Rating: General. Nothing too mature. Probably a bit of bad language.
A/N: So basically I've been feeling ill, so I didn't get round to writing and posting the next chapter of 52 Pickup like I'd planned. Boo. So I'm putting up this HoC vignette that I've been sitting on the past year or two.
This story is also unfinished, and was meant to play out over 3-4 chapters, but I've only got about 2 done. It takes place roughly over chapters 8-14 of Arrow of Time. It's from Remy's POV, but the Remy in Rogue's head, or the psyche of Remy that she absorbed in House of Cards - not 'Remy in the real world'. Hope you enjoy in lieu of more 52PU stuff. ;)
-Ludi x
Man & Ghost
What does it mean to be a man and a ghost?
To have the thoughts and feelings and memories of a man in a place where thoughts and feelings and memories are phantoms?
He doesn't know.
He doesn't know, but he feels like a man, and if this is what it means to be a ghost, then he doesn't think dying can be so bad. He's not sure he can even die in this place anyway. He's tested some boundaries, pushed them as far as he dares. The last time he went up to the mansion he'd smashed a fist into the mirror on his wall and pulled a shard of glass from the frame. He'd sliced open his wrist, just to see what it would do. It'd bled messily for a few seconds, before the wound had closed up and healed just like Wolverine's had always used to. The blood on the floor had soaked into the carpet and disappeared. And the lights had flickered on and off, as if she'd felt him do it.
He'd considered then, just how much he could influence her from this place. He'd thought perhaps she could feel his pain, if nothing else. He didn't think she'd consciously feel it – but maybe she'd feel a pang in her heart for him. It was…odd. But he'd wanted her to feel it then, and he wants her to feel it now.
.
He'd watched her walk away from him with her words clanging noisily in his head.
You betrayed me to Sinister.
You did, Remy. Ah was there.
He can hardly believe it, and he's spent the better part of what he thinks is the last half hour cursing his other self for hurting her, for doing this to her. He's ranted and railed and rebelled against the very idea that he has it in him to betray her. He doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe he can hurt her, but he doesn't know how things have changed for him on the outside and he doesn't like it, he doesn't like the idea that there are things he doesn't know about himself. That there are things he can't control.
Because he loves her.
And he has done for a long time.
And it's because of that that he knows that his outside self has to love her, unless something has happened that he doesn't know about, unless something has changed.
He's twisted in it.
He's twisted and turned in the certainty and helplessness of this love he has for her.
It consumes him in this place.
On the outside, he'd pushed it to the side. Let it tickle tantalisingly at the edges of his consciousness. Invited it in every time he'd needed the sweetness of its balm.
But here he can't push it aside. He can't compartmentalise it into its own little box and hide it away. He doesn't know how and he doesn't know why, but here it's all around him, he tastes it and he breathes it and it owns him.
She is everything to him and when she walks away it hurts, when she rebukes him it stings, when he tries to touch her but can't it's like torture.
But he is here.
Deep in the heart of her.
In a place where even his outside self can't find her.
He hangs onto that fact jealously, covetously.
He is inside her, cradled in the warm depths of her and he has something his outside self doesn't. She can't hide anything from him in here, and he's been surprised to find out that he was right. She is worth every single thing he gave up for her. Every moment spent entertaining a future with her, however brief, however fleeting. She's worth it, and he knows it, but he doesn't, and it's a kind of power he holds over his outside self, but it is an impotent one and therefore completely pointless.
But it's a comfort. It's a comfort to know that he has this secret.
That she is his; and that if he accepts the fact that he is hers he will never be left wanting again.
That is why he curses himself.
Because on the outside he can't see that, he can't recognise it for what it is, and he's gone and done it. He's gone and done the one thing he knew never to do where she was concerned.
He's given her up to Sinister.
.
He climbs the slope up to the mansion; he goes inside and he heads up to the woman's wing. The floorboards don't make a sound under his boot steps; the hazy sunlight follows him lazily down the corridor. He's denied himself this. Promised himself he'd never do this. But he can't help himself. He can't. He needs this now, more than ever. He needs it badly now that he knows what he's capable of doing to her, that on some level he is capable of handing her over to Sinister despite everything he knows he feels for her.
He stands outside her bedroom and gently pushes the door ajar.
It's exactly as he remembers it.
Soft beiges and dusty pinks.
A battered and well-loved throw on the bed. A teddy on the rocking chair. A pile of romance books on the nightstand.
He goes to the dresser and sees his reflection in the mirror, and he doesn't know why he's so amused to see himself there but he is. It is warm and cosy in here, soft and welcoming. There is the scent of her, subtle shades of vanilla and orange blossom. It's the scent she still wears, the scent he smells on the sheets in the safe house, in the room she has made for him here.
He thinks about the times he has pressed her into those sheets and his heart twists.
