A/N: This little plot bunny has been poking at my brain since the Rogue Cut came out. There is also the fact that I continue to be disappointed by the absence of Liev and/or Sabretooth in any form in these new movies, and therefore this little story was born. On one hand, this is 'all X-Men movies up to and including DoFP: the Rogue Cut' compliant. On the other hand, I have taken gross liberties with some stuff from the comics and this is utterly AU. Let's just say it diverges immediately post-DoFP.

Chapter 1: Nonstandard Deviation

"Easy there."

Sabretooth kept his hands visible and his movements slow.

Marie never dropped her defensive posture, waiting on him to make his first fatal move.

But then again, he was already dead. Rogue had watched it happen years ago, right after the world completely went to hell.

She'd never liked the man; hadn't known much of him aside from the fact that he had a feral mutation, once kidnapped her, and that he'd railed against the sentinels right from the beginning. Barely knowing what they were dealing with, Victor Creed had been one of the first to fall.

Yet here Sabretooth was, distinctly not-dead. She would even venture so far as to say he appeared to be alive and whole.

None of this made sense, anyway.

Rogue had awoken alone some time-Minutes? Or was it hours?- ago under dense foliage and warm air that hung denser, still. The cloying atmosphere roused long neglected memories of Meridan summers, when she had been someone else. Back then, her biggest worries had been Trig and whether Cody Ray thought she was cute.

Rogue didn't miss those days, not precisely. She missed their simplicity and potential, but nostalgia was a lying bitch and reminiscing about 'never-were's' wouldn't help with her present situation.

And that situation was... a dream; it had to be- she hadn't seen so much green since she was a teenager. The major sticking point in her theory was the fact that Marie did not dream, she hadn't since before she'd been captured and held prisoner in her former home. Not that said former home looked much like the Professor's school anymore.

She'd been freed, though- Marie remembered holding Logan's consciousness in the past to complete his mission to set the world to rights.

Had they succeeded, or was this after the end of the world? If so, she wondered at how the broken and gray planet had become untamed and beautiful so quickly.

No, that couldn't be right. There was no evidence of civilization anywhere to be seen. If they'd succeeded where was everyone else?

Was she dead? If she were, that might explain the presence of Creed. She'd been good though, hadn't she? Why was she cursed to spend her afterlife with Sabretooth?

"You're not dead."

Marie's eyes widened as she felt the first wellings of panic. He wasn't a telepath now, too, was he? The scientists did all kinds of experiments, especially at the beginning, trying to blend and manipulate the mutations of those captured. They'd certainly tried with her, aiming to figure out how her mutation ticked. Maybe they'd kept him alive and-

"Jesus, calm the hell down. You were talking to yourself."

Not a telepath. Rogue relaxed marginally.

She hadn't even realized she had been speaking aloud. She probably ought to be concerned about that. In the rare moments they wanted her conscious she had been isolated. So, yes, to concerned, no, to surprised.

Marie didn't even know how long ago she had been imprisoned. The team worked out a system to warn them, but it wasn't perfect- her capture was evidence enough of that. How much time had passed in the interim was a mystery.

"What the fuck happened to you, Rogue?"

Creed just shot any hope she had that he knew what was going on here straight to hell.

Rogue ignored him, and tried to concentrate. Sensing her dismissal, Victor interrupted again.

"Get tired of playing daddy with ol' bucket head?"

Ugh. It figured that her subconscious would conjure up the grossest person possible. The damned man didn't even have the decency to be ignored in her own dreams. Marie added 'annoying' to her mental checklist of things she knew about Victor Creed.

Though, for whatever reason, dream!Sabretooth seemed to be angling for a conversation rather than disembowelment, at the moment. Weren't dreams supposed to be a way to work though your issues? She had a lot of those, and the list was growing. Why not humor her delusion?

"Bucket head?" She asked.

The man's sharp gaze scrutinized her, as if he were looking for something, and she was coming up short.

"Magento? Ring any bells?"

Oh. Eww.

Nope. Screw dealing with her issues. Rogue flexed her hand, and it responded. It was a lucid dream, then. Maybe if she focused really hard, she could imagine herself to a nice beach somewhere, but first-

"Why the hell would I go any where near Magneto? And why aren't you dead?"

Yes, let's Ask the dream man why he's following dream logic. Smooth, brainiac.

Creed's brow creased.

"Should I be?" He asked in a carefully neutral tone.

"Yes. Sentinels." Rogue replied.

