asked as he shoved her onto the erect operating table. He strapped her into the holsters before she could begin to fuss again.

"Even better," he mused, playfully bopping her nose with a claw. "You could become my pride and joy -- Preferential treatment by me. And trust me, you want it."

"There is a catch, though," he added as he reached for the box of needles. "Few of you predecessors have survived the injection, and clearly none have succeeded in mutating."

He waited for a beat, withdrawing the long, gruesome needle.

"And it is a terribly painful process. The last subject lasted forty-five seconds before he began to scream his lungs out -- literally."

Lark began to fidget, and McCoy took the opportunity to jab the needle into her thigh.

“Let’s play a game, shall we?” His grinned. Let’s see how long you can last before you scream. If you beat his record and survive -- I'll make sure you won't visit the labs again for at least a year.”

McCoy pressed down on the plunger, watching as the sickly green serum disappeared into her frail, malnourished body. He let the needle linger for a moment before yanking it out with a surgical flick of his wrist. The tiny puncture wound welled with blood, a single drop sliding down her thigh before he wiped it away with his thumb, smearing the red against her paper-thin skin.

Lark’s body convulsed, her thin frame arching off the table as the serum coursed through her veins like liquid fire. Her breath hitched into short, sharp gasps—

McCoy smiled as he checked his stopwatch.

“Ten seconds,” he mused. “Keep it up.”

Her limbs jerked against the leather straps, muscles spasming uncontrollably. Sweat beaded along her forehead, rolling down her temples, mixing with the grime that clung to her skin. The veins beneath her flesh darkened, shifting to an unnatural hue. The mutation was taking hold—burning through her, unraveling her genetic code, forcing her into something more.

“Thirty seconds.”

Her fingers curled into claws, her nails blackening at the tips. Her breathing came in ragged, uneven gasps, and then her screams filled the lab, echoing off the walls.

"Forty-Six!"

McCoy wasn't allowed to scream, so he reveled in hers.

(I'll leave this open-ended if you decide Lark to be a re-occurring character as the first synthetic mutant, or her story can end here.)

[beastandwolverine]

Duel Duet

(I'm always on the hunt for songs for my vocal lessons and found this one; duets can be sung by one person even if they're meant to be a back and forth argument-- <- NONE OF THIS MATTERS)

Here's a song that incapsulates Beast and Dark Beast, especially in X-Men: Endangered Species.

Hank

You're a loser

An abomination in the eyes of any sensitive man

Henry

And you're a blind alley cruiser

Always heading down a losing street

Dreaming that you're screaming at fate

You're a dead end, deadbeat, nowhere Mister

With a kisser like a Mississippi alligator's sister

Hank

I took as much of you as any man can!

You've lost your heart

Henry

You've lost your cause!

You lost your baby when you lost your balls!

You lost your mind

You've lost your grip

So say bye-bye!

Hank

We lost our Mom

We lost our Dad

And if I'm losing you

Well, that's too bad!

Henry

Well, the best thing you could ever do is die!

Henry

You're a failure

A malformation in the guise of many

An also ran

Hank

And you're a weeper and a wailer!

Always treading on the toes of the great

Damnably spreading your weight

You're a spiteful, hateful, asinine creature

A pupil with no scruples who's no better than the teacher

Henry

I took as much of you as any man can!

Hank

You've lost your heart

Henry

You've lost your cause

Hank

You lost your baby when you lost your balls!

You lost your mind

When you lost your grip

So say bye-bye!

Henry

We lost our home

Our family

You've lost compassion

Now you're losing me

Hank

Well, the best thing you could ever do is die

Henry

Well, the best thing you could ever do is die!

Hank

Well, the best thing you could ever do is die!

[beastandwolverine]

Dentition

Poll results:

Thank you to everyone who answered. I really appreciate it!

Let's get into it, shall we? With commentary. Okay, with the occasional mildly adult commentary.

Lower fangs 31% Assuming these are Hank’s “canine” or cuspid teeth, and assuming they’re only on his mandible, they’re going to be tusks. Possibly ever growing tusks. Maybe, in the case of swine, his upper cuspids rub against them and keep them 1) shorter +/- 2) sharpened. Maybe he files them to keep them shorter and smooth.

