By: Midnight Lab Rat
The path leading to the boathouse was overgrown with weeds. Shrubs and brambles had been making inroads all summer and now in the early autumn their waving tendrils threatened to overwhelm the small path. The night before, spiders had laced the trail with their webs and the evidence of their passing shimmered in the evening air, lending their prescence to the air of desolation that surrounded the house..
Or maybe it was just his imagination. Even in the best of times this path was overgrown. It wasn't like Gumbo had become a recluse. He was up at the mansion all the time, for Danger Room training and.... well, other things. Truth was, he envied Remy's peace out here, after how tense things had been in the mansion ever since the team had come back from Antarctica�back from Antarctica without one of their own.
Logan pushed that thought out of his mind. It wasn't his business. It was over. Everyone had been punished enough. It was time to move on, right? He wanted things back to normal, or whatever passed for normal around there.
Just as he completed the thought he rounded the corner to the boat house. His breath caught in horror. Standing on one of the tallest pine trees on the edge of the lake, arms outstretched, swaying slightly as the tree tilted in the breeze was Remy Le Beau, X-man known as Gambit. As Logan moved into the clearing raising his arm, Remy stepped forward into nothingness and plunged towards the ground several stories below.
"No!!!" Logan screamed, leaping forward in a dead run hoping to�do what exactly? He didn't know. But twenty feet into his fall Remy flipped out a wrist and caught hold of a branch, jack knifing into a high arch around it and releasing himself into a parabola of flight, twisting and flipping as he fell, releasing several bursts of fiery playing cards which exploded against makeshift targets nailed to various trees surrounding the lake.
Then he caught himself, still falling, on another tree limb and flipped himself around it arching backwards into a spinning flip, catching himself with the crook of his knee on another limb and flinging out his arms so that for a moment he hovered parallel to the ground before bringing his arms together and his head down to dive into the still water of the lake below.
Logan waited until his head had bobbed to the water to begin shouting. "What the hell do ya think you're doing Cajun!"
Black and red eyes looked at him bemused. "Gambit is practicing."
"We have a Danger Room for that. You could have killed yourself out here. That lake is way to shallow for diving and what if one of the branches had snapped off?" Logan continued to shout as Gambit stared at him. Somewhere in the back of his head he was aware that he sounded like an idiot, but he was unwilling to acknowledge the real reason he was so upset. When he had first seen the Cajun jump off the limb he'd thought LeBeau was going to- God. Something else he didn't want think about.
Remy hoisted himself out of the lake onto the pier. "Gambit sorry, homme. Didn't know you were such an old woman."
Logan lowered himself to sit beside the younger man. "Naw. Don't apologize. I'm just a little tense is all."
"Yeah, I understand. The tension I think, it gets to all of
us, non?"
Logan turned at the bleak sound of Remy's voice to look at him, really look at him for the first time in months. Remy's body, always thin, was now stripped of all excess flesh. Logan felt like he could look straight through the kid and count ribs on the other side.
His skin was unnaturally pale and even from where he sat, a good few feet away, Logan could feel cold radiating from him, but worst was the flat, hopeless look in the red and black eyes, a look that had been lurking there since Remy had returned from Antarctica. It was a look so unlike the cocky smile of the Cajun he had grown used to.
Jesus kid, Logan thought. What have we done to you?
He and Remy had never been what could be called close; they had little in common, other than a taste for hard living shared at the occasional night spot. Recently Logan hadn't even been seeing Remy at the bars. The man he used to know was dwindling in front of him.
<Before Antarctica Gumbo would never have been able to pull a stunt like that tree dive. He hit all those targets, spinning though mid-air. I'd never seen anything like it.>
"Seems like you been training hard Gumbo."
"Oui. There ain't mush else to do now that-" Remy stopped himself, afraid to finish that sentence. "I want to be prepared. I want to show dem that-" again he broke off. It was impossible. The things neither of them wanted to discuss could not be talked around.
