A/N: Thanks beyond measure to reviewers, especially Wolf, for your patience as well as your continued enthusiasm. Sorry for the late update. I had a funeral to attend this week and it sort of took over everything.
I also want to say, just as a sort of plug, that a lot of my favorite writers in this fandom influence my own writing and characterization, so shout out to KineticallyCharmed and especially her fic series "The Beautiful Mind of Katherine Pryde" because her Kitty/Remy friendship is so good that I've basically adopted her characterization as headcanon and if you see it reflected here, it's done with love.
Chapter 5: December 15 and 16
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
Remy beats Rogue and Warren back to the Institute, which is probably a good thing, since he's planning to have a good long sulk and he doesn't need any interruptions.
He wraps himself into his coat, lowers his eyebrows as grouchily as he can, and slinks through the foyer of holiday cheer. He passes the crowded rec room and ignores Kurt's shout of welcome, climbs the stairs and keeps going until he reaches the greenhouse.
He sits among the carnations and succulents and scowls. Pulls out his cigarettes but then thinks better of it. No need to give Storm's plants secondhand smoke diseases.
Remy doesn't like feeling like this. He feels like a stupid child. Being jealous always makes Remy pout, and even though he has it on good authority that he has a very attractive pout, it's not really the sexiest look.
Pouting on Rogue, now that would be sexy. On Remy it just looks like he ate something that didn't agree with him.
He's just wondering whether it will count against his sulking time if he runs down to the kitchen to get some eggnog when Kurt appears in a cloud of sulfur and the ugliest holiday sweater Remy has ever seen.
"That," he says after he's waved away the smoke of the teleportation, "is the ugliest holiday sweater Remy has ever seen."
"Danke," Kurt says, looking very pleased with himself, blue tail coiling around to poke himself in the… snowman. "My mother sent it to me. She found it online."
"Oh," says Remy, because that is very nice for Kurt, but Remy is trying to be in a bad mood here. He tries a glare, but unlike his smile, Remy's glares do not have special powers.
Especially not against someone who used to have the word demon shouted at him in the street.
"Why," says Kurt, sitting down next to Remy and one of Storm's Christmas Cacti, "are you sitting up here all by your lonesome, mein fruend?"
Remy sighs. "The canary showed up while Rogue and Remy were Christmas shopping," he mutters.
"Ah," says Kurt. "The canary being Warren, I assume?"
"Oui," Remy grumps.
Kurt shakes his head sadly. "What happened?"
"He's bringing our packages back to the house 'cause we took the motorcycle out," Remy says. "Rogue's with him."
"She wanted to go in his car?"
"Well," Remy shrugs. "It was cold, so Remy told her to just ride with the angel."
"So," Kurt says slowly, "she only went with him because you suggested it?"
Remy pouts some more. "Guess so," he sulks.
Kurt shakes his head. "You–" he starts, but then Remy's phone rings.
Groaning, Remy yanks it out of his pocket, only to immediately straighten up when he sees the caller ID. "It's Todd," he says, answering the call. "Todd? What's going on?"
"Copper was talking to his friend, who was asking his friend, who's been keeping tabs on the situation at the compound, y'know, because of his brother–"
"Todd, what the heck are you talking about?"
"The commandos, Remy! My friend's friend's brother said that the Snake guy is gonna be gone again until tomorrow! It's the perfect time for you and your X-Men guys to check it out! I mean," says Todd, in the sort of embarrassed tone that implied he hadn't intended to use that many exclamation points at once, "if you want to."
Suddenly, this day isn't looking as dark and gloomy as Remy had thought. "Yeah," he says, "that's great, Todd, thanks. You've just done us a big favor."
"Sure, whatever," says Todd, not nearly as casually as he probably thinks. "Uh, keep me posted, okay?"
"Oui," Remy says. "Bye." He hangs up and beams at Kurt, who blinks, possibly surprised by Remy's sudden change of mood, but more likely simply dazzled by the power of Remy's smile. Now that it's been recharged, it's operating at full power. Kurt might need a moment to recover.
