Dreampeddler

by Overskill

It's New year's Eve. Remy has a close encounter of the impossible kind that could mean his salvation

Disclaimer: No character is mine, they belong to others. I make no money sharing this on the net. (for a detailed disclaimer see end of fic)

NOTE: The idea for the style of this one-shot came from Mick'n'Star's wonderful "Moods" series. I have Star's permission to use it and Star betaed this for me. I wish you all such a lovely ruthless beta as Star.

BTW this is so AU you have to imagine infinite multiverses to accept it as even approaching Canon. Also I'm not American and I can't do the dialect, forgive me, but rather than attempt a pitiful parody of a very respectable dialect, I forsook it entirely.

Don't shoot the pianist, please. G

DREAM PEDDLER

To Star, my wonderful beta, in loving memory of Mick and to Cass, my inspiration

It's New Year's Eve and here I am, all alone, guarding the mansion. Before you grab the tissues I better tell you I volunteered. That's right. I, Remy LeBeau, Gambit, volunteered for guard duty on New Year's Eve. Let them have fun and forget about missions and the Mutant Question, I have to think. Reflect on my life and self, and indulge my secret vice. Poetry.

Oh yes, can you imagine Gambit reading the Romantics and getting all tachycardic and a little woozy? 'Course you can't, it's not Nawlins! It's not Thieves! It's not ladies' man... Okay, it could be a ploy for a ladies' man, but really... In private? With no lady present to go 'Oooooh' and get gooey? I love it. And the author I love most isn't even well known. He deserves to be, but... he's morbid.

Right, we're talking Romantic, the morbidest bunch on Earth, but he's got them all running like mad trying to catch up to him. He's Thomas Lovell Beddoes, he used to be a doctor - odd that, Keats used to be one too - and he suicided. In between being a doctor and suiciding he wrote poems and a masterpiece of a play "Death's Jest Book", chock full of betrayal, murder, incest and necrophilia. Nice, huh?

Yet it is. It speaks to me of the things I fear and the thing I am, in a way. He seems to have known what it feels like to be me. So here I am, New Year's Eve, all alone, reading Dream-Peddler and wishing like a terminally drugged person it was real and I could buy me some love.

If there were dreams to sell

What would you buy?

Some cost a passing bell;

Some a light sigh

That shakes from Life's fresh crown

Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell

Merry and sad to tell,

And the crier rang the bell,

What would you buy?

Love!

I'd pay for it with regret or death, which is what I think the poem is saying, I'd really do it, so when the doorchimes go and I can't see a sodding thing on the screens, I'm not al all surprised. Reality has a way of going berserk round this place, so who am I to question the exactness and the hour? Because the chimes go as the clock starts to bong its midnight change of year.

Bong

I get up and go to the door. I need love as I need air, all human beings do, but some get accustomed to not having it, I never had it and I yearn. Rogue was my delusion of love, I know that now. My fault. Really, I can't fault that poor girl. She was unattainable, so I loved her. She did her damnedest best to love me back, but there were too many obstacles in the way. She couldn't kiss me without 1) almost killing me and 2) getting to know too many secrets; I had to have sex every now and then, and she couldn't like that, now, could she?

Bong

She left me to die and then brought me back from dying, and oddly enough I couldn't feel too angry the first time or too grateful the second time. That confused her. It confused me too, of course, a lot. Assorted X-Men wanted me to be furious at her, and then they expected teary gratitude, but to tell the truth, I didn't feel much either time. It was a shock. It was a shock to be left to die and a shock to be forced back to life. Shocked people can't feel, can they? I don't know.

Bong

It took a long time for me to get it, I suppose we both got it at the same time, 'cause we parted very amicably, no rancour, no regrets... No, I had lots of regrets, but you see, what we both found out is that I'm gay. Maybe she is too, who knows?

I was forced to reflect on the fact that of all the lovely nice attainable girls I kept meeting and working with weren't appealing; that the sex encounters weren't satisfactory, and don't tell me it was because they were loveless, because no matter how much I love Romantic poetry, I'm a realist and I expect sex to be entertaining.

Bong

It was, but it wasn't, if you get my drift. Got my nuts off, yes. Got pleasure... hard to determine, and it shouldn't. So there it was: the truth. Staring me right in the face: I'm gay. I didn't wish to be one, because of some rather ghastly experiences in the past. Pitiful, really. As I said, it took me a long while, but I've accepted it now. I had to. I caught myself ogling Cyke's ass or Logan's packet in bloody spandex.

Bong

Logan, now... I love that man. I don't know if I'm in love with him, but sure as death and taxes I love him. I respect him even more. He's a mess and he knows it, and even knowing it, he manages to do the right thing. That's not as easy as it sounds. People know what's right because they're taught as children; he wasn't or, if he was, he can't remember it, so how come he knows what's right?