Remy was an outcast, spurned and abandoned by his family, and he'd be the last one to say he didn't deserve it. Logan looked again at the newly corded muscles of the kid�s arms and the almost fanatical gleam in his eye. He knew what it was to drive yourself beyond the limits until the demons chasing you were silenced. He knew what it was like to train, to hope for the good deed that would wash your sins away, the moment of heroism that would force the world to forgive you.
<I hate to tell you kid, absolution doesn't exist.>
Sitting at Remy's side, Logan acknowledged that the two men did have something in common. They were in love with being X-men. They loved it because it was their hope for salvation, the chance to prove themselves and everyone else wrong about them. Because it gave them a home and because the team was, in and of itself a good
and perfect thing.
But the team was dying.
Logan could no longer hide from himself what he had been trying not to think of for weeks. What had happened in Antarctica had destroyed the fabric of the thing he cherished most. He felt a wave of anger towards the young man seated besides him. It was his fault. He had brought this corruption into their midst. But just as quickly
his anger vanished. They all had skeletons in their closet. God only knew why the others had chosen Gambit for their pariah.
<But the kid is going to spend the rest of his life trying to figure it out.>
"Logan?" Remy said. "Can I ask you a question about your healing factor?"
Healing factor? "Sure, Gumbo."
"When you sick�.say you have a cancer or-"
"Can't get cancer with the healing factor."
"Okay, well meybe gangrene or some sickness," he hurried on seeing that Logan was about to interrupt again, "if a part of your body is sick, then is it sometimes better to cut away that part, knowing even if you lose a bit of yourself, you'll heal better, all pure like, rather than festering slowly?"
Logan didn't like where this conversation was headed. "You sick kid?"
"No. Gambit not sick� but meybe Gambit is sickness. Gambit's looking to be the cure as well."
It took Logan a few seconds to make sense of this and when he did he turned cold all over. "No." he said, more forcefully than he meant to. "It don't work like that. Cutting off a piece of yourself don't make for a cleaner wound. When sickness runs through you it
runs all through you and no slicing off of bits and pieces is gonna help. You're just going ta bleed more in the long run."
Gambit stared into space. "I want to do my best by you, Wolverine. I want to do my best by all of you."
"Well you can start by taking on an extra session in the Danger Room tomorrow," said Logan, desperate to keep the conversation light. "Beast is down with a bad cold so we could use a body. Anyway, I'm hear to fetch you for dinner."
"Gambit not really hungry-"
"I don't think that's going to make much of a difference to Chuck. C'mon."
"Da Professor is back?" Remy felt ice settle into his stomach. Charles had been gone for weeks, since before Antarctica. Remy was secretly glad of his absence. He feared his next meeting with Xavier. He was afraid that he would look into the eyes of the person whose respect he wanted more than any one else in the worlds� and see disgust.
Xavier had given him a chance when no one else would even pause to spit on him and how had Remy repaid him? By bringing his poison into the mansion, by breaking up the team and by twisting the others through their hate for him, so much so that they would leave him to die in the wilderness. He had corrupted the team, and he didn't want to look in Xavier's eyes and see that the Professor knew it too.
�He came back from Scotland this afternoon and he wants to have one big family meal."
Before Remy could protest any farther Logan grabbed the unwilling Cajun by the back of the neck and propelled him towards the mansion, wet clothes and all. Remy took a deep breathe and prepared to meet the one person he wanted to see least of all.
The professor was in the den of the mansion surrounded by students and the other X-men, but as Remy and Logan entered the talking quieted and the group around Xavier fell back. Xavier glanced up.
When his eyes fell on Remy he flinched.
Remy's heart broke. He had for a second hoped that maybe the professor would- <Would what?> An inner voice asked him sarcastically. <Would rejoice at the sight of the serpent he has taken into his home?>
Then Xavier opened his arms and wheeled forward to embrace Remy. He smiled warmly. "Come here, my child," he said. "It is very good to see you."