"Uh," says Kurt. "What?"
"We're going on a secret mission," Remy tells him. "Where's Bobby?"
"Wait!" Kurt calls after him as they race down the stairs. "What about Rogue? And Warren?"
Remy must not hear him, because he doesn't even hesitate.
They run into Bobby in the middle of the kitchen. He's helping Jubilee, Ray, and Tamara whisk something in a pitcher, and they all pause with guilty looks on their faces when Remy and Kurt whirl through.
"Come on, Bobby," Kurt says, wrapping his tail around Bobby's waist. "Secret mission time!"
"Uh," says Bobby, and then Kurt grabs Remy's arm and teleports them all to the foyer of the mansion.
"Now," says Remy, while Kurt and Bobby scramble for their coats, "which one of these keys goes to the van y'all ride around in?" He glares at the confusing key rack hanging by the door.
"You don't know?" Bobby asks, yanking a toboggan on over his hair. Remy rolls his eyes.
"Remy don't actually drive the 'official' cars around here, Icicle."
"Here," Kurt flicks the correct key ring to Remy with his tail. "Let's go–"
The doorbell rings.
The three X-Men stare at each other warily for a second. "Well," says Kurt, gesturing to Remy, "answer it."
Remy grimaces. He reaches out and pulls the door handle slowly, hauling the heavy door open. He blinks.
"Pete?" he says.
"Piotr!" Kitty exclaims from the landing above them. She drops through the flooring and lands gently next to Remy and then launches herself at Piotr, who stumbles back a little, catching her.
"Ah, hello, Katya," he rumbles softly. "It is good to see you."
"Come in, come on!" she says. "I didn't know you were coming today!"
"Remy didn't know you were coming at all," Remy mutters. Piotr gives him a kind smile.
"Katya asked the Professor if he would mind me staying here for Christmas, since I cannot yet go home to Russia." He gives Kitty an adoring look that she somehow seems to miss. Remy's eyes will fall right out of his head if he rolls them any harder. Piotr is so obvious, and Kitty is so oblivious, it's almost too much for this Cajun to take, honestly.
"Yeah, yeah, that's nice, come on," he says. He grabs Piotr's arm and starts pulling him towards the door.
"Remy!" Kitty yells. "What are you doing?"
"Secret mission," Remy tells her. "No girls allowed." Kitty sputters and Piotr, who has obligingly started walking on his own, turns and gives her an apologetic shrug.
"We will catch up this evening, da, Katya?" he says hopefully.
"Oh!" she smiles at him, forgetting that she is furious. "Of course, Piotr. Remy, you bring him back soon!"
"He's my friend!" Remy yells over his shoulder.
"He's my guest!" she yells back, and then slams the door behind them. Bobby jumps out of the way of a pile of falling snow just in time.
"Yikes," he says.
"Secret mission?" asks Piotr politely, allowing Remy to steer him toward the garage.
"Yeah!" Kurt chimes in. "A secret mission of the Brotherhood of Super-Secret Sub-level Ninjas!"
Remy stops short and turns to stare at Kurt. "That is not the name."
"Yes it is," Kurt says blithely.
"Not."
"Is," says Kurt. "You didn't think to name it, so Bobby and I did. And we're in the club too, so we get a vote!"
Remy says, "This is not a democracy."
"Sure it is," says Kurt, "and the people have spoken."
"Piotr," Remy says desperately. His friend smiles a serene smile.
"I like the name," he says calmly.
"Remy hates all y'all," Remy says. They reach the garage and suddenly Remy has a bad feeling. "Uh-oh," he says.
"What?" Bobby says. "What uh-oh?"
"Remy dropped the keys inside while le chat was yelling."
"We don't have keys?" Kurt says slowly. Remy shakes his head.
"Non," he says.
"It's fine!" Bobby says. "We'll just go in Piotr's car!" He turns to Piotr excitedly. "How'd you get here, buddy?"