Either way, the presence of lower tusks is going to realign his lower jaw. When they’re present, they’re usually shown overlapping his upper lip. Here’s an excellent example. Several, in fact:

Supporting tusks of that size is going to also require some restructuring of musculature along his jaw, including up into his temple. Extra bone density too, if they’re going to stay solid. He typically has a beard or thick sideburns, so the increased heaviness of that lower jaw may not be visibly notable. But it could be felt if someone cupped his face! Of course, all the weight of extra bone and muscle to support his mandible means he’ll have increased temporalis muscles along the sides of his head as a counterweight. Again, hair on his head will help cover that. What’s all that mean? He’s going to have a hell of an underbite.

Quick and off topic side note: I added the above pic because I like it and because anyone who knows me fully knows:

Maybe this is why Krakoa Beast is such disgusting guest at dinner? He didn’t forget or lose his table manners, he simply cannot eat without making a mess.

Final note on Hank having elongated lower cuspids. Those types of teeth are good for several things, but one of the best is defense. Sure, by strength alone he could literally tear you in two, but get those tusks anywhere near your frail, thin-skinned body when he’s ready to do some damage and you’ll be doing your best to keep precious organs that should never see the light of day inside your torso.

Recap: lower fangs, 10/10. A nod to Orc lovers.

Upper Fangs 12.1% Vampire Hank? Nah. Vampiric folklore doesn’t mention upper pointed cuspids, if they mention teeth at all. There are few animals that have only this type of tooth without a full set (we’ll get to that below), so this will have a little more conjecture.

There are some deer that have upper fangs, Chinese water deer (left) and Reeve’s muntjacs (right). Cute little fellows. While I’m interested in knowing if Hank has a tongue that can do that, I certainly hope he doesn’t have the scent glands that Reeve’s muntjac sports below its eyes.

Other than that, there aren’t many other mammals that sport upper-only fangs. You’ve got to go back 8,000+ years to get to the most famous: the sabre-tooth cat or sabre-toothed tiger. Smilodon, if you’re nasty.

Obviously, Hank’s upper fangs aren’t nearly as impressive, although with the way he likes to monkey around with his own genetic code, I could imagine some variation has them . . . So long as they don’t protrude, he wouldn’t have to overtly worry about cutting his own lips, although that would be something to watch for. He also wouldn’t need additional bone to keep them from shifting. The maxilla has a bit more integrity to work with with than the mandible. No more muscle would be needed either; the entire weight of his skull could be used to jam those suckers into some(one)thing.

Recap: upper fangs, 10/10. A set for the vampire lovers.

Full set of fangs 55.2%

Woo boy. Now we’re talkin’. This is by far the favorite of fans and artists alike. Classic. Make biological sense. A full set is balanced. 

Maybe the uppers are longer.

Maybe the lowers are bulkier.

Maybe they’re even all around.

But in any of those cases, they’re mostly even and would provide the easiest way for Hank to talk, eat, and bite (if need be/if asked).

Question remains, however, how did they become fangs? When he threw OSHA rules set in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening and drank the chemicals to become grey and hairy, did his cuspids fall out and new ones grew in? Did his original teeth just . . . become longer? It’s the conundrum that divides the werewolf fan community too. 

Recap: full set, 10/10, makes sense

Other 1.7% Here’s the miscellaneous category. Not gonna lie, Beast doesn’t have the same impact with fully human teeth. Looks a little creepy--with a caveat: unless he’s fully human. Although if there was an image inducer glitch that kept his fangs while the rest of him was a good-looking, corn-fed American guy, that’d be cool.

The exception to the rule is I like these even though he’s a lipless zombie:

As for fully animal teeth to match a mostly animal Hank, that works. No notes.

Recap: other, 5/10 (human teeth = 0, animal teeth = 10, hence the average)

If you stuck all the way to the end of these ramblings, thanks! I’d love to hear what you think. And if there are any other physical aspects of Hank McCoy that you’d like to see given the same treatment (and we’re all thinking the same one, don’t deny it, wink), or cats vs human physiology, let me know. 🙂