Remy didn't want to hug the man. He didn't want whatever filth he contained to rub off on anyone. But he could see no delicate way of avoiding the embrace in full view of everyone so he knelt down to receive it and was almost swept away in shock as he felt the full power of the Professor's love and concern wash over him. He glanced up startled.
<What was all that about?> He'd seen the look on Xavier's face when he saw him. That wasn't affection. <He must be faking, but why would he?>
Xavier wanted to reach out and take the young man back into his arms and give him the comfort he was desperate for. He saw the mistrust plainly on Remy's face. Mistrust no doubt from Xavier's own immoderate reaction to Remy's changed appearance.
<He's starving. He's teetering on the brink of exhaustion and there are dark forces that prey on him. The others have been venting on him no doubt, pressing their hatred and hurt into his mind. Damn it! I have been a fool, to let a boy I know to be an empath live in such a situation. I should have returned immediately after that madness in Antarctica. Remy I'm sorry. I will make it up to you.> But looking at Remy's gaunt face Xavier wondered if that would even be possible.
Dinner was a nightmare. Scott, Jean, and Ororo tried to keep up the semblance of normalcy by chatting with the Professor about his trip. Logan chewed silently. At the other end of the table Warren and Rogue had goaded Bobby into freezing all of Remy's food so that he would be unable to eat. Remy bore it with quiet stoicism. He wasn't at all hungry anyway.
But his expressionless face angered them even more. When he jumped up to clear the dishes at the end of the meal, eager for an excuse to get away, Warren's foot whipped out and caught him, twisting his ankle painfully. Remy went down in a shower of cutlery
and breaking plates. Everyone stopped talking and looked up.
"Are you all right, Remy?" Rogue asked sweetly.
"Oui. Gambit tripped. He jes� un petit clumsy tonight."
Logan snorted and glared at Warren. There was no one less clumsy than Remy.
Remy headed to the kitchen with what was left of the plates. He reached into the cupboard to get a broom but as he straightened he gasped as two large hands gripped his neck and his waistband and slammed him down against a nearby counter top.
"You like that? Huh, pretty boy?" Warren laughed as he ground Remy's face against the kitchen sink.
"It must seem real familiar to you to be bent over like this. Does it bring back a lot of fond memories?"
Remy didn�t answer but twisted against Warren�s hands.
"Oh Remy, Remy," Rogue cooed softly from behind him. "Such a lot of fight for such a little man."
Remy struggled but then a slender hand reached down and began to stroke his neck above Warren's fingers. He felt the energy begin to drain out of him. He was so very tired, but he kept struggling against Warren weakly.
"Why are you still here, Remy? Surely you can't be under the impression that anyone wants you, can you?" Beneath Rogue�s fingers, Remy finally stilled.
Remy was suddenly cold. Cold like he had been in Antarctica. He relaxed into Rogue's embrace. Maybe she would kill him now. Maybe this would all finally be over.
"Well, well, well. What is this foreplay?" Remy's neck was suddenly released. He struggled to pull himself together. Where was he? He was shaking. He glanced up. Logan was standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable.
"The swamp rat just keeled over again," said Warren casually. "We were trying to help him." Logan glanced to Remy for confirmation.
"Oui. I felt woozy. Maybe Gambit has de flu or something." Remy couldn't bring himself to look up at Logan.
"Yeah," said Logan. "Right. Anyway the Professor has decided that he wants to meet with each of you up alone this evening for a little one on one chat. Jean and Ororo are already down in the study. I'm supposed to come get you to wait with us."
Warren nodded and turned to head out the door. The others followed, all except Logan, who hung back, watching Gumbo walk towards the door. The kid looked like he was about to fall over where he stood. Whatever Rogue had done to him she had not been playing nice.
�Coming?" asked Warren from the door.
"I need a drink. Go on down I'll catch up in a minute."
Logan crossed to the fridge and pulled out a beer. His hands were shaking. <Jesus.> He saw them again in his mind's eye. Rogue standing over the prostrate Remy, draining him while Warren held him down. Bile rose up in his throat. <Jesus.>
Warren he'd never had much used for, though Logan had never thought he would stoop so low. Rogue had been all right in the beginning. Now? What was the matter with people?