Piotr's smile is apologetic to those who don't know him well, but to Remy, who spent a considerable amount of time with Piotr last year and so got used to all of the other man's weird little habits, knows better. That is one evil grin.
"Actually," says Piotr, "I took a cab."
000
"This," Kurt announces, "is not an auspicious beginning."
"Dunno," Remy says, "seems pretty suspicious to Remy. We're sneaking in the back way and everything."
Kurt squints at Remy, who doesn't notice, and then at Piotr, who simply raises his eyebrows very pointedly.
Kurt knows about pointed. That is one pointed eyebrow raising.
"Never mind," he says out loud. "But taking a taxi to the lair of the psycho villain who wants us all dead just isn't all that cool, you know?"
"The Grinch," Remy murmurs.
"What?"
"Nothing," Remy says. "Look, we got here, didn't we? And we've gotta get in there now, while there's still time to scout it out. Remy don't want to be anywhere near here when this guy gets back."
"As you say here," Piotr rumbles softly, "step on it."
Sometimes, Remy thinks Piotr has been messing with them all this time by pretending not to understand English properly. He wouldn't put it past the guy.
Initiating Piotr into the Brotherhood of Super-Secret Sub-level Ninjas was very simple. Remy hadn't wanted to initiate him at all, since this isn't a club and anyway he hates that name, but Kurt and Bobby had done it anyway and now it's too late.
The initiation had involved standing in the dark and reciting an oath. Since they didn't have a basement handy, Piotr just stood in an extra-shadowy patch of shadow next to the commando base.
"I solemnly swear," he had said, solemnly, "to keep the secrets of the Brotherhood, to always have my brothers' backs, and to fight the battles that face us, wherever and whenever we may be."
Remy had rolled his eyes and said, "Can we go now?"
And now they're faced with the wall of the compound.
Remy doesn't actually believe in walls, as such. Oh, he knows they exist, of course, physically, but the idea behind walls just never really seems to stick with him. The notion of keeping people out of a place with some blocks of stone or planks of wood is frankly ridiculous. Remy gets into places that have walls all the time. Just because some people might be deterred by walls doesn't mean that they're actually an effective means of defense.
There's a reason Remy doesn't keep anything he considers valuable in his room at the Institute. He doesn't really trust doors or locks either. Rogue has explained at least four times that nobody is going to come into his room without his permission, but even though Remy trusts Rogue with his life, he still isn't going to leave his trench coat in there. Jean likes to clean, so who knows what she might do?
Anyway, Remy is friends with Kitty and Kurt. Walls tend to mean less when you know someone who can walk through them.
Speaking of which, Kurt is nodding. "Ja," he says in answer to Bobby's question that Remy hadn't listened to, "I can teleport us in."
"Or," says Remy, "we can just climb the wall." They all turn to look at him.
"Uh," says Bobby, "wall climbing was never really my strong point in gym."
Remy looks at the wall. It's not that impressive. "Suit yourself," he says, and snaps his bo staff open. He runs at the wall and plants his staff in the ground, propelling himself to the top of the wall and balancing like a cat. "Coming?" he calls down.
BAMF!
Kurt and the others appear in smoke below him. Remy grins and jumps down to join them. "Now," he says, rubbing his hands together. "Let's see what they're hiding in here."
000
Remy does not like wasting time. Maybe it's because he grew up in the Thieves Guild, where wasting time led to things like being eaten by alligators when your friends left you behind in the bayou during training exercises.
Or maybe it's just because Remy likes to get the hard and boring stuff out of the way as quickly as possible and wasting time is synonymous with taking too long to finish for Thieves.
If there's one thing Remy learned early as a Thief, it's to finish quickly. A slow Thief is a dead Thief, especially when Belladonna is involved. That had been a dicey job, for sure.
Anyway, Remy doesn't like wasting time, which is what he's been doing for the past two hours apparently, so he's not really happy.
"Nothing!" he exclaims heatedly in the back of the cab. Their driver is giving him nervous looks. Probably because of his devil eyes.
Definitely not because he's been ranting for the past five minutes about that stupid compound. Couldn't be.
