Once again:D Huge thankies to Cruel Illusions, who is doing a most fantastic job of putting this story in good order for me!
o
Logan met Hank's gaze as Ororo escorted Remy - his right hand bandaged up once again - up to his room for a shave. Hank held the gaze for a moment before sighing deeply and flopping into the nearest chair, which gave a groan under his weight as he buried his head in his hands.
"Why can life not give that man a break, if only for a moment." The question was rhetorical, so Logan made no reply as he took a seat next to the beast.
"What's up with his eyes?" He asked after a moment's silence.
"Did you not understand what I said?"
"No, I got it. But there's somethin' else. Somethin' yer hiding from him."
"Of course, I should know better than to hide things from you." Hank acknowledged wryly. "When he returned I assumed his eyesight to be the least of his troubles. Snowblindness typically heals of its own accord, much as when you turn a light on in the darkness you have a moment of glare and then your eyes adjust. The pain that Remy was experiencing when he arrived was normal - the eye tissues are often sensitive after such an injury, especially sensitive to light. When the pain began to fade his eyesight should have started to return."
"And it hasn't?"
"Nothing. His eyes are even less sensitive than usual to light - I have had the lighting at full strength since the bandages have been removed, and he has said nothing - his vision is completely impaired, and I fear… perhaps permanently." The frustration was clear in his voice.
"Why haven't ya told him?"
"I fear his reaction. The loss of his shields this morning only serves to demonstrate how tenuous his control is right now. And I still have no solid evidence that this isn't just an effect caused by his rather unique optical physiology. Even if they are not healing as expected, there is nothing I can do in the immediate future to treat them further. While they are causing him no pain other than the emotional, I will keep my thoughts to myself, and would ask you to do the same."
"Sure. But yer gonna have ta tell him sometime, if they don't start healin'."
"Of course, but let us save that conversation for a time when everything is a little more stable for our friend."
o
Clean shaven and relaxed, Remy knelt on the floor in his room gathering his shields about him. The effect was rather like wrapping his mind in cotton wool, putting layer over layer on the paper-thin temporary shields he had erected at the boathouse. Jean must have been pretty distracted, he realised, to not notice him. He'd asked Storm to give him a moment to get himself together so that he could face the others without fear of manipulating their responses. It was quite tempting to just leave himself wide open, with all his pain and guilt on the outside, and just see how people took the emotions; but, it wasn't right, and he knew it would hurt him more than it would touch them. He didn't want to be at the center of that right now.
There was a knock at the door and he looked up groggily, realising only belatedly that looking would do him no good. "'s open," he called out, trying to shake off the feeling of his head being muffled. Over time the brushes of other minds on those shields would compact them into a hard shell and then he would add another mental layer. He hadn't even known how he had been doing it as a child, and for over six years he had had shields strong enough to baffle one of the strongest psychics in the country. Hopefully knowing what he was doing now would allow these shields to build up much more quickly.
The door opened and light feet stepped over the threshold. "Are you ready, my brother?"
"Have t' be, neh? Not much choice," he said, getting to his feet without using his hands.
"Come. Let us get this over with."
Taking Remy's unbandaged hand and placing it in the crook of her elbow, Ororo led him back down the stairs and into the living room. Most of the inhabitants of the house were still in bed, so they arrived uninterrupted to find Logan and Hank already there and waiting for them.
Remy tried not to flinch outwardly as the careful work he had done covering the weakness in his shields that was Logan was torn away as soon as the other man was in reach. When he got some time alone he would strip them right down and start again; he couldn't keep the connection with the feral mutant, however reassuring it was. With a gesture Hank called them to sit beside him on the sofa, and they all sat in silence for a moment.
"So." Remy spoke up at last, needing to break the tension in the room while they waited for the axe to fall. "Anyt'in' interestin' happen while I was locked in M. Bête's lab?"
"I only got back this mornin'." Logan answered first.
"Nothing that you need worry yourself with, my friend."
"I didn't lock…"
"Gambit?" Hank's insulted retort was interrupted as four heads flicked towards the voice in the doorway. Only three followed as Warren marched into the room. Remy looked down, knowing that he couldn't meet his gaze accurately. Of all the X-men, why did he have to be the first one to get up? "What the…" The tone changed from bewilderment to anger in a moment. "What the fuck are you doing in this house? You don't belong here. You never did." Ignoring the others bristling around the Cajun who was slowly sinking into his chair, Warren advanced on him. It was Wolverine who stopped him, standing from his seat to grab hold of his arm and pull him back away from Remy.
"Give him some fucking space, Wings," he growled. "He belongs here as much as the rest of us." Warren slowly seemed to become aware of Logan.
"You don't know what he did." The winged man hissed.
"I do. Have known for a long time now." Remy started at this, and Logan could feel the surge of confusion that rose up in him. He turned his attention back to Remy, knowing he needed to hear this. "Creed told me, way back. Thought he could turn me against ya, kid, but I didn't care. Heard worse things, and ya tried to make it right when ya realised what was goin' on."
Angel snorted. "You can't make right that kind of slaughter. There's no way of paying back that kind of betrayal." It was enough of an echo of Remy's earlier words that all three flinched and looked to him.
"His own blood was spilled with that of the Morlocks." Ororo spoke up when it became obvious Remy would say nothing in his own defense. "The Marauders were no friends of his."
"Ha! Like I believe that. He can say what he likes, work his empathy with all of you. I'm not falling for it." Remy did flinch at these words. It was something he had always been afraid of, being accused of manipulation in the worst way.
"Warren. He still bears Creed's scars." It was Hank who spoke up this time, and Warren was a little more compelled to listen to the voice of his friend.
"Ppht. What scars? I've never seen them, and he makes sure we all see him bare-assed as often as he can, " he sneered.
Ororo looked at Remy in time to see a look of resignation come over his face. He slid down in the chair and looped a thumb in the waist of the sweat pants he was wearing - anything else being too fiddley to get on with his hands so incapacitated. He didn't have to push them down far to show the reason why he never wore hipsters. An ugly white line drew a curve around the base of his belly, from hip to hip.
Warren was silent for a moment, and Logan found himself staring at that mark, wondering how he'd never seen it before.
"Gets all dark when it's hot, can' see it so well." Remy offered in explanation, "'s why it don' show up in th' showers." An' dat's th' only time you've seen my ass, he added silently.
Warren seemed to shake himself out of his stupor, trying to regather the arguments he'd been putting together for weeks now.
"So what, we've all got our scars from that monster. Doesn't make what he did any less."
"What did he do, Warren? I wasn't there for this 'trial', tell me what he did," Jean said from the doorway, lips pursed.
"He assembled the marauders. He led them to the Morlocks. He was responsible."
"Sinister was holding something over him. Some debt to be repaid." Betsy stood now beside Jean in the doorway, her face absent as though lost in memory. "I can't… I can't see what it was."
"Control."
Betsy started at the sound of Remy's voice from inside the room, not having seen him past Hank's greater bulk.
"Over th' chargin' power. A mad scientist offers y' a way t' stop y' blowin' y'self t' hell, y' don' ask 'bout the cost. Y' already know it'll be too high."
"You should have just let yourself blow up," Warren sneered.
"I know." A whisper, so filled with guilt that any louder confession might have broken him.
"Hey guys, what's going on in here?" Bobby asked, trying to see past the two women in the doorway, everyone too frozen from Warren's attack and Remy's retreat to say anything. "Gambit! God, man, you look like shit." And that was that.
"Morning Bobby." Remy couldn't help but smile as Bobby wandered in with his coffee and dropped onto the couch.
"So… what's going on?"