He thought of the look on Remy's face again as he walked in the door� the defeat, the utter hopelessness. It was that expression that shook him most of all. How much did it take to break a man? By any standard it seemed that Remy was far past that point.
Rogue's meeting with the professor was short and to the point. She emerged shaking. Xavier had let her know in no uncertain terms what he thought of her behavior over the last few months and he seemed to know everything. Everything. "I am very disappointed in you, Rogue. The only reason I am not dismissing you right now is that your behavior falls so far below what I expect of you that I demand you make remuneration. Am I understood?" She nodded, seeing herself through his eyes, and fled the room.
Warren's meeting had been even more brutal. He came out of the room with bloodlust in his eyes and saw Remy leaning casually against the wall.
"You!" He leapt over the couch and grabbed Remy by the lapels of his duster, throwing him back against the wall and pinning him. "Why are you still here? Will you only be satisfied when you have destroyed us completely? You are poison Le Beau. Don't you see it? You are the cancer that is eating out the heart of this team. Why are you still here? Why can't you stay dead like you should? You are worthless. Less than worthless." His anger lashed out to break against the walls of Remy's mental shields, still raw and weak from the affects of Rogue's power drain.
There was a cough from behind them. Hank was standing in the door. "The Professor will see you now, Remy." He said.
Remy tore himself away from Warren's grasp and almost fell. "I have to go." He gasped.
"Yeah," said Warren meaningfully, "you do."
Remy turned to flee the hall and almost lurched into the doorframe. Hank's soft, strong arm came up to support him. "Easy there my friend."
"I have to go," said Remy.
"You can go anywhere you need after you have seen the Professor," said Hank.
"Okay," said Remy. Hank's calm concern was beginning to sooth his mind. He missed the troubled glance that the older man shot him. <I've got to get out of here. I'll talk to Xavier, he'll understand. Then I'm gone.>
"You want to leave?" Xavier asked the thin trembling man before him. "Why? Are you unhappy here?" It was a stupid question, of course he was, who wouldn�t be? But he needed to get the boy talking.
Remy shook his head impatiently. He was unhappy, but that wasn't the point. He would be unhappy anywhere. "Gambit has to go." He repeated.
"Remy, try to give me a reason. Please. I want to understand.�
"Professor, please. Gambit is no good here. Gambit hurts or destroys everything near him. This is his nature. You can�t allow Gambit to destroy de team. It's too important. Please. You must let me save you."
"Remy the team needs you. We need your strengths and your abilities."
"Professor, you don't need me nearly as much as you need me gone."
Xavier sighed deeply. "Remy, if I thought that you abandoning the work and setting off on your own would bring you happiness, I would give you my blessing, but I do not believe this to be the case. It grieves me to say that I believe it will be difficult for you
wherever you are, and that the good work you do can be your own salvation, as well as the salvation of those around you. Remy, please. Reconsider. Stay here, with your family."
"Non." Remy felt his voice begin to crack. <Keep it together, Le Beau.> "I have to do this Professor. I have to do this for you. Please."
"You do not need to ask my permission Remy. You are not a prisoner here. If you will not reconsider please promise me that you will consider returning� in the future, when your wounds are not so fresh. Promise me Remy, that you know you will always have a home here."
Remy looked at the professor with his haunted, shadow filled eyes and nodded. He turned and was gone.
Xavier sat silently staring out the window. Around him everything fell apart.
Remy met Logan in the garage. "Hank told me what happened."
"Oui? And what happened, mon ami?"
"Don't play games with me." He looked at the pack on Remy's
bike. "You running, kid?
"Oui. Gambit is leaving."
"So that's it? Warren throws a tantrum and you skulk out?" Logan felt his anger rising. Dammit kid, fight back!
"Remy go find a place where the rent is not so high, yes."