"It is logical that they would not leave convenient evidence lying around where someone on a cursory walkthrough could see it," Piotr says gently.
Remy squints at him. "'Cursory,' huh?" he says. Piotr beams at him and widens his eyes, innocent like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Remy doesn't actually understand that phrase, but whatever; Pete is totally making a butter melting face.
"That is the correct word, da? To mean 'casual'? 'Not thorough'?" Piotr asks.
"Yeah, buddy, no worries. You got it right the first time," Bobby says, completely missing the point, as usual.
Remy pounds his own head with Kurt's hand. Kurt extracts his fist from Remy's and glares.
"Stop that," he says. "We will try again another time. At least now we know more about the commandos."
"Yeah," Bobby says glumly. "Like that there're a lot of them and they're all really well-armed and well-trained."
The units of men housed in the compound are practically a private army. There must be over a hundred of them, all training and working and itching to bust out and go mutant-hunting. Remy does not like this at all.
"Remy just wish we knew why they're doing all this!" he exclaims. "It's all science-fiction and mad scientist stuff!"
"Experiments," Piotr says solemnly. Remy waves his hands wildly. The cab driver swerves frantically and Piotr grabs Remy's arm and yanks him back down into the seat.
Remy's saying, "Exactly! They want to do experiments on us, but what kind, and why?" He barely notices Piotr pulling on him.
"We'll find out," Kurt says. "We will try to find a way to see more of the compound another time. For now, it's almost time for dinner, and they'll be expecting us at the mansion."
Remy sits back and crosses his arms, thinking. Heavy guards at all the most interesting looking entrances and hallways had meant only a brief visit and exploration was possible, but that was with company. Maybe if he went alone later he could get farther.
Piotr says, "No."
"What?" asks Remy, attempting the butter look. It doesn't work. Piotr shakes his head and frowns.
"You will not go back alone," he says quietly. "I won't allow it."
"You're not the boss of Remy," Remy says.
Piotr gives him a smug look. "I will tell Katya what you are up to if you try it," he says. "And our Brotherhood will have to have a Sister."
"Remy didn't really mean 'no girls allowed,'" he grumbles. "Just don't want to worry any more people than I have to over the holidays."
"And you are bored," Piotr says easily. Kurt and Bobby are poking each other and challenging each other to eating contests, Kurt from the front and Bobby from the back. Piotr is turned in the backseat to face Remy, who is scrunched in the corner behind the passenger seat.
Remy tries to deny it.
"Non! Bored? From what, saving the world and, and… practicing and training all the time?"
"Yes," says Piotr. "You are bored. You are not used to being settled in one place with so many people for such a long time. Even when you lived in New Orleans, you were constantly leaving to work or sightsee or do whatever you wanted. And now you have more responsibility and more restriction. And you are bored."
Remy narrows his eyes. "Remy didn't tell you any of that," he says.
"Nyet," Piotr says.
"You've been talking to Tante Mattie, haven't you."
"Nyet," Piotr says. "I just know you."
000
Remy doesn't know Rogue is back until she runs into him in the hallway on their way to dinner.
Literally, runs into him. His chere is many things: beautiful, glorious, sarcastic, a little terrifying, truly stunning in anything that shows her shoulders, where was Remy going with this again?
Oh yeah: Rogue is many things, but Remy wouldn't say "graceful" is one of them.
"Remy!" she says when they've untangled themselves.
"Chere," he says back, trying to straighten his buttoned-up shirt and not look at her too much, lest he blush. He left his trench coat in one of his hiding spots around the mansion and now he's feeling a little naked without it.
"I wanted to talk to you about Christmas presents–"
Despite the fact that they just spent most of the day talking about Christmas presents, this sentence sends horror right through Remy.
He forgot Rogue's present!
How can he presume to call himself her suitor when he can't even remember to get her a Christmas present? Remy's experience with relationships is mostly brief flings and, well, Belladonna, but he's pretty sure that remembering presents on major holidays is a Requirement of some kind.
