Thanks hugely to Cruel Illusion for the fabulous beta!
Reviewer responses at the bottom
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Seven hours non-stop on the road and Logan's bike was beginning to sound a little hoarse. Making himself a mental reminder to give her an overhaul when he got back to the mansion, Wolverine pondered the brief and vague message he had received from the team while he was in Japan. All it had said was that Gambit was KIA, none of the whys or wherefores. He'd had a more verbose message when Scott's team had won the Super Bowl. And he wasn't even a sports fan.
He wondered why the thought upset him so much. Remy had been a fellow smoker, bike-tinkerer, pool-and-poker night man. A friend for a loner was a rare thing. It had hurt to know that they wouldn't share those things again but a self-healing heart, especially one so old, didn't usually ponder these things for so long. He was getting used to the pattern - happiness leads to pain leads to healing resulting in loneliness. Eventually he would find another companion, and until then he would be a loner again.
The mansion came into view again, and he fought the twinge of pain he felt at the sight. Still healing, he reminded himself. Just let it heal, don't pick at it, and it will go away. No scar.
Ha, yeah right. The heart was the only place he could scar, and he held on to that knowledge with all the strength he could muster. His heart still showed the worth of his life.
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The door from the patio into the kitchen was open, bright early-morning light streaming onto the breakfast table. A waft of fresh coffee drifted out to his sensitive nose and he turned to investigate who was up at this hour of the morning. Probably Fearless himself, at least then he'd get some answers.
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If there was one person he thought it near impossible to be there, it would have been the one sat in the seat closest to the door with his back to the sun. Remy LeBeau tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette, not turning to greet Logan as he stepped inside and dumped his dufflebag beside the door before pouring himself a coffee and taking a seat.
Logan watched as Remy sat back in his chair, pulling the dark sunglasses down his nose to rub at the bridge and pushing them back again in a single lazy gesture. He kept his eyes shut as he did so, and Logan wondered if it were to protect his light sensitive eyes from the early morning brightness that the kid rarely saw, or out of some long-ingrained need to hide his eyes from onlookers.
He was sporting a good inch of scrubby beard that didn't suit him, surely he could see that as well as anyone else could. He didn't feel like making conversation, though, so he didn't say anything. What ever the team thought had killed the Cajun obviously hadn't, and he was glad. A little weight over his heart lifted. There was nothing more to say. He relaxed into the comfortable silence that so often filled the space between them.
He looked curiously - he had never been one for tact - at the scars that decorated delicate fingers and the backs of slim hands as he stubbed out the cigarette on the make-shift ashtray. Scott would kill him if he found him using the china to collect the ash. That same hand closed around the side of the mug - not using the handle. He wondered if the scars were restricting the movement, and thought about what that would feel like. Perhaps that was why he hadn't shaved. A second hand came up to join the first, balancing the other side of the mug as he lifted it to his mouth, and this one was swathed in bandages. If the damage to one hand was already scarring over, the damage to the second must have been worse, or have had some kind of surgery.
His quiet contemplation - ignored by the object of his thoughts - was interrupted when Hank came charging into the kitchen, face like fury.
"Yer in trouble now, kid." He murmured, assuming correctly that he had escaped from the medi-lab, and was granted a smirk as Hank began ranting. The mug was placed carefully back on the table, and it didn't look like Remy was paying any more attention than Logan was to the medical info-blast coming from the large furry blue doctor.
"Hank." Logan spoke over the rant. His voice was level and calm, but it carried a power that would not be ignored. Hank stuttered to a stop as the kitchen's other inhabitant was acknowledged. "'m thinkin' the kid's taken enough grief from you the last few days, he got a right to a cigarette and a coffee."
"Logan, it's good to see you home safe as always. But please, leave my patient's care to me." He turned back to Remy, anger once again openly present in his voice. "How am I supposed to keep your presence from the rest of the household if you're sitting here just waiting for them to see you, Remy?" This just wasn't like the normally gentle and calm doctor. He looked close to physical violence, and Remy wasn't putting up any kind of fight.
"Hang on, wait a minute…" That rage was suddenly turned fully on him, and Logan snarled at the intrusion on his personal space. His peripheral vision caught sight of Remy's head dropping into his hands, his forehead creased. Pain… he was in pain. And they were angry. Both of them… Things clicked into place and he pushed past Hank and grabbed Remy by the back of the shirt, nearly dragging him across the ground before he got his feet under him and marched him out of the doors and across the grounds to the boathouse.
