Outside the control room Remy began shaking. He couldn�t go with Fabian. Everything in him recoiled in horror. Even less could he abandon his friends. He needed to think. He needed to find a plan.
He huddled down next to a nearby wall. Talking the charm off didn�t work, he needed something more direct, like touch. Would that be enough? For the first time in his life Remy wished he had bothered to develop his ability instead of scorning it. He had always hated the charm, hadn�t used it deliberately more than a handful of times. Now he deeply regretted that ignorance. Fabian no doubt knew all the strengths and limitations of the thrall, but Remy was flying blind.
<Still, if what Fabian says is true, it�s mine. I should be able to take it off.>
�Here you are.� Said Logan, coming down the hall. The voice interrupted his reverie. It was beloved and familiar.
Remy�s heart cried out to his lover. <Logan. Help me. I�m so afraid, afraid for you most of all.> But Logan couldn�t help him.
He looked up and smiled. ��allo cher.�
Logan offered a hand and pulled Remy to his feet. �It is good to have you back with us Remy.�
Remy smiled. �It is good to be back as well.�
�I wanted to talk you. No, let me speak, I wanted to say this.� Logan held up a hand, though Remy hadn�t made a move. �I know things have changed since you�ve been gone. I understand that it will be hard to adapt to those new changes. I�m sure in time you�ll accept them as for the best Remy. I have faith in you.� Logan spoke with the conviction of the fanatic.
Remy felt his heart sink. He tried not to let his smile waver. �I�m sure you�re right, cher.� <Now!> Casually, in what might be mistaken for a gesture of affection, Remy raised his fingers to Logan�s hair.
Logan caught his wrist in a vice grip. �What are you doing?� He was no longer smiling.
�I just wanted to touch you, cher.� But Logan could smell the fear on him.
�You were trying to mess with my mind, weren�t you? You know better than that Remy.�
�Cher-�
�Don�t try to turn me against Fabian.�
�Cher, you need to understand, he-.�
�No! I want none of your games, boy.�
Logan��
With a sharp twist Logan broke Remy�s wrist.
Remy�s face went slack with shock, and then pain. He felt his knees weaken. He bit his lip until he could taste the blood. <Logan.> Logan was looking at him as if he were a stranger.
With a quick gesture of contempt Logan tossed Remy�s broken arm aside. �Shape up.� He said. Then he was gone.
Remy wanted to sink back onto the ground. He wanted to scream, or cry. He wanted to follow Logan down the hall, to shake the other man, to make him listen.
He did none of those things. Instead, he made his way silently to the med lab. His hand was shaking, it took him several tries to pick the lock on the cabinet where Hank kept the pain killers.
He filled an IV and buried it into his arm, willing his heart to stop pounding. He wrapped his wrist in a bandage, and tied it so that it would hold through the night. One way or another he only had to make it through the next twelve hours. Then, either he would find a way to stop Fabian, or he would leave with him.
Remy knew that he had been stupid. He had taken too much for granted, underestimated the strength of the charm. He had never even considered the possibility that Logan would seriously hurt him. Obviously more stealth would be required.
He decided that the professor would be the best target. As a telepath he might be able to free the others, once the thrall was lifted. In addition, he posed the least threat of serious physical injury to Remy in his weakened condition.
Remy would come at him at night, while Xavier was sleeping. He could afford to take no chances, it was the last shot he would get.
He was haunting the halls, trying to calm himself, trying not to be noticed until the others started to go to bed. All around him he heard the noises of the mansion, the pleasant routine sounds of his home. He felt his throat clench again. He had to save them. He had to. That something so dark could come into his home, that he had had a part in bringing it here�. It was terrifying to consider. Remy could never remember being this afraid.
Storm appeared in the hall in front of him. �As long as you are simply lurking brother, you might as well come up.�
So Remy followed her cautiously to her attic room. It was funny how normal it seemed. They sat and talked and drank the strange tea Storm favored. Remy told her about his trip, it almost seemed normal. Almost.
She didn�t ask him about his wrist.
Then Remy looked at the clock. It was a quarter past eleven. �I guess I need to be getting to sleep cher.� He said rising. Storm smiled and gave him a hug. He trembled a little, looking into the blankness of her eyes. His best friend. Where was she now? Could he get her back?
He went back to his room, and entered, pretending to be going to bed. His hand slipped a little on the knob. He was nervous. He was shaking. That was strange. He was an expert at controlling these reactions. He wasn�t a stranger to night prowling, after all. Then the room seemed to tip and spin around him.
This was wrong. He felt dread come over him and then horror as he found himself slumping to the floor. He caught himself on his wrist and felt it twist sickeningly, but he didn�t feel any pain.