Rogue is smiling at him, saying something. Remy tries to pay attention, but his thoughts have started to spiral.
No gift she'll think you don't care about her you idiot why didn't you think she'd never want you anyway, you stupid…
"That sound good, Remy?"
He has no idea what she just said, but he trusts Rogue, and whatever she's planning can't be that bad, right? Probably just about Institute rules regarding Christmas presents or something. For some reason, everyone in the Institute seems to think that Remy needs to be told not to do things that he never would have thought of doing. Such as eating other people's food out of the refrigerator, helping himself to the grocery money, and peeking into Christmas presents.
Remy is a Thief, he's not a heathen.
"Sure thing, Roguey," he says, since that can't be the wrong answer.
Except, apparently it is, because Rogue frowns a little and says, "Well if you don't want to–"
"Non!" he says hurriedly. "That sounds amazing. Sorry, Remy's just a little distracted right now." What is he going to get her for Christmas?
"By what?" she asks.
Time to do what Remy does best. He winks at her and crosses his arms in a way that he knows shows his forearms to their best advantage. A man can do a lot by flashing a bit of forearm.
"Aw, chere, you know Remy can't think straight around you."
She blushes, which is exactly what Remy wanted. He doesn't realize his smirk has faded into a real smile. When Rogue gives him a shy grin, he blinks and coughs, rubbing at the back of his neck.
"Uh, we should get to dinner," he mutters.
"Yeah," she says. She boldly, for Rogue, reaches out and unrolls his sleeve a little, until it's covering his elbow completely. And then she puts her gloved hand in the crook of his elbow and pulls him along.
"C'mon, Swamp Rat," she says. "We're gonna be late."
Remy, lost in the ecstasy of touching her, even with two layers between them, can only say, "Coming, chere."
000
After dinner, they all gather in the rec room for another mansion holiday tradition: Christmas movies. Tonight it's A Miracle on 34th Street, which Remy has never seen.
And apparently, he's still not going to get to see it, because:
"Scott!" Jean whispers. "Psst! Scott!"
Well, she thinks she whispers. Four different heads turn to watch her hustle Scott off to the hallway, wondering what secrets Jean is telling him. Remy grumbles silently to himself about getting dusty and wriggles off the couch to crawl into a nearby air vent that lets out into the hall to eavesdrop. Remy has gotten very good at crawling silently through air vents since becoming an X-Man.
"What's all the hush-hush about?" Scott is asking.
"It's Remy," Jean says, and Remy rolls his eyes in his vent. "He's up to something," she continues.
Scott does not sigh heavily and ask her why she is so paranoid about Remy ruining Christmas. He clearly wants to, but he doesn't.
Jean must hear it anyway, because she glares at him. "This is serious, Scott," she says. "I think Remy is keeping secrets."
Scott says, "We all keep secrets, Jean. We can't not and still have peace in this house." Remy is starting to be a little bit impressed by Scott. It's uncomfortable.
Jean gives Scott a gently reproving look and says, "I hope you don't keep secrets from me, Scott."
"Of course not," Scott says. "But Remy is allowed to not tell us everything he's thinking. Everyone is allowed that."
Jean sniffs at him, wrinkling her nose. "I know," she says. "I just want everything to go well this Christmas."
"Showing off for Warren?" Scott says gently.
She scowls. "Is it so wrong to want to be at our best for our friend?" she asks.
"Of course not. But you know Warren isn't going to stop liking us if we're not perfect, right?" Scott reaches out and pulls Jean close to kiss her nose. Remy burns with jealousy. What he would give to kiss Rogue's nose like that!
"I know," Jean sighs. She leans her head on Scott's chest. "But Remy…"
"I'll keep an eye on Remy," Scott promises. "Just try and relax, okay? Come on," he smiles down at her. "We're missing the movie."
Remy is agreeing with Scott way too much today.
000
The next morning, Remy decides that serious work needs to be done regarding Rogue's Christmas present. It's not that the Grinch isn't a very important problem, but Remy has priorities, okay, and he has to have a present for Rogue. That's not negotiable.