"That's bullshit. This gig is hard and I know the Professor too well to think he told you any different at the beginning. It is supposed to be hard. If it ain't hard you're not doing something right and the fact that it's doubly hard for you is what makes you so good at it. You're a glutton for punishment. You'd never let Warren's little slaps chase you off. It's something else isn't it? It's something he said." Remy didn't answer. "And so you're just going to prove them all right, huh? Instead of taking your punishment in exchange for the good you do, you're running."
"Gambit don't do no good."
"Bull. You do a lot of good. Deep down even you can't believe you are so worthless that the burden of having you on this earth isn't amply justified by the people you've helped. That's just stupid. Gumbo, you know I'm right. You know it." He leaned forward to grab the Cajun's arm.
"Don't touch me!" Remy screamed leaping back. <Everything you touch you destroy. Unclean. Cancer.>
Logan flinched, misunderstanding the fear he heard in Remy's voice. "Fine, Cajun. I won't touch you. Fine. Go ahead and prove them all right. I'll be damned if I give a shit." He heard the rumble of Remy's motorcycle drive away. "And fuck you too."
"Come in Scott." Xavier answered the light knock on his door.
"You didn't send for me, Professor," said Scott.
"No, Cyclops I did not. You, I trusted to seek me out on your own."
"Everything is a mess, Professor."
"Yes. I noticed."
"I don't know what to do."
"Is that true, Scott? Are you sure that you don't fear what you must do?"
"Professor-"
"Scott, let me say this. The task of a leader is not easy. It is not easy to do what you know is best for the team when you also know it will anger and possibly injure cherished friends. But these are the tasks that fall to you. I love you very much. I trust that whatever decision you make will be what is best for the team. I can not help you more than this, Scott. This is something you must do alone."
Logan found Warren slouched on a stool in the den. Growling he marched over and with one hard shove sent the stool against the wall.
"Asshole! What the hell is your damage?" Warren yelled.
"My damage? What�s yours? Why you always on the kid's back?"
"You know why he's a trait-"
"Don't give me that bullshit. He ain't a traitor, anymore than I am."
"It's different, you would never-"
"What? What would I never do Warren? Kill innocents? Commit crimes? I have, you know. I've done things I can't speak of. I've done things so terrible I can't remember them. What are you going to do about it? You going to abandon me to die?"
To his horror Logan heard his voice beginning to crack. "It could of have been me in Antarctica. It could have been any of us. So who is next, Warren? Huh? Who is next?" Warren just lay on the ground his face pale and still. The seconds stretched out into eternity.
Finally he spoke. "Logan-" But Logan didn't want to hear it. He turned away, disgusted by himself, disgusted by the man in front of him, disgusted by them all. <We're broken,> he thought, <and I don't know how we ever going to get fixed.>
Remy made it all the way to the state highway before the nausea overcame him. He pulled over in a deserted parking lot and just had time to step off the bike before retching all over the black pavement. <Why can't you stay dead like you should? You are worthless. Less than worthless.>
He turned and threw up again. <You like that pretty boy? It must seem real familiar to you to be bent over like this. Does it bring back a lot of fond memories?> More than Warren knew.
The sound behind the dumpster brought him instantly upright. He heard a muffled scream followed by some coarse laughter. Someone was in trouble.
For about half a second he considered getting back on his bike and getting the hell out of there. He'd just given up the hero gig.
<Go ahead, prove them all right about you.> He sighed and reached into his pocket for his staff.
There were four of them. They had the woman pinned up against the greasy side of the dumpster. The tallest of the men was unzipping his pants and heading towards her, ignoring her whimpers and cries. Her nose was bleeding, her right eye was beginning to swell shut.
"This is gonna be fun," said the man with his hands on his belt.
"You think so, cher? I think so to." A crack across the scull dispatched one of the men. A blow to the stomach of another had him down on his knees before the two men holding the woman had even had time to reach for their weapons.
One of them pulled a knife, but Remy disarmed him easily, breaking his arm in the process. The other man glanced from Le Beau to his three prostrate companions and took off running. Gambit was considering following, when the second man uncurled himself and jammed a tazer into Remy's leg. Le Beau was taken completely be surprise.
