The signs were encouraging. Remy not only recognized Logan and the other members of the team, he seemed to remember details, albeit unpleasant ones, from life in the mansion. Logan was recently unaccustomed to any of the pleasanter emotions, but what he felt might have been tolerably described as happiness.
He was sitting on the side of Remy�s bed one afternoon, stroking the rapidly thickening auburn hair, looking at the web of scars that crisscrossed the Cajun�s pale scalp. What had caused all of them? Things being added? Things being taken out? He felt his stomach twist in the familiar dread. There were so many things about what had been done to Remy that he didn�t know about.
He could find out though. Sloan�s records were lying in the drawer beside Remy�s bed. Logan thoughtfully picked them up and began to read.
The first few pages didn�t tell him anything he already know. Remy had been found at the scene of a warehouse fire, badly injured, with no identification. Seventy five percent of his body had been covered with third degree burns. He was suffering from several deep lacerations to the chest and was suffering from blood loss. Due to the extreme nature of his injuries he had been placed under the care of Dr. Sloan, who was considered something of a miracle worker, only taking on the most desperate or hopeless cases.
Logan felt the old despair rise up in his throat. He had been home safe, while the kid was in a hospital fighting for his life.
Sloan had been able to repair Remy�s injuries from the fight. In addition, e had used his new, experimental techniques on the burns so successfully that even looking carefully Logan barely see where the fire had marked Remy.
After almost a month Remy was getting ready to be released from the hospital. According to the medical records he was still groggy and uncertain what had happened to him (aided by Sloan and his drugs no doubt, thought Logan bitterly). Since he had no identification and no recollection of his origins he was being treated as a vagrant, the costs of his care paid for through Sloan�s grant money for research.
Logan flipped to the next page. At first his eyes didn�t understand what he was seeing. Then his mind refused to accept it. He read it again. Then again. He felt himself going cold.
The form was a release, signed to release the doctor from liability for experimental treatment. There was another in the front of the file signed by a warden who had been given custody over Remy while he was unconscious. Except this one wasn�t for trauma surgery, it was for �the treatment and/or eradication of outlined telepathic blights, specifically those relating to emotions.�
This one was signed by Remy.
Logan stared at the signature numbly. There could be no doubt that it was Remy�s own, mostly illegible scrawl. It looked slightly lopsided, as if the kid had been signing it while on his back, but it was definitely his.
Logan didn�t want to believe it. He didn�t want to think that the kid had volunteered to have such things done to him.
He knew in his heart though, that it was possible. Remy had been ambivalent at best about his empathy, had called it the curse. He had known, though had never mentioned, what a burden Logan found it to be.
Would he have subjected himself to torture under the hands of a mad man? Yes. <I hate this thing. I hate what it does to us. If it were in my side, I would cut it out.> Well it hadn�t been, but Remy had apparently been willing to try another way.
Hank came in and saw the file still open on Logan�s lap.
�It�s against the law to read someone else�s medical records.� He said quietly.
Logan didn�t even hear him, horror was overwhelming him. �Oh God.� He started up, desperately, knowing he had to find a bathroom and he wasn�t going to make it. But Hank was ready with a pan. Logan bent over it and vomited violently, heaving until there was nothing left in his stomach. Hank touched his shoulder gently.
�Better?�
Logan shook his head no. �I have to go.� He whispered. �I have to get out of here.�
He stumbled out of the room, fleeing to park around the mansion, seeking the comfort of the outdoors, the way he always did. The cool air didn�t help him this time. He was shaking.
What Remy had done, had volunteered for, was self mutilation. It was self-hatred of the most profound kind, an absolute rejection of what he was, of what he thought and felt.
Logan collapsed on the ground. It was starting again. Before he and Remy had been able to speak to each other it was starting. Remy�s own self hatred, his inability to accept himself as he was. Logan�s encouraging of that self destruction.
He couldn�t deny it. How many times had he told Remy that he loved him the way he was? How many times had that been a lie. Now, when he was finally changing, was it already too late. Worst, could he love Remy so completely knowing the Cajun was capable of committing such acts of violence against himself?
He knew the answer, and at the same time he didn�t know. The honest truth was he didn�t have a choice.
Remy was awake when Logan returned to the room. He looked up and smiled as he saw Logan.