The Grinch can just wait his turn for driving Remy crazy, like everyone else.
Since he needs all the help he can get, Remy goes straight to the best source. Which is why he's been hiding under Kitty's bed all morning, waiting for her to come up to her room for her daily email check.
Kitty is very predictable in some ways, and Remy is always very grateful for predictability. It's much easier to steal things from people with predictable habits. Not that he wants to steal from Kitty, but the principle is the same. He hears her in the hall and pulls his feet in a little tighter.
Kitty comes in, flops down on her bed, and then screams.
"Ow," Remy says reproachfully, poking his head out from under the bed. "That hurt Remy's ears."
"Why are you under my bed?" Kitty shrieks.
"Remy needs to talk to you," he says reasonably. Kitty stares at her ceiling.
"Why didn't you just say so, instead of lying in wait for me, under my bed?"
Remy looks confused. "Where else should Remy lie in wait for you?" he asks.
"You –never mind," Kitty sighs. "What did you want to talk about?"
Remy pulls himself out from under the bed and collapses on top of it. Kitty rolls out of the way comfortably, like they lie next to each other in her bed every day.
Maybe they should, actually, Remy thinks, wriggling his shoulders. It's a great bed. Very squishy. Like lying in a cloud.
"Remy?" Kitty prompts.
He tears his thoughts away from the Cloud Bed and says mournfully, "Rogue."
Kitty says, "Oh, boy," and drags her pillow over her face. "What happened?" she asks.
"Remy don't have a Christmas present for her," he confesses.
Kitty laughs. "Is that all? Geez, I thought something terrible happened!"
"This is terrible!" Remy huffs. "Remy has to get Rogue a present. She'll think Remy forgot about her, or didn't care enough to get her something, or that–"
"Remy," Kitty interrupts. "I don't think Rogue is going to think you don't care about her if you forget to get her a Christmas present."
Remy rolls his eyes. Kitty is extremely smart about a lot of things, but in this case, Remy thinks he knows how this works. The Angel has probably gotten Rogue something amazing, and Remy can't stand for Rogue to think that Warren Worthington III cares more for her than Remy does.
It's absolutely not true, for one thing. Impossible, in fact.
"Just tell Remy what you think Rogue would like?" he asks. "You're her best friend, if anyone knows, it'll be you."
Kitty blows a big puff of air at the ceiling. Or, actually, at the underside of her pillow, which is still covering her face. "She likes jewelry," she says. "Like, that big clunky Goth stuff."
"Uhh," says Remy.
Kitty makes an impatient noise and flips her pillow away from her face. "Look, Rogue isn't exactly picky about presents, Remy. She likes fancy clothes and jewelry, but she also likes books and movies and those handmade leather boots Logan gave her one year. And like, she wore the torn-up band t-shirt I gave her our first Christmas in the mansion for years. Actually," she squints over at Rogue's side of the room, "I think she still wears it to bed sometimes."
"What was the band?" Remy asks.
"N'Sync," Kitty replies, with no noticeable shame. "Shut up," she adds, which, rude, Remy didn't say anything.
Except, "Remy didn't know Roguey liked N'Sync," he grumbles.
Kitty elbows him in the ribs, but gently, so he knows she means it in a nice way. "Justin Timberlake," she says, like that explains everything.
It kind of does. Remy can't really argue with Justin Timberlake.
"The point," Kitty gets to the point, "is that Rogue cares more about the meaning behind presents than about the presents themselves. She loves that old shirt because I gave it to her and I'm her best friend. She'll love anything you give her."
Remy gives her a skeptical look. "You may be her best friend, Kit-Kat, but Remy ain't even that," he says. "How do you know she'll even like a present from Remy?"
"Oh my god," Kitty says. "Get out of my room."
"What did Remy say?" he protests as he rolls off the bed and heads for the window.
"If you're just going to lie there and say stupid stuff, then you can do it in your own room. I don't have time for your ridiculous non-existent problems. I have my own Christmas present logistics to figure out."
