Antarctica
For a while, all he thought he would know of the world was cold. That cold and hunger would be the end of him, die alone and unloved like Fagan had said. Like everyone had said. Die all alone, nobody loves the little street rat thief. Not even the mutie's parents wanted him, throw the baby out with the bathwater. He was lucky he got saved, silly superstitious Thieves Guild thought maybe this devil child could save them. Test him through fire and suffering, through the streets with no name to give himself when he begged the tourists for bread or water. He had slept in a cardboard box, but he couldn't sleep in the snow. At least outside it was warm there, the Antiquary had been sympathetic in storm season. But he didn't want some tiny mutie rat ruining the good image of his kids for sale. Whatever that good image had been, he was ruined by the cold, it shot through his body with every gust of wind, constant wind and never ending light, always day, they had said this was the daytime, it lasted half a year. The light reflected off the snow, he had always hated the light and it didn't like him so well either. It was the mutie eyes, the black, Hank said, he was just a little bit sensitive to the light shooting off the snow into his eyes, glaring into his skin he could feel the burning though a thin prisoner's uniform just as he could feel the cold. So much so he could forget the hunger. He'd gone about not eating before, this was nothing new. He wished to every God he knew Rogue at least left his duster. All he had was this prison uniform they had thrown him in, put him to trial. He knew, more than knew every wrong he had done, and they had to remind him. He had to be punished, hoped for a quick death. He didn't deserve a quick death. He didn't deserve to live, and he only deserved to live with these sins. How could such a thing have hoped for love, the love of an angel at that. At first he tried to give up, lie in the snow and the ice and imagine it was his Angel's arms around him die in peace. This was all he had, the constant ice, unrelenting cold, and starvation creeping up in a body that had rebelled since day one. First the eyes, left him with no home cast out to be the Antiquary's plaything when he wasn't even wanted there. All he had were these memories and he tried to sort out the good ones but they all ended bad. Jean Luc settled for exile when they wanted to kill him, the Antiquary threw him happily to Fagan, who was more than willing to let Jean Luc take him in, and he had happy memories just until Julian died. And he tried not to let his mind wander to exile, he tried not to see in his mind the way they looked at him at the trial. Like a monster. Even less than a mutant. Less than the mosquitoes Tante Mattie used to slice out of the air with a net. Tante had always loved him most of all the Guild children, if only because Remy, now complete with a name, was the Thief King's son. He had to keep walking, keep on going, if he stopped he was a dead man and everyone who tried, they won. He had scars on his chest from where Sabretooth had tried to kill him in the Morlock tunnels. He was repenting for something he hadn't done. He had almost convinced himself he hadn't been involved when they told him, he led them there, every moment was his fault, every Morlock that died was by his hands. He should suffer just as much as every one of them. One life of his for each of theirs, kill him again and again. In the cold eternal day of Antarctica, death was a welcome relief. He could suffer as much as every one of them forever out here with nothing to watch but the raging snow. His walls weren't up enough to joke about looking for penguins, and there was no one to joke to.
He could hardly stay awake, clutched to himself and rubbed futile at his arms. His eyes skipped open and shut, closed longer each time. He didn't think he would wake again if he let himself sleep. So he kept walking, pushing, towards what he couldn't tell but he had to push towards something. If there was anything left of the citadel he could hide and die out of the elements. Maybe he would forget he was in so much pain. Some medicine poison he could destroy himself before the world did that for him. Everyone won, everyone lost, they didn't get to kill him themselves. At least suicide gave him the gift of control. Control he had never been given, fighting to survive, his exile from every place he had a certainty. He could feel his Angel's arms, warm arms, warm open he had to fight for with everything he had. One night spent in those arms, fighting for love when fate took it's hold on a miserable life if he even deserved that. His Angel, his only Angel, the one thing he wanted, only thing he thought maybe he could ask for- to be touched in kindness, held the way Jean-Luc used to hold him when he would fall asleep in the chair by Tante Mattie's fire. Make so he didn't always have to look out for himself, someone else would love him and take care of him and be certain he ate and rested and didn't blow up anything he wasn't supposed to. And the more he worried about himself and the more he thought of the horrible things the ice glowed and shook under him, he feared sinking himself and at the same time wondered what it would be like to drown. He grasped, dragged himself along the ice and in the distance saw scraps of the citadel's remains. He lived, he wasn't sure how but he lived. He couldn't feel his fingers, the scars on his chest throbbed like something alive. He curled into the floor of the citadel and prayed, no longer conscious enough to look for something with which to commit and unspeakable and live no longer on his own terms. His fingers grasped and his body trembled But at least it was dark and his eyes hurt no longer. They closed for minutes at a time, he started counting the seconds out loud, un, deux, troix, quatre and became a love note to everyone who had pretended to love him- Oh Ange, oh Belle, Rogue didn't once, even once, you care? I know I more than know I done wrong by all you but I loved you pure. It's all I know how to do is love because it's all I ever wanted. I feel you, I feel what you feel and I can make it my own and make your needs mine I don't need anything in return all I ask you to care, just a little bit and need, just a little bit love me back. Tell me you care about me and you want me to be happy, find out what makes me smile. Or maybe some days what makes me come. Did you ever look at me and know you were going to break my heart? Because I don't mind, just so long as I get it back, eventually. You can always have my heart, all you have to do is ask.
The next time he closed his eyes, he knew, he would die. There would be no grave, no funeral for anyone to cry at, so no one would cry. No one would leave him flowers or tell him how they really felt, he wouldn't ever know who might have cared somewhere deep in the. He would die and he would go to hell and hell would be the Morlock tunnels trapped in between Sabretooth and Sinister and he would deserve every suffering, all the white devil was meant for. He closed his eyes and waited for the cold and the hunger to get him, for the exhaustion to kick in, sang himself the lullabies Tante and his father used to sing when he had nightmares, someone was there for him where there had been no one and there would be no one again. By this point he was accustomed to being abandoned, but he didn't know why he was still alive. It had begun to snow through a hole in the roof of the fallen citadel that they made his prison and his grave, and he didn't, couldn't, wouldn't ever hate them for it. There was a single white feather on the concrete floor and suddenly Remy wanted to live, he had to return it to it's body.