�Bonjour.� He said. His voice was soft and rough from unuse.
Logan�s throat tightened. How strange, with all the times he had cursed and denigrated life, that he would live to hear Remy speak to him again.
�Hey,� he answered softly, crossing to the bed. He brushed the top of the kid�s hair and pressed a kiss on his forehead before sitting down.
Remy watched him contentedly. Then he frowned a little. �What�s wrong?� his voice was little above a whisper.
Logan shrugged. He didn�t want to talk about this now, not the first day Remy seemed really awake. He didn�t want their first words together to be accusations. �It�s nothing.� He said.
�Tell me.� Remy was watching the older man with growing concern. All the weeks he had been lost in darkness he had become used to�depended on the clear presence of Logan�s mind beside his own. Now the tenor of that presence had changed and Remy didn�t understand the reason.
�Later.� Logan tried to smile.
For three days he kept the kid at arms length. He stopped holding him, afraid that Remy might sense some of his feelings of betrayal. He barely touched him and barely spoke.
He told himself it was just a coincidence that Remy stopped getting better so quickly. Before the Cajun�s progress had been marked in hours, but now he lost some of the color he had gained back, and spent more time asleep.
�Don�t underestimate how fragile our young friend is right now.� Said Hank, coming upon Logan staring at Remy through a window in the lab.
�I don�t. Christ, how could I?� Logan growled.
�I think you should just go ahead and talk to him.� Said Hank.
�What? I thought you just said he was fragile.�
�At this point I think that having an unpleasant discussion would be better for him than the slow ebb of your affections. He won�t always be this needy Logan, but right now he is. He�s hurt, he�s damaged, and he needs you in there with him. He doesn�t need you standing out here tormenting the both of you. Hasn�t it occurred to you that he can feel you out here watching him?�
It hadn�t, though Logan didn�t know why. He wasn�t foolish enough to think telepathy stopped at walls. Why would empathy be any different?
So he pushed open the door. Remy smiled when he saw him, lighting up the whole room, but there was something poignant in the expression too, maybe even a little sadness.
�What�s wrong?� He asked, for the ten thousandth time.
Logan sighed. Now that the moment was here he was dreading it. �Remy, I wanted to talk to you about the paper you signed giving yourself into Sloan�s care for the�removal of you empathy.�
Remy blinked. �The wha�?�
�The, you know, that paper.� Logan pulled open the bedside table drawer and rummaged around. �This one.� He passed it to Remy.
Remy looked over it carefully. His face went very white. Then he tried to smile. �So, do you think, maybe if I had not signed this they would have let me go home?� He said it like a joke, but Logan could hear genuine heartbreak behind the words.
�Does it look familiar?� He stared at the kid, trying to figure out if Remy was being honest. He wanted so badly to believe the kid had nothing to do with it. Remy seemed confused, but just because he didn�t remember, didn�t mean he hadn�t signed it knowingly.
�Oui. Non, oui. I don�t know. They said they were letting me go. They said, if I signed some papers they would give me a phone. I was strapped to a bed, I couldn�t move. All I wanted was to leave.�
Remy�s eyes were unfocused. He began to talk faster. �I couldn�t really see much, everything was fuzzy. I was so tired. I just remember a man, he was standing over me, he kept thrusting things under my hand, saying �Sign, sign and we�ll give you a phone�. I was stupid I should have been more careful. I didn�t know what I was signing. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. I didn�t know. I didn�t know.� Remy�s voice rose. He rocked back and forth, trapped in the force of the memory, crying out, �I didn�t know.�
Suddenly Logan was all over him, cradling him, kissing and stroking his hair, making soft, soothing noises in the back of his throat. �Hush. I�ve got you. You�re safe now. It wasn�t you Remy. It wasn�t your fault. I�ve got you. You�re safe now. You�re home.�
Gradually Remy stilled, his panic ebbed away. �De sole,� he said. I don�t know why, it comes over me like that sometimes.�
Logan rubbed his back. �No, I�m sorry. I, when I saw the file I went a little crazy. I thought, I don�t know, I thought you might have volunteered, because you knew�because of me.�
�You thought that?� Remy looked at Logan with huge eyes. He gently cupped the older man�s face in his hands. �Oh Logan, cher. I have more faith in you than that.�
Logan lowered his head to rest on the top of Remy�s. �I�m sorry.� he whispered. The kid�s words were what he had wanted to hear. It was, in some way the answer to everything.
