Author's Notes: Back again. I swear I have the attention span of a moth.
-Alyxandria, Zeelee, ladychopsticks, and Solitaire – Thanks so much for reading! I feel special, oh so special….
Disclaimer: Remy and further X-men characters and concepts are not my copyright.
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Remy heard the front door open with a resounding BANG that shook the house down to its roots. The snow coats swayed and rustled. Almost afire with rage, Remy held himself in place by sheer will, aided by the last remnants of Marie's green eyes, wide and pleading.
Jim was angry. Obviously. It felt to Remy like the thudding of red waves of anger against him- and it did nothing to help his own desire to readily murder Marie's father. Or- no, she'd called him Jim. Perhaps he wasn't her father. No matter.
"Where is she?" growled a rough-hewn voice.
Marie. "Upstairs."
"Lazy bitch. Go get her up, she's got dinner to get on the table, I'm hungry." There was a pause. "NOW!"
Trapped in the closet, Remy felt the sudden flare of Marie's fear, familiar now. Then he heard the sound of footsteps beating quick tattoo over the stairs.
The man muttered through the door, audible to the listening Remy. "Lazy little bitch, just like her ma'm…" He stamped into the tiled kitchen. It took Remy an endless amount of time to calm himself to the point where the tight closet didn't feel like a roasting oven. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but after listening intently through the press of nylon coats, he realized Marie had somehow managed to rouse her mother upstairs and all three were in the kitchen.
It was at this point Remy hesitated. Perhaps now would be the time to make for the front door. Marie meant for him to do that. No!, something in him shouted. Leave Marie with that whoreson alone? Never! He would not let her face him alone again. Besides, he would hear the door shut, however quietly he might sneak, and the bastard would take it out on one or the other of the women. That's what he would tell Marie, later. However he might trust his thieving instincts, Remy could not risk such an action. Closing all options of cowardly retreat, he bent his ear to the wall between closet and kitchen.
It didn't take a genius to realize that Marie's mother was in no condition to cook. Remy could smell the pungent scent of burning through the smothering coats even as he heard the squeal of a chair across tile and the sharp collision of hand against skin. The corresponding thud told him the victim had fallen, and Marie's sudden protest of "No!" in shock and surprise said the victim was her mother.
"How dare you, you little whelp- get out of the way." Thud. The sound of another chair falling and Remy heard the small painful sound of Marie hitting the wall.
He was fighting his way out of the closet, now, hands fumbling for a way out- but there was no doorknob inside the closet- only outside- and smooth wood grain met his hands. Blind and raging, Remy fought a losing battle with the snowcoats and rain boots.
There was no further sound from Marie- he must have hit her hard enough to knock her out. The sound of muffled screams and pleads from Marie's mother now, strongly echoing the young cries of a small boy somewhere in Remy's memories buried in the darkness. Glass shattered, something fell; there was a snap and the merciless echoes of repeated blows penetrated Remy's consciousness. The bastard's stream of profanities hushed into the recesses of shadowy memory and a child's old pain. He was four, small, helpless, and his father's shadow was billowing above him, threatening, menacing, the memories suffocating.
He pushed those shadows sharply away, and his younger self's cries of "Please Daddy, no!" melting into Marie's-
"Mama! NO!"
Remy's rage turned into an inferno of scarlet and sparks. He felt one of the coats burst into threatening flame, real and intense against his skin. The closet door slammed into the opposite wall and Remy poured out. He was revenge personified, molten metal and cold unfeeling heat.
Only sudden unreasoning fear made him hesitate in the doorway to the kitchen. Fear for the girl who stood not five feet away, small white hands gripping a struggling man's throat at least three times her size. His own rage was dwarfed in her righteous unthinking anger. There was a crumpled body in one corner, sprawled underneath a counter, auburn hair thick in rusty blood.
Mouth open, Remy suddenly gasped air, coming to himself, the Remy behind dark lenses and the Remy with human fears and logic. He stared at Marie, who looked down at her mother's husband as she knelt on his chest on the kitchen floor, white hands unforgiving against his thick throat. He struggled weakly against her.
The man should have been able to throw her across the room- he had only minutes before. Why didn't he now? Lost in confusion, Remy ran for Marie, calling her name. She didn't hear him. Her eyes and world were only on the man beneath her hands, and as Remy looked down at his face, he came to a realization.
The man was dying. Crawling icy blue veins crept up from Marie's fingers beneath his skin. His wild eyes leapt fearfully about, his arms no longer flailing, lying limply against the linoleum. Jim's thick ratty face was not the bloodish red of a choking man- it was an icy white of a corpse. Marie's fingers gripped harder. Finally there was only silence and the last twitching of dirty thick fingers.
Remy reached her. "Marie, no! Come away!" He pulled her sharply by the shoulders, and white hands let go, leaving not a mark behind. The green eyes were again innocent and frightened, looking suddenly up and focusing at him.
"Remy?"
He pulled her sharply into an embrace, his cheek against hers. "Marie, it's okay, cherie, je suis ici, Remy is here…" His voice trailed off into silence. Marie trembled like a lost leaf in his arms.
And then he felt something odd… something that penetrated his soul's compassion and the unknowing love he felt for the girl in his arms. An icy, cold, draining something. He could not understand what it was, even as it seemed to steal his breath from his chest and the strength from his muscles- and then the memory of Jim, dead on the white floor, dead from only the touch of petite Marie's fingers. Remy gave a strangled gasp, and gravity began to pull heavy on his shoulders. He fought to stay up, stay warm, stay with Marie, but he could not. He felt himself fall. He saw Marie, green eyes wet with tears, lips parted, staring at him as gray fog separated them.
"Remy!" he heard. And then nothing.