He hit his hand as he fell and his staff flew out of his grip. The large man suddenly loomed over him holding a crow bar.
"Now this is really going to be fun."
<Shit> thought Remy. <Now things are going to get messy.> Sighing he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card.
The crow bar began to glow red as the card hit it. As the man dropped it, he saw Remy�s face for the first time, the angular face, the red and black eyes. "Freak!" he screamed. "Get away from me, freak." He turned and began to run down the alley.
Remy chuckled and turned to help the woman. He found himself looking into a face pinched with fear. Her eyes were black with hate.
"Stay back." She whispered. "Stay way from me, monster."
"Remy not hurt you cher." He tried to calm her. "He jes� wants to make sure you alright."
"Don't touch me!" she screamed. "You're an abomination! Stay away." She broke from him and ran. Remy made no effort to pursue. He stood still, thinking about the look of hatred on her face. She hadn't even looked at her attackers like that, only him, who was trying to help her.
<It grieves me to say that I believe it will be difficult for you wherever you are.>
For a moment despair threatened to overwhelm him. He glanced to the woman, who had reached her car and was blasting out of the parking lot. <Yes cher, get away from mutant scum. Go find more rapists to hang with.>
It was then he noticed a small well loved teddybear resting against the back window of the car. Behind it he could see the top of a baby's carseat. Tonight someone's mother would be coming home unharmed because of him. Suddenly it seemed a little name calling was a small price to pay. <The good work you do can be your own
salvation, as well as the salvation of those around you.>
You're worthless, Le Beau, everything you touch you destroy.>
He still believed it� and yet perhaps he could live with it. He would keep to himself as much as possible. He would try not to pollute the team or cause more disagreements. He would bear the others scorn and abuse. He could be part of an instrument of good. <It is supposed to be hard. If it ain't hard you're not doing something right and the fact that it's doubly hard for you is what makes you so good at it.>
In the dark Remy smiled. It was time to go home.
Logan started a little bit when the Cajun walked into the Danger Room the next morning. "What are you doing here?" he growled.
Remy pretended to be puzzled. "I am taking over for Henri who has a cold. Where else would Gambit be, cher?"
"Well you can stow it. One Eye has some bee in his bonnet and has called a full team meeting."
They were the last to arrive. Everyone else was already seated around the table sipping their first cup of coffee. After they had been seated, Cyclops rose.
"I don't need to tell you all that over the past few months�after what happened in Antarctica there have been problems with the team. I have done nothing to correct these problems, hoping they would fix themselves if I ignored them. In doing so, I have neglected my duty as team leader. For this I would like to apologize.
"I have always left it unsaid that what happened to each member of the X-men before he or she joined was irrelevant. I have never thought that it needed to be spoken. None of our pasts would stand up to strict examination, truth be told. What crimes Remy
committed, horrible as they were, were committed in ignorance. Not all of us can claim such an excuse.
�Let me say now what I thought it unnecessary to say before. We are all equal here and pastless. This is, for all of us, a second chance.
" Rogue, Hank, and Angel, three months ago you abandoned a team mate to die. Few mitigating circumstances could have justified such an atrocity and nothing I have heard of those events even come close. No, Remy," he help up a hand to silence the Cajun's objection, "this is not for you to forgive. When they abandoned you, they abandoned their obligations to the team, by weakening it. They also abandoned their obligations to basic morality, to say nothing of any obligations of friendship they might have had to you in
particular." Scott's eyes paused on Rogue for a moment.
"As such, it seems that some disciplinary action is needed� but I cannot think of what would be appropriate. I cannot tally how many cooking duties and Danger Room sessions one of my team mate's lives is worth. Therefore I will leave that matter to your own consciences.
"It has also come to my attention that some of you are abusing and injuring each other. In doing so you are working directly against the team. You are weakening us, both physically and psychologically. It is unacceptable and it will stop.