His face twisted in offense, and Marie easily counted this the strangest conversation she'd ever had with a dead man. Though that very well might be a pot-and-the-kettle train of thought, if this wasn't a dream.

"Those hunk-o-junk machines take me out? Ain't found a way to kill me yet, sweets. Sorry, to disappoint. "

He acted like the world had not been taken over by those quote-unquote hunks of junk. Granted, that when he died, it hadn't quite yet.

But dream or not, dead or not, Sabretooth should remember the approval of the Mutant Registration Act and a renewed Sentinel Program.

This could be some kind of new torture her loving team of scientists had cooked up: zapping her brain and give her terrible dreams. Marie was developing a massive headache, and that sounded about right. So much, for a restful sleep. She tried imagining a calm, peaceful beach, again.

During her inattention, Creed darted in close and sniffed. He jerked away before she could protest, much less defend herself.

"Of fuckin' course. You ain't her." He announced, as though that explained everything.

"Excuse me?"

"You know how you got here, Rogue?"

The beach thing wasn't working, so Marie changed her tactic. She imagined Creed in a floral, pink muumuu, scrunching her eyes closed as she did. For spite she added a matching shower cap. When she opened her eyes again... he was exactly as he had been moments before, dressed in worn denim and a black tank.

"No," she admitted, reluctantly. Lately, it seemed like she didn't know much of anything though- like Kitty having powers that could blast someone's mind to the past.

"Well take a good look around. This is Earth-"

He paused, and Rogue inadvertently followed his suggestion. Of course, it was Earth.

"Just ain't one either of us were born on."

So that was it; Marie was officially coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Took her long enough. Or maybe she actually was dreaming, but not lucidly enough to really affect the dream itself. That sucked.

Especially the Sabretooth part, but that was your subconscious for you. Which was likely-

"You're not fuckin' crazy, goddammit."

She really needed to get that talking to herself thing checked out. Or dream!Sabretooth really was a telepath.

He raked his claws through his mane of blond hair, pulling it from its ponytail.

She'd frustrated him. Good. Came the whisper from her subconscious, at least she thought it was her subconscious. It could have been one of the voices she hadn't heard in ages, but she couldn't match the flavor to anyone in particular.

"I'm not a telepath, either. Just pay attention, dammit!" He surged forward, grabbing her arm, his claws prickling her skin through the sleeve. "This feel like a dream?"

Well, no. It hurt in a definitely not-dream way. But then again, she hadn't had enough dreams recently to create a good basis for comparison.

Disgusted, he dropped her arm and released a sharp exhale through his nose.

"I'm not whatever version of me that you know- You're not my Rogue, and I'm not your Sabretooth, got it? THIS is where-"

Creed froze mid-sentence and sniffed at the air-

"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me," he grumbled. Grumbled, like a petulant child.

And for some reason that struck her as hilarious. She told him as much between giggles. Cracked? Maybe she was, but she couldn't muster the wherewithal to care, just now.

Once she recovered from her cackle-fit Rogue heard thunder in the distance. The sun peaked through the canopy, but it could be a fast moving system.

"Not thunder, but fast moving is right."

Then, the ground started shaking. Great. An earthquake.

Maybe she was finally waking up? Bizarre though it seemed, this dream was the most interesting thing to happen to her in recent memory, and now that waking up might be imminent, she felt reluctant to do so.

"What is it?"

"Not sure, the wind shifted, and we're upwind now. Whatever it is, it's big and don't smell like no spring chicken."

The rumbling of the ground grew stronger.

"Get off the path! Move it!"

The man grabbed her gloved hand and yanked, Rogue stumbling into his side.

"What the hell?"

She ineffectually tried to pull out of Sabretooth's hold. Her definitely-not-dream-guy turned to level a glare at her as he tugged her along. It was decidedly a 'I will rip this arm off and take it with me if you don't quit it' kind of glare.

Marie decided to let him think she'd given in. She just needed to grab his wrist with her other arm and drain the bastard, then she'd be free to turn around and run the other way.

A screeching roar thundered from behind them.

Okay, maybe not the other way. Running ninety degrees from her current trajectory was probably a better idea.

Just as she pulled off her glove with her teeth, something huge, toothy, and scaly-red burst through the underbrush behind them.

Dream or not, Marie jerked her arm free and ran for her life.

Next Time: A waterlogged kitty is good at braiding hair.

A/N: This is going to be a shorter story, likely four to five chapters depending on how I split it up. Let me know what you think!