Bong

Not because of his feral nature, that's for sure, mustelids are not known and loved for their sense of innate justice, are they? Weasels, stoats, otters, ferrets... they were called vermin, once, weren't they? Lord, I'm more like a mustelid than Wolverine, who is actually part mustelid. Okay wolverines in Canada are not known as slinky thieves, but that's just because they have nothing to steal! Could be they are the only monogamous mustelid, I hope so, because, you see, ferret-weasel me has decided to woo Wolvie.

Bong

I'm not in love with him yet, but I love him. Logan. I love the mutant Logan and I think, I flatter myself, I can understand the Wolverine part of the package. 'Cause, of course, he comes as a deal. I am firm in believing wolverines are as playful as otters, given a chance, and I want to give him that chance. But, and that's a big, BIG but, if I can stop needing so much.

Bong

I can't drown him in needing, that's not love. I've been thinking a lot and it seems to me that to love someone, you first have to like yourself and be able to be with yourself, so you can give your self whole to the person you love. Any other way it's like me and Rogue, needy people telling each other, and themselves, lies, just to have. Love is not to have but to share. To share, you have to have something to give and to be able to receive, not suck like a vampire after a hundred year famine.

Bong

So how do I make myself whole and like myself enough to be able to love someone the right way? Okay, okay, to love Wolvie the right way. The way that leaves no bitterness in the heart when maybe it's over, or things go wrong, or one dies. Because we can. Okay, me probably easier than him, but even Logan can die. We're mutants, not gods. Thank you, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, all I needed this night of all nights is to harp on death.

Bong

I harp on death because actually the idea of love ending of itself is much more terrifying. I know it happens, even true love. Humans, or mutants, are not really monogamous as a species... two different species, but Cyke has proved mutants are like humans in that respect. How could he betray Jean with the Ice Whore, God knows, but he has, so we're not monogamous. But I've never had love, only travesties, and it scares me senseless.

Bong

All this thinking has brought me to the door. And now that I'm actually here, I'm scared of opening it. No, I tell a lie, not scared, excited and frightened at the same time. What if the gift the Dream-Peddler brought me is not what I thought it would be? 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes' 'I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts'. Put Dream-Peddlers in the Greeks' place and that's how I feel. Paranoid. Terrified. Hoping beyond reason. It's almost a new year and we all hope so much it will be better, different, new... And it never is, is it? Okay, Remy, open that bloody door.

Boooo

He's there, on the other side. Cheeky grin at full blast. He's grown up. He must be what? Twenty-four? Twenty-seven? Thirty? Hard to tell. Street urchin: he's short and youthful looking. And cheeky as hell. He grins at me, black eyes twinkling. He waits and grins and looks so sharp all I can think is you're gonna cut yourself that way, chere.

oooonnnn

I know who he is instantly. After all we both come from the streets. Who cares if they were different streets in different eras, streets are streets. We know. I may be a weasel-ferret, but he's the master of us all. He dodged it all, didn't he? Dodged the law and dodged the perverts, dodged the sykes and dodged the mollies. Nobody could catch him. Nobody. My hero.

nnnnnnnnn

I step toward him and he steps toward me. We don't exactly slam into each other, but we are touching all over now. He's shorter in height, but lots taller in assurance. We kiss, and he doesn't dodge me. At all. We kiss and I know he can teach me to grow up and not be afraid of who I am, and I can teach him when not to dodge. Because dodging things is good up to a point, and then you meet the person you have not to dodge, if you want to be... You know, happy is a huge word and it is used much too easily, in my opinion, but serene is a good thing to be in life. Serene brings you moment of joy and happiness and makes you survive the pain and sadness. You can't dodge everything, if you want to be serene. You have to face the good things and embrace them.

nnnnnnn

So the Dream Peddler had it right. I need Art to be able to love Logan as he deserves and Art needs me to have a life that's not a street life. Mutual assistance. We kiss and it's much more than a simple slithering of tongues or crushing of lips. Our very selves merge and fuse. The Artful Remy Dodger LeBeau is born of that supreme kiss and I... I... I, Remy simply a mutant simply in love with Logan...

nnng

... close the door of the Mansion, smiling. It is now 2005. The first second of my newly renewed life is starting. I can't stop grinning for all the hope. Please forgive my cheekiness, it's not entirely mine... yet.

THE END

(Gambit is Marvel's property, The Artful Dodger is Dickens' though I think that's now public property, and the bong things to mark time were blatantly stolen from Terry Pratchett's "Thief of Time")