"I cannot let the team be ripped apart. If I must remove people for the good of all of us I would not remove one of our most loyal and powerful allies in favor of anyone promoting strife within out group. Remy is one of us. If you are not with him, you are not with the X-men. That is all." Cyclops sat down. He was shaking. He glanced across the table to where Jean was sitting. She smiled.
~Well done, if long winded.
Scott caught up with Remy in the hall The younger man was agitated, not sure whether to be angry or embarrassed or giddy with relief.
"Gambit I need you to move back into the mansion."
"Ahh, Gambit don't think-"
"I need for us to start thinking like a team again. That won't happen if we're still holding each other apart. Move back to your old room. Please."
Remy nodded, and stifled a sigh. "Oui."
"Thank you. I've let you down, Remy but things will be better now. I promise." Scott turned and headed down the corridor, leaving a gaping Cajun behind him.
Amazingly things did get better. Rogue and Warren turned out to be fairly typical bullies. Once they had been shown the line they couldn't cross they backed away from it pretty quickly. Everyone else seemed to accept his return as a matter of course. Ever so slowly Remy began to relax.
Logan loved the midnight hunt. He loved to feel the cold, sweet-smelling air rushing through his lungs. He loved the battle in the dark, animal to animal, simple and clean. Tonight had been a good hunt. The beast inside was languid and content with itself.
Logan smiled as he licked the blood from his claws.
When passing by the kid's room he heard a sound, and felt a rush of icy air.
Logan was no stranger to nightmares. Battle hardened as the X-Men were, there wasn't one among them that hadn't been awakened by the sound of their own screams, and of them all, Logan had the worst of it. Some nights he was tormented endlessly by the memories he couldn't grasp in the day. Memories of pain and cruel laughter, memories of being chained... Far worse were the night he was awakened by the resurfaced memories of the things he'd done, people screaming, begging... Their cries in the night were a penance he would pay for the rest of his life.
None of this prepared him for the fury of the night terrors that had the Cajun in their grip.
The room was ice cold as he pushed open the door. "Cajun?" he whispered but the room was empty. He shrugged and turned back to the hallway, when he heard a noise from the corner of the room.
"Fuck you." said a voice.
The Cajun was curled in the fetal position against the wall. Every muscle in his body was rigid. Though the room was frigid, sweat was pouring from his body. His eyes were open staring up at Logan with an expression of terror and hatred like Logan had never seen on a human face.
"Fuck you." he said again. And then he began to scream.
It was a horrible, strangled sound, so filled with pain and despair that it hardly seemed possible that it came from a human throat. As Remy screamed he began to thrash wildly, ripping at his hair and throwing his head back against the wall.
"Kid!" Lagan grabbed for the boy. "Kid, snap out of it!" but Remy couldn't hear him.
The screams went on and on. Logan was scared. Should he get Hank? He didn't want to leave the boy. He grabbed Remy by the shoulder and slapped him. Hard.
"What?" Remy suddenly stopped screaming. He blinked, his eyes clearing of the fear and replaced by something else, a vague confusion. "Where am I?"
"You�re in your room. On the floor. You were having a nightmare."
"My room?"
"Yeah."
Remy's glazed eyes wandered across the walls. "My room?"
Logan grew even more worried. "Kid, you all right?"
"Where am I?"
"Think, kid. You�re in New York. In the mansion with the X-Men. You were having a nightmare. I woke you, you remember?" He reached a hand towards Remy's shoulder.
Suddenly the world snapped back into place. Memories rushed over Remy. The X-men, the mansion, Westchester. Logan beside him, reaching out to-
"Don't touch me!" Remy screamed.
Logan jumped back as if Remy had slapped him. "I ain't going to hurt you, kid," he said. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Oui. Gambit fine."
Logan didn't believe him but didn't know what else to do. The kid obviously didn't want him around. He tried not to be hurt by the Cajun's flinching away. <I wouldn't want no beast touching me neither.> "You get nightmares like this often?"