Epilogue
The months during Remy�s recovery were difficult ones. Years later there were still awful moments that Logan tried to avoid remembering.
The worst was probably the day that Hank sedated Remy. Logan held his lover until the thin body was limp, and still. Then he placed him on a hard metal table. Hank strapped the kid down and then, as Logan held the kid�s head, broke Remy�s collarbone along the line where it had healed improperly under Sloan�s care.
Even under anesthesia Remy flinched when the blow came down. He didn�t cry out though, didn�t make so much as a whisper of noise. Logan thought of him in the cage under the hospital screaming until Sloan had taken action and shuddered.
Remy was very weak for a long time. The atrophy of his muscles took many weeks to reverse. When Hank began adding solid food into his diet Remy was still unable to feed himself. After the first few mouthfuls his hands would begin shaking with fatigue.
Logan took over feeding him occasionally, trying his best to ignore the look of humiliation on Remy�s face. The kid didn�t like being so helpless. He took it very hard. Logan knew he would react in the same way. They were alike that way, and somehow that gave him an instinct for brusqueness that Remy responded well to.
�Hey,� he said once, in response to the humiliation on Remy�s face, at being unable to even feed himself the cottage cheese Logan had brought. �None of that. This isn�t about weakness. It just is what it is, don�t think about it too hard.�
Remy took the advice to heart and was more gracious after that. He pushed himself though. When Hank finally let him out of bed, first in a wheel chair then on crutches Remy pushed himself fiercely, desperate to be out of the lab and back upstairs with the others.
�Should he be working this hard?� Logan asked worriedly, as he and the doctor watched Remy hoist himself around the lab on his crutches, trying to strengthen his legs.
�Probably not.� Said Hank.
�Aren�t you going to stop him?�
Hank shrugged. �The man broke his own collar bone slamming himself into a steel wall. You try telling him anything.�
Logan didn�t have the heart. Remy�s will had gotten him through imprisonment, it would get him through this too.
Remy did get better, and faster than anyone had expected. Within eight months of his first speaking he had sweated and toiled his way back onto the active duty register. He and Logan did a little celebrating at a local bar.
They played pool and laughed at each other�s missed shots. They told bawdy stories. Logan had twice as much to drink as the Cajun, and was half as intoxicated. At the end of the evening he helped the kid onto the front of his motorcycle and drove back to the mansion with Remy cradled between his arms.
Remy�s smell had come back, after weeks of smelling like hospitals and antiseptic, and the more troubling absentness of his smell when the had first found him in Sloan�s lab. Logan buried his cold nose into the warm smooth hair and inhaled deeply. He let out a deep contented sigh. Beneath him, Remy burrowed under his jacket, closer to his chest.
By the time they got back to the mansion Remy seemed much more sober. He hopped off the bike easily and caught Logan�s hand laughing and pulling him up the mansion steps. Logan found himself laughing too, though he didn�t know why. The sound of Remy�s excitement was contagious.
When they reached the top of the stairs, Remy surprised the older man by turning around suddenly and flattening him against the wall, leaning down to kiss him.
Logan let out a growl that was more of a moan. He and Remy hadn�t really messed around since before the hospital, and the need was driving him crazy. But when Remy�s hand reached down and undid his fly he broke away.
�What are you doing?�
�I should think it should be obvious cher. I�m getting you drunk and taking advantage.� Remy�s hand slid deeper into Logan�s boxers. �That feels painful, you should get that taken care of. When am I going to get you to take the initiative cher? Seems like Remy has to do all the heavy lifting himself.�
At the feel of Remy�s long fingers on his painfully aroused penis Logan almost lost it right there. He leaned harder against the wall for support. �Oh God.� Remy began stroking him, up and down, making Logan�s breath come in short gasps. Then before Remy could go any further, Logan broke away with a groan. �No.�
Remy quirked an eyebrow, �Problems?�
�Quid pro quo.� Logan panted. �I promised myself, if we were ever together again, we�d have to be together.�
�Oh.� Said Remy. �Oh.� Then, before Logan�s eyes, the seducer�s veneer around Remy seemed to crumple. His eyes got very big. He looked nervous, almost shy. �Alright.� He said softly. �Quid pro quo.�
Something had changed in that second, though Logan wasn�t quite sure what. Sensing he should take the initiative he stepped away from the wall and ran his fingers very softly over Remy�s cheek. �Are you sure?�
Remy nodded and smiled a little tremulously. He leaned in and kissed Logan, not as hotly as before, but a sweet and almost chaste kiss.