Remy is a little hurt that Kitty isn't more sympathetic to his plight, but he knows an opening when he hears one. "Piotr likes classical literature done up in fancy covers," he offers, and then ducks out the window when Kitty throws her pillow at him.
000
Clearly, Remy needs some advice from different corners, so he seeks out, against his better judgment, Jubilee and Tabby.
Unfortunately, their suggestion is to get Rogue something completely outrageous, like a locket with his hair in it.
"Remy ain't giving his hair away to no Mississippi woman," he says grimly. "Not even to Rogue. Remy knows what happens to Cajun men who lose their hair to a woman."
Tabby and Jubilee look at each other in confusion. "Uh, don't you mean, 'lose their heart'?" Tabby asks.
"Non," Remy says, and goes to find less dangerous advice.
"Why are you asking me?" Wanda Maximoff asks when he finally reaches her. She sounds annoyed. This is fairly standard, so Remy doesn't worry much about it.
"Rogue likes you," he says. "And Remy thinks that, deep down, you like her too. And you've got similar taste in clothes and stuff, so you could probably point Remy towards something Roguey might want to have."
Wanda is silent on the phone for a second, then says, "Yeah, okay. Earrings."
"What?" he says, slightly shocked.
"Earrings," Wanda says, a touch impatiently. "Get Rogue earrings."
"Sorry," Remy says. "Remy ain't used to getting a straight answer that quickly."
"I can imagine," Wanda says darkly. They share a moment of commiseration for the rabbit-trails the X-Men go off on all the freaking time.
"Earrings?" Remy says. "Seriously?"
"Gold ones," Wanda adds. "Little hoops."
"Rogue has five holes in her ears," Remy says.
"So get her five earrings," Wanda says practically.
Remy doesn't know how to explain why that isn't the right present, especially since he suspects that it actually might be. It's a solid plan of action, something tangible that he knows Rogue will at least like, if not want to wear forever to bed.
Remy does not get distracted by thinking about what Rogue wears to bed. Well, not for long anyway.
He just isn't sure that five gold earrings are going to show Rogue that Remy loves her desperately, would die for her, would steal for her, would sit through Scott's pre-Danger Room training lectures for the chance to watch her face do the scrunchy thing when Scotty says something she thinks is stupid. That's an awful lot of emotion for earrings, even five of them.
"Merci, petite," he says finally. "Remy think about it."
"Sure, whatever," says Wanda. "Hey, Remy?"
"Mmm?" he says, not really listening, too busy scrolling through his mental phonebook looking for other present advisors.
"Me and the boys were thinking," she says.
"Yeah?"
She's hesitating, which normally would be cause for pause. Wanda Maximoff does not hesitate.
"The heat shut off because we didn't pay the bill because everyone's pay checks are being processed super slowly through the holidays which is stupid, but anyway, we don't have any electricity or heat and Lance said you guys may suck at fighting and stuff, but you're generally decent human beings, so anyway, we're all coming over to stay for Christmas. Like, in an hour." She says it all in one long rush of a sentence.
"Sounds good, petite," Remy says distractedly. "Listen, gotta go, but y'all drive safe on the road and ring the bell when you get here, 'kay? Bye."
He hangs up and smiles in satisfaction. Who says Remy can't do a good deed? Helping out sometime-enemies, sometime-friends is what Christmas is all about, right?
Possibly, it's actually about the birth of Jesus, but Remy is pretty sure Jesus is in favor of helping your enemies, so that's okay.
It's only when he's reached his own bedroom that he thinks maybe he should have asked the Professor if it's okay for the Brotherhood to come over for Christmas.
"Nah," he says aloud to his empty and mostly-unused room. "He won't mind."
But if Lance tries anything involving Kitty and mistletoe, Remy isn't going to be responsible for anyone's actions but his own.
Piotr and Rogue will have to get in line, though.
…FIVE GOLDEN RINGS! four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
A/N: Christmas Cacti are really called that, btw. For some reason the flowers are purple.
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Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own Miracle on 34th Street. Also I have not seen it.