Silence.
He turns away from his reflection and sees the noteboard above her desk.
It's only as he walks towards it that he sees what's on there.
Her life, mapped out in still-life shots, some in black and white, some in sepia, some in colour. Her childhood a winding river of loneliness, of isolation. Her and Cody in the grass by the banks of the Mississippi. Him, dead and unseeing in her arms.
She becomes hardened. A runaway, and then a fighter. A mutant terrorist with the Brotherhood. And then, eventually, an X-Man. And she's happy. For the first time.
He runs his fingers over the glossy photos, traces the annals of her past with his touch.
It's almost a surprise when he sees himself, even more so when he sees how much of the board he takes up, and it makes his heart jump into his mouth to see how much he's always meant to her when it's taken him so long to accept how much she means to him.
And he sees other things too. The life she's led with him on the outside since he found himself in this strange ghost world. Months spent on the road together, living out of the proverbial suitcase, just the two of them; weeks living in a vacation home with someone he recognises as Rachel Summers (unqualified happiness, everything as perfect as they could possibly have hoped for, neither of them wanting for it to end…) … And then he sees the two of them in Chicago with Logan and the paltry remnants of the X-Men, and that's when he's surprised, when he sees the lengths he has gone to fulfil her dreams, her desires, and he doesn't understand it, he doesn't get it, especially not when…
…When he leaves her.
He leaves her.
He's gone from the story of her past, a trail gone cold… and he just knows that he's gone back to Sinister.
He knows it and it doesn't make sense because after everything he can see he's done for her it's impossible that he could go back to Sinister, it's impossible that he could betray her…
"It's true," a small, little-old-lady voice says behind him, and he starts, he swings round and—
"You left her," says Irene.
She's standing only a few paces behind him, looking over his shoulder at the noteboard on the wall with an impassive stare. He sees that she no longer wears shades in this place – she is not blind, and her eyes are an icy, penetrating blue.
Their gazes meet and he understands in that one look that she is the one who woke him up; that she is the one who woke up Rachel. That she is the one that has been causing Rogue all the turmoil in this place.
"You're de one…" he breathes and she doesn't wait for him to finish the sentence; she nods.
"That roused both you and Rachel Summers from your slumber? Yes."
There is a small smile on her lips, but there is no humour in it. Nor is there sarcasm. There is only the thinnest suggestion of congratulation that he finally understands the truth.
"Why?" he asks; and this time her smile saddens even as it widens.
"Why, for Rogue of course. For her protection. Why else?"
He follows her with narrowed eyes as she moves over to the bed and sits on the edge, facing him, meeting his gaze calmly, expectantly. He knows Irene Adler, and he knows the riddles she always speaks in. But he also knows that if she is anything she is honest. That the riddles she speaks are merely masks to hide that inherent honesty. She doesn't have what he has. She doesn't have his easy-go-lucky flirtation with lies.
"You freed me to protect her," he reformulates her words slowly, reflectively. "And Rachel too."
"Yes," she gives a single nod. "And others, soon to come." She pauses, looks aside briefly as if listening out for something. "They will be here soon," she begins again, her eyes sliding back to his. "There is little time to be wasted. If you have any questions you must ask me them now, Remy LeBeau; for soon we will have time only to act, and the moment for questions will be gone."
He frowns and turns fully away from the noteboard on the wall. He doesn't understand her words, not completely – but he understands their implication without having to second guess.
"Rogue's in danger," he surmises slowly.
"Yes." Yet again, she nods.
"And this… everything here… Wakin' me up, wakin' Rachel up… It was all planned beforehand… to keep her from danger."
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"For a very long time, Gambit. For longer than you've been alive."
That alone is almost enough to knock the wind out of his sails. What follows next does more than that.
"And who are we protectin' her from?"
There is a pause; Irene's face turns grave.
"From you."
The world swirls and a few moments later he realises he's sitting heavily in the chair at her desk, a pent up breath whistling noisily between his teeth. His head is swimming.
"Me," is all he says.
"Yes," she answers him soberly. "It is your destiny, Remy LeBeau, to kill her. It always has been."
He looks up at her sharply, disbelief and pain etching his expression; and he suddenly sees that she now holds a book in her lap. His eyes widen.
"Destiny's Diaries…" he whispers.
"Yes. The future history of mutantkind. Shall I show you yours, Gambit? Shall I show you your fate? What you were always destined to do?"
She doesn't pause for an answer. When she holds out the open pages and shows him that double-page spread, the image of himself as Sinister thrusting a knife into her breast… he almost gets up. He almost strides across the room and snatches the leather-bound tome in his hands, he almost tears it to pieces.
"Non," he whispers instead. It's the only thing he can get out. Everything else has gone dark and quiet.