Something inside Logan snapped. He pressed closer against the Cajun, deepening the kiss. One hand wrapped around Remy�s neck and the other one fumbled for the door handle. �Inside.� He mumbled into Remy�s mouth.
How they got to the bed Logan would never know, but suddenly they were naked and crushed together, kissing, nipping, rediscovering one another�s bodies. Both were hot, and panting.
Then there was a moment when everything stilled around them and there was Remy lying on the bed looking up at Logan with his heart in his eyes. Slowly he rolled over, presenting Logan with his smooth pale back and bottom.
Logan made himself go very slowly. He edged into Remy, then as he waited for the young man to adjust around him he reached around and took a hold of Remy�s shaft. He began moving his hand up and down Remy�s penis as he began moving himself slowly in and out of the boy. As his breath quickened and his thrusts became harder he moved his hand faster and faster, driven to a frenzy by Remy�s little moans of pleasure.
Remy came first. Hot liquid sprayed into Logan hand. At the same time he saw fireworks before his eyes. His body shuddered as Remy�s shields went down and Logan felt himself swept into the tide of Remy�s orgasm.
The force of it pushed Logan�s own body over the edge and he felt the body beneath him shudder as he came. The feeling of Remy�s pleasure magnified with in him and his body reacted to the feelings of his own orgasm, picked up and filtered through Remy�s feelings in a feed back loop that caused both their minds to spin.
It seemed to last for hours, although it was probably only about five minutes. Logan came to himself stretched out beside Remy, his chest still heaving.
�Jesus.� He said. �Jesus.� He leaned his head back. �God, kid. Not that I�m complaining mind you, but you could have warned me. My old heart can�t take shocks like that.�
Remy was also breathing heavily. �De sole. I didn�t know.�
Logan looked over, grinning. �So it isn�t usually like that?� He asked, filled with an immature sense of satisfaction.
To Logan�s delight, Remy flushed a bright red. He hesitated a fraction of a second. �No.�
Something in his voice caught Logan�s attention. �Remy?�
�Oui, Logan?�
Logan rolled over so that he was straddling the kid, with his hands planted on Remy�s shoulders. �Don�t play coy. Is there something you should tell me?�
Remy turned a darker shade of red. He seemed to be having a little trouble breathing. Logan ran his fingers down the kid�s white throat. �It wasn�t just me was it? You�d never come with anyone.�
Remy hesitated and shook his head. He looked very vulnerable.
�I�ll be damned. A virgin.� Logan let out a bark of laughter.
�Once, I think I�I don�t know. It didn�t go so well. Do you mind?�
�Mind?� Logan thought of their mind blowing orgasm. �Why would I mind?� Then he remembered Remy tied to the radiator, bleeding in an abandoned apartment. His smile faded. He rolled over and pulled the kid on top of him, so that Remy�s head lay over his heart.
�I�m glad.� Logan whispered. �I�m glad I got to be the first one you shared this with.� He pressed a kiss onto the top of the kid�s head.
�Me too.� Remy stroked Logan�s face. He smiled. �The first time, and maybe many, many times, non?�
Logan chuckled. The vibrations tickled Remy�s ear. �I�d say more than maybe.�
�There�s one thing I don�t get.� Logan said later. �All those lovers and you never came? Surely they were bound to think that was strange. Didn�t anyone comment?�
Remy shrugged. �Non. Not so much. People, they are usually concerned with their own pleasure. No one seemed to notice except for you.�
�That�s bullshit.�
�They weren�t bad people. I got what I wanted, the touch, I think, it soothed something inside me.�
Logan nodded, he remembered Drake telling him how empaths need physical interaction. He reached out and grabbed the kid. �I�m not complaining mind you, though it�s too bad your lovers were such shits. The way things turned out suits me just fine.�
Remy smiled back at him. �Oui. Me too.