Remy flinched beneath his hand as he unsheathed a claw to take out the lock on the door, pushing him inside and not following. Remy paused in the open space he'd been shoved into, turning to search for Logan.
"Get yer shields together by the time I get back kid, you can't fuck with the doc. like that, whether you mean to or not." And he was gone, the door hanging open with the latch sliced in two. Remy wanted to call out, shout, rail, anything. Instead he was fighting to breathe as panic washed over him. He was too reliant on his night-vision, he realised, standing there and trying to convince himself the floor wasn't moving. He'd never had to deal with darkness before, not real darkness. And now he was in an unknown place with no one and nothing to cling to for support and reassurance.
Trying to suppress the feeling of panic that was tightening his throat and threatening to throw him into a full blown panic attack, he reached out with a few hesitant steps and found a wall under his hand. It stabilized him a little, though still he felt as though he was standing on a precipice and all around him the blackness opened up ready to swallow him. His stomach swirled and he flinched, swallowing back bile. He put his back to the wall and slid down it, making himself as small as he could manage.
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It didn't take Logan long to explain his theory to Hank, or for Hank to calm down once he was out the influence of Remy's indiscriminate empathic flailing. It was obvious that Remy's tenuous control over a power he barely understood was slipping, and the cracks were beginning to show despite Hank's best attempts to keep him protected. Logan dismissed Hank as soon as was polite, assuring him he would have the Cajun back in his grasp when he was ready.
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He found himself hurrying back towards the boathouse, knowing that what ever was going on with Remy, leaving him alone to fester in the emotions that were finding release through his powers was not the best idea. Something bad had happened to the kid, and he had no doubt it had something to do with his supposed death. The fact that Hank was hiding him away from the other X-men was a sure indicator. Half-listening to Hank's mind-boggling instructions, Logan had discovered nothing new about Remy's condition or how he had been hurt. He didn't even know why he hadn't announced his presence to the others. Did they still think he was dead? Or was he just keeping out of their way. Whatever the case, he was determined to find some answers, and there was only one place he knew he would get them. From the source.
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The door hung open as he approached the boathouse, and he wondered if he would get a reprimand from Scott for over-reacting. Shrugging it off - he could deal with Scott later - he stepped inside and wondered where Remy would have gone to collect his shields. He took another step inside and the stench of fear and panic hit him at about the same time as the emotional bombardment. He was on his knees with a strangled cry before he realized what had hit him.
"Remy." He managed to hiss through the overwhelming fear that was urging him just to curl up into a ball and give in to whatever might follow.
"'M' sorry, so sorry." Came a muttered reply from his right. The sudden urge to take-grasp-hold-comfort caught him, and he grasped hold of a hand that was outstretched towards him without even needing to look for it.
The fear plateaued, dropped, calmed…
"Shit, Remy. What the fuck was that?"
"Sorry." A breathless reply, silent tears streaking reddened cheeks.
"No, stop apologizing and tell me what the fuck's going on. First you're mind-fucking the doc, then you're having a panic attack in the boathouse… what is this shit?"
"Had a shitty couple a' weeks. Empat'y's not caught up yet." The voice was more collected this time, though Remy didn't look up from the ground, where his sunglasses-covered eyes were fixed.
"Slim thought yer were dead. Told me yer were dead. I seen the damage to yer hands, what happened?" There was a slight flinch in the recovering poker face. He pushed his hands out in front of him, balancing his elbows on his knees to display them, not looking himself.
"Pretty, hein?" He flexed the not bandaged hand, showing Logan just how much the movement was restricted. He could barely touch his fingertips to his thumb. Logan flinched. "Not gonna be cheatin' 't cards fo' a while a'least." He joked. The master of deflection. Pain? Not here…
"What happened?"
"Know dat t'ing - 'no one gets lef' behin''? Don' believe it."
"Where?"
"Antarctica." A hiss of air through teeth.
"Frostbite then. You were lucky to keep yer fingers."
"Henri is… reservin' judgment."
"So… why the panic attack just now?" He pushed a little further. A hoarse laugh, clipped short. He half expected no answer at all. The one he did get made no sense to him.
"T'ink Remy migh' be 'fraid a' th' dark."
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TBCO
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BJ2: Thanks very much.
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Moon Fox… Why do you even bother reading, if you don't enjoy the subject matter? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if you have intent to flame, there's really not much point going past the introduction where I did point out that I was going to be going AU from cannon, and involving a Gambit/Wolverine Pairing. Now if you're reading this, you cannot have too many problems with the story, as you're still here, but I would appreciate no more flames? Accept that this is Fanfiction - and not in any way based on reality or cannon - and move on.