His vision blurred. <No. No. No.>
The Apothecary stepped out of the shadows. He watched Remy, smiling as the younger man tried to get to his feet, only to collapse again. He forced himself up again, onto his hands and knees, desperation etched in his face.
�Noble, perhaps, but futile. What was in that tea would have felled a stronger man than you.�
Remy tried to get his eyes to clear. His thoughts were thick, He had to stand up, he had to help the others. But he couldn�t His legs might have been rubber for all that they were doing to support him. <I can�t fail. I can�t leave them with him.>
�We both broke our promises, didn�t we, Remy?� Fabian asked the struggling form. �You promised to come of your own will, and I promised to let you.�
He looked at Remy. �We are not so different, you and I. You steal other people�s things, and well, I take what is slightly more personal. But you would be wrong to think there was any great distance between the two of us.� He brushed an acquisitive hand through the auburn hair. �And you know what they say. Those who live by the sword�.�
Remy collapsed a last time and lay limp, twitching slightly as his mind tried to force his incapacitated body to struggle on.
Fabian advanced on him slowly, Remy tried to push himself back, away from the man. Fabian bent beside the prostrate body, and slowly lifted him to his knees beside him.
�Shh,� he murmured, tracing his fingertips down Remy cheek and throat. �I wanted you to be awake Remy. I wanted you to be awake for this.�
Then he lowered his mouth onto the boy�s and began to pull.
Remy�s eyes snapped open at the contact. He felt himself being torn apart, sucked into blackness. Deep inside him, in the place that was still capable of screaming, he was crying out, but around him rushed an intractable hunger, one that was draining him of his energy, his will and even his very soul.
As abruptly as he�d started Fabian released him. Remy flopped at the other�s feet, whimpering softly. As terrible as the nightmares were, he had been wrong. The reality of having Fabian inside him after so many years was much, much worse than anything he could have dreamt.
Fabian smiled. �It�s so good to have you back Remy.�
The next morning the X-men assembled to say good-bye to their guest. They were very sad, distraught really, to see him go. They all agreed that it was so nice of him to be taking Remy though, such a wonderful opportunity for the kid. More than one was jealous, as they stood by the door waving the couple off.
Remy did not seem conscious of his good fortune. In fact he looked somewhat ill. His skin was pasty, his eyes were flat and unfocused. He leaned heavily on Fabian, as the older man led him to the car.
How nice it was that Fabian was taking such good care of Remy already. No one at the mansion doubted that this time with the Apothecary would be very good for Remy indeed.
The Apothecary�s room in New Orleans was old, a somewhat bedraggled Victorian motif in deep reds. He had made some additions though, in anticipation of his guest. In the corner by the bed was a large cage, domed, with gold bars and a red velveteen floor, standing about three feet off the floor. It had a large door on it, big enough to get a man into and out of easily. The lock was simple, easy to pick, but by the time Fabian had shoved Remy inside, the Cajun was long past the point of being able to think of escape.
Since that night in his room at the mansion, Remy had known little of what was happening or even who he was. He responded vaguely to spoken commands, his body recognizing words his minds could no longer grasp.
Fabian�s touch was like death, there was nothing he could do except surrender. In his childhood Fabian had been careful with him, wanting to milk him, but not draw out enough to kill the boy. Now the old man had no such apprehensions. Each night he drained Remy almost until the end, leaving him in the unlocked cage at night to recover what strength he could, strength Fabian gleaned the next day.
In the beginning Fabian was very conscientious, almost tender. He carefully washed Remy, sitting with legs spread behind the boy in the antique bath tub, combing the silky hair, whispering in the Acadian�s ear. He dressed and undressed Remy, and sat him in various places around the flat. After a few weeks though, his ministrations became less frequent. It lost its luster quickly, when Remy stopped flinching from his touch.
In fact it was amazing how easily he grew bored. Having spent twenty years looking for Remy, Fabian found himself growing restless in days. He had thwarted himself, had drained the boy too quickly. Now that Remy lay limp, nothing but a still, pale shell, Fabian found himself thinking of fresh meat.
For his own part, Remy thought nothing, felt nothing except the cold, persistent gnawing of Fabian�s will on his own. At first, through instinct, he had wrapped and clung to his most sacred memories and essence, hiding them deep within himself, where Fabian�s hunger would not find them.
As time went on he became weaker and so the knot began unraveling, swept into Fabian bit by bit, memories of afternoons, weeks even, a lifetime ago, phrases and attitudes and the marrow of his person were torn from him, and Remy, long past any point of consciousness did not feel them go. Indeed he was long past the point of knowing what good they would have done any way. The days ground by and Remy LeBeau was slowly erased.