"I'm sorry," she tells him, not without a certain sympathy. "I know what you mean to say. That it isn't possible; that you could never hurt her. And I'm afraid to tell you that yes, it is possible, and that in fact it is almost inevitable that this should come to pass. The weight of the universe is tipped in its favour."
"How?" he croaks hoarsely, and her smile is sad, like she knows this is hell for him yet she doesn't have the leisure of going easy on him – Time is of the essence.
"Sinister is your father," she explains – another bombshell, so calmly, so unceremoniously given. "He will graft his genetic memory onto you, which, on the moment of his death, will awaken inside you, synthesising the two of you into one being. Mystique will serve her purpose – she will kill him, and you will become him. You will ask Rogue to stand at your side, to join you. And she… she will say—"
"No," he finishes on a single gasp, breaking through the whirlpool. "She'll say no, and if I can't have her, I'll kill her…"
"More or less," Irene's voice penetrates the buzzing in his ears; he barely hears her. He fights for breath, feels a tide of nausea hit him. Too much, too soon, so little time… Rogue's bedroom trembles slightly, an almost-reaction to the agonising tumult of his thoughts.
"Essex… My father?" he finally gets out above the maelstrom. He looks up at Irene with a questing glance, begging some futile reassurance, the hope that this is not true. And once again her smile is sad.
"Do you need me to explain what is so patently true, Gambit? Think on it. Think of the times he came to you, healed you, nurtured you, for no reason. Essex is a man of reason, of logic. He does not do without first accounting for every variable first. Why rescue a bedraggled child from the streets? Why help him to regain control of his powers? Why keep him in his employ for so long, this wayward child whose very nature is anathema to him? Why else but to watch you, to enfold you, to keep close his greatest and most cherished experiment – the making of his own son? You know it is the truth. A part of you has always known."
He says nothing. He looks at the ground and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, fights back the nausea. It takes a long while before the small tremor in the room finally dies out. When he looks up at her again his gaze is steely; the book has disappeared.
"What can I do to help her?" he asks her; and this time his voice is level, though quiet.
And this time Irene's smile is full – grim and determined. She stands.
"Come with me," she says.
-oOo-
He follows Irene back outside the mansion and out onto the lawn.
She says nothing and it begins to grate on him.
He needs something. He needs something to ground all this, to still the whirling in his brain, to dull the furious protestations crowding his mind.
She walks fast in this place, faster than he had imagined without her blindness and her cane. He is panting as he comes up level with her, as he blasts almost impatiently at her:
"Where are we going?"
"To help Rogue."
"And how can we help her from here?"
"Because this place is her, Remy LeBeau."
She marches onward at a brisk pace and he grasps at words that won't form.
She pulls away from him and it's all he can do to make up the distance between them, to reach out and clasp her forearm, to make her halt.
"How de fuck did you figure out how t' do dis?" he rasps at her over the shortness of his breaths. "How come you can just waltz in here and change stuff?!"
The look she levels at him is hard. Cold. Matter-of-fact.
"Because of one thing, LeBeau," she tells him softly. "Time. And patience. And there is precious little of the former right now. If you love Rogue, you will not question me. You will do as I ask."
She turns, she begins to walk again without another word. They are by the shores of the lake now, under the boughs of the cedar tree.
He follows her but only because he has no choice.
"And why should I trust you?" he calls after her.
And she stops. Just like that. When she turns to him, the look in her eyes is almost beseeching.
"Because I can't do this alone," she says quietly, and he is stunned because he senses that in her words there is a vulnerability he has never seen or guessed at in her before. "And because I need your help, Remy LeBeau. The fate of so very much hangs upon Rogue's life; but even more than that, I love that child. Just as you do. I do not want her death, just as you do not. If we work together, we can save her. Work with me, LeBeau. I cannot do this without you."
It's as she says the words that thunder rolls across the crystalline sky overhead. He looks up and sees clouds gathering overhead, dark and thick and angry. He holds in a breath. He's never seen the weather turn like this here apart from that one time, the time she had first come to him in this place and she had been scared and confused and upset. And he knows enough about the way this place works to know that rain would only fall when something was wrong.
He lowers his eyes to find Irene's still on him.
She holds his gaze, and this time she's giving him a choice, a chance to say no. He can't. He can see in her eyes that she is telling him the truth. He can trust her.
Lightning splits the sky and he nods mutely.
The old woman almost gives a sigh of relief.
She turns and lifts a hand, and her palm touches something solid but invisible.
At her touch a pane of glass ripples into sight, slowly, inch by painful inch and he sees… It's a door. The door. The cloudy, misted one that leads back into the white corridor of Rogue's mind, that he's only seen Rogue herself open.
And now he sees Irene open it. She pushes it gently, without even an ounce of force, and it responds effortlessly to her touch.