"Off and on." Remy nodded. He could see the hurt in the older man's eyes. He knew he�d been rude. He wanted to apologize, but knew he couldn't explain. <Better that he go. Better that he hate Remy than he know the truth.>
The room was rapidly returning to its normal temperature. "You can control the weather, kid?" Logan asked suspiciously.
"The weather?" Remy asked blankly.
"Yeah. The temperature seems affected by the dream."
Remy shrugged. "It happens. It's de empathy. When I dream out o� control, it�I don't know, responds to it. Hard for me to block. I can keep it off humans pretty good, but de room, it gets cold. Remy not know why."
Wolverine thought he did. The empathy must act as a heat sink, pulling all the energy from the room in Remy's subconscious effort to maintain control during his dreams. <Jesus, that must be some nightmare.> There was an awkward pause. He cleared his throat. "Right then." he said "I'm off. You call me if you need anything, hear?"
Remy watched as Logan left, closing the door behind him. "You're a fool, Le Beau." he said into the darkness.
Logan didn't see much of the Cajun for the next two weeks. Every time he turned around it seemed the Cajun was embarking on another project, fixing the vehicles, updating the computers, taking extra shifts in the Danger Room. He would have thought that Gambit had become the world�s biggest brown-noser, what with how Scott was gushing over Remy's new dedication, if he hadn't sometimes caught the bleak look in Remy's eye.
<Something's riding that kid. He's going to work himself into an early grave at this rate.> Which was probably exactly what the Cajun wanted. Logan sighed.
Warren and Rogue had been better to the Cajun since Cyke's little talk. They had been polite, even civil, but there was a world of difference between not torturing someone and making him feel like he belonged. <I don't know that the Cajun would feel at home even if it weren't for those two.> Logan sighed again.
Just then Remy walked into the room. "How's it going, Cajun?"
"Not too badly. Gambit going to get started re tarring da driveway."
Logan groaned. "You work too hard, Cajun. You need to relax."
"Re-what?" Remy joked. "Dis is de X-Men, no?"
"You like sumo?"
Remy looked suspicious. "Gambit don't know."
"Come sit down." Logan patted the couch. "It's the best sport
in the world."
Logan was touched by the look of gratification that swept over the Cajun's face. "Dat sound like fun," he said and plopped down on the couch next to him, listening as Logan explained the finer points of the wrestling.
Sumo ended. They flipped channels, a football game, the tail end of a B-movie, a talk show. Somewhere in there Logan register that the Acadian had fallen asleep. Then, just after the local news ended he felt something brush his chin. Remy had tipped forward and was now resting his face against the other man's barrel chest.
For a moment Logan could barley breathe. He just looked down at Remy's face. He was smiling slightly and more at peace than Logan had ever seen him. He felt the warmth of the Cajun's long bones curled against him. Then, ever so slightly, Remy began to purr.
Logan sat absolutely still, afraid to shift, afraid even to change the channel, not wanting to break this magical moment of stillness. After perhaps half an hour Remy himself shifted, rolling his head farther down Logan's chest.
Logan saw Remy awaken. Saw the peace in the young man's face dissolve in the feeling that something was off. Saw him open his eyes and start in horror and alarm and leap upright off the couch.
�Pardon. Pardon. Pardon. Remy is sorry. Remy sorry. Please, don't take offense."
"Kid, it's okay." Logan said frowning over the kids babbling. Something was going on here. Normally Logan might have been slightly offended, would have assumed that Remy didn't want to touch Logan, but he sensed a deeper level of anxiety than just not wanting a gross old man to put the moves on him. The kid seemed more afraid of his reaction. Logan hastened to reassure him. "It's really okay, kid, everyone falls asleep."
Remy looked up with those haunted eyes. "Logan not angry?"
"Of course not. Why would I be?"
Then Remy smiled a smile that lit up the room. "Merci, monsieur." he laughed and bounded out of the room, leaving Logan smiling bemused and rubbing the spot on his cheek where he could still feel Remy's hair brush his face.
That, ever so quietly, was how it began.