She walks over the threshold, pauses, looks back at him standing there with a breath lingering in his throat.
She beckons to him; and the thunder rolls.
He doesn't waste another moment. He steps in after her, and the rain begins to fall.
-oOo-
The door shuts easily behind them, closing off the thunderstorm; and when he looks back it has disappeared.
"Somet'ing's wrong," he says, almost to himself. "Rogue's in pain."
There is a surge of emotion in him so thick that he is forced to swallow it down. Yet again he feels that helplessness, the powerlessness his love for her renders in him. He knows he would do anything to take away her pain, but he can't. Not in the way he wants to.
"Yes," Irene says in a low voice behind him. "She is in a great deal of pain."
He turns to her.
"How do I stop this?" he begs her, and this time she says nothing. Instead she points down the corridor, over his shoulder.
When he swings back round he sees a small, human-sized bundle lying in the middle of the corridor some way off. He is confused; but only for a brief moment. Even as he moves forwards towards the thing lying on the floor, he realises that an absorption has taken place. He doesn't know what is happening on the outside, but what he does know swirls around him and he wades through the pieces like struggling through a quagmire. If he has betrayed her to Sinister, then Sinister is making this happen. Sinister is giving her pain. Sinister is forcing her to absorb someone – probably a mutant.
He reaches the crumpled up form on the floor and when he recognises who it is it takes his breath away.
Leech.
The boy lies in a sprawling heap on the cold, white floors of her mind, deathly pale through the lizard-like skin that is only a part of his mutation.
Remy falls to his knees beside the phantom of the boy and reaches out to touch him. He can hardly bear to. He can hardly bear to touch the innocent young child he sold on to Sinister – his father. He doesn't deserve to touch him. He doesn't deserve to be near him.
"Essex made her absorb him…" he chokes as Irene comes up to stand beside him. "He forced her…"
"Yes," Irene agrees, kneeling down beside him. She touches the sleeping boy where Remy cannot bear to. She runs her fingers over his deformed face, with all the tender care of a seasoned sculptress. "He will awaken soon. We should move him somewhere safe."
"Safe?" He laughs coldly, almost light-headed. "Safe for him, or for Rogue?"
He's losing it. He can feel the world rotating around him, feel it tunnelling in about him tight and claustrophobic, because he can see now. He understands what's going on. For all these years, Essex had been getting him to collect mutants. Bust them out of internments camps, labour camps, prisons and quarantine facilities. Bring them back to base and add them to the collection. Grab his paycheck. Spend it on a night on the town. Go out, get wasted. Fuck some nameless bargirl. Go home, go to bed, get up the next morning. Start all over again.
For this.
For Rogue to absorb them all.
For Rogue to become his collection.
Day after day, night after night, no respite, until every single last soul is a part of her. In here. With them.
"No…" he almost wails, holding his head in both hands and shaking it wildly. "No, not Rogue, not her, he'll kill her, she'd rather die before she lets dis happen t' her…"
Irene's face peers at him through the maelstrom of this horrible epiphany, her blue eyes calm and penetrating.
"Come now, LeBeau. Help me carry him. I cannot do this by myself."
But he can't, he is in pain, he is drowning in it; he can't stand the realisation that he has had a hand in all this, that he might be standing by on the outside and doing nothing but watching this happen.
"How could you let dis happen t' her?" he pleads with the old woman beside him. "Why? Dis will destroy her mind, Irene. It'll destroy her! Don't you get it?!"
And he can hardly believe it but she sighs. She actually sighs at him.
"There is a reason, Gambit, that the boy is here. It is the same reason you are. To protect her, when she needs it most." She wastes not another moment, but grasps Leech's feet and the glance she throws him is almost fierce when she says, "Now help me take him to my room. There will be time to talk more on this there; but we cannot leave him out here for him to awaken. He must be assimilated. Or do you want to cause Rogue more pain?"
The words cut through his panic like a knife; understanding floods him. He stems the tide of his anguish with an effort, blocks it off into a tiny, neglected corner of himself. He breathes hard – inhales, exhales, long, deep. He scoots round and grasps the boy by the armpits whilst the old woman takes his legs. Together they lift up Leech and although he is nothing but a child, Remy is still surprised at how light and insubstantial he feels. He looks at Irene struggling to balance the boy's weight and something stills in him. He can take this. He can be useful. He can do something to negate all the pain.
"Here, let me," he murmurs over to her, and he takes the entire weight of the boy into his own arms, hoists him gently over his shoulder. In that one action he has mastered himself again. He feels a certain peace.
"You lead de way," he says to Irene. "I'll follow."
Her gaze is steadfast, assessing; and after a brief moment her features relax – she almost, but not quite, smiles. Instead she nods, and when she turns away there is nothing more for him to do but what he has promised, and that is to follow.
-oOo-