: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART THREE : CONSCIENCE
(11) - Pinpricks -
Winter 2009 - Autumn 2010
x
He couldn't remember the name of the girl he'd been with when he'd got the call. Very probably she'd been called Cindy or Susan, since he seemed to recall he'd been with someone of a similar name the previous summer. She'd been red-haired and freckled, but he'd liked her for her green eyes more than anything else - brazen, laughing ones, not smoky, sad ones.
It had been some time in early June; the weather had been pleasant, but not terribly hot yet - the days had been getting steadily longer, which meant that his night-time shifts were getting pushed back later and later. He didn't mind so much. It meant he got more time to mess around during the day.
His cell phone had gone off on her nightstand about five times before he'd finally got round to answering it.
"Yo," greeted that perennially cheap and cheerful male voice. "Remy, man, what took you so long? I've been tryin' to call you the past half hour or so."
"Sorry," Remy replied with only a cursory stab at tactfulness. "I've been kinda busy."
Lying in bed beside him, the redhead was snuggling up to him with the satisfied expression of a cat that'd got the cream.
"Oooh," came the knowing reply on a short laugh. "Gotcha. I'm glad to know one of us is still havin' a good time these days."
"Don't tell me - she dumped you?"
"Let's not talk about it." For a moment, the cheerfulness had completely gone out of the voice. "From now on, I'm gonna be a strictly free agent. Relationships are depressin', man."
"Den dere's a simple solution, homme - don't get into them."
"Which is how you always manage t' score, huh?"
He slung his arm over the shoulder of the redhead, stroked her upper arm absently.
"Uh huh. So what exactly is it dat you so desperately wanted t' call me about?"
"Well," (and the cheerfulness had now completely returned), "you remember that side project you were talkin' about a few months back? You know, the one about that girl? Well, surprisingly, I've actually made some headway."
That got his attention.
"You've found her?" he said.
"Well, I saw her. That don't mean I know where she lives or what she does for a livin'. Yet."
"You know I don't wanna know about dat stuff. Where did you see her? When?" he asked rather more urgently than he'd meant to. Beside him, the redhead had stirred.
"Outside some swanky apartment in Long Island the other night. Looks like she was on some sorta mission or somethin'." He paused, added animatedly: "Man, she is cute."
He grinned.
"I told you so. But hands off. She's mine."
"Yeah." The voice was now faintly sarcastic. "I kinda guessed. So that's what this is all about, huh? Some sorta weird form of stalkin'? Maybe I should get you onto my girl for me, Rems - perhaps then she'll come back t' me."
"Peh. Dat'll be de day. No way I'm gettin' involved in your affairs, homme, gettin' involved in my own is bad enough." He paused momentarily. "So - you seen her again since den?"
"I'm workin' on it. The geo profile's gonna take some time, Remy, you know how it is. Gotta figure out her pattern first… It ain't gonna be easy. But I've got her mark now. Man, have I got her mark," he finished wistfully.
"Hmm," Remy sounded wryly. "Well, just keep me in de loop, d'accord? I'll let you know when I'm gonna make a move."
"Will do. In the meantime, have fun and don't work too hard, okay?"
"Don't worry, I won't."
"Yeah, I know - you never do."
"It's de secret t' my success."
"Naturally. Speak to you later, Rems."
"See yah."
He ended the call and threw the phone back onto the nightstand.
"Her?" Cindy/Susan spoke up suspiciously. "A girl?"
He grinned easily.
"Just a job, chere," he answered without hesitation, without even a flicker of the eye. The redhead pouted, then relented.
"So, what exactly is it you do again?"
"Not'ing int'restin'," he answered flippantly, idly brushing a loose lock of hair from her cheek before pulling the covers aside and stepping out of bed. "I guess you could say I'm in de missin' persons business."
"Oh? And this girl… she's gone missing?" she mumbled on a yawn. He stepped into his boxers and crossed the room, going for a fresh packet of cigarettes.
"Yup."
"Oh. Cool."
She'd already lost interest. When he looked back, she'd turned over and was huddled back under the covers.
"Mind if I use your shower?" he asked. She merely hummed her assent.
When he came out again ten minutes later, she was already fast asleep. Taking the opportunity, he dressed quickly, and left without once looking back.
-oOo-
It'd become a new form of obsession to him, something to keep him going through the day, a new kind of cheap thrill.
It was the thrill of knowing that somewhere out there she was alive, and that moreover she was traceable, watchable, attainable. All through summer, all through autumn she was at the back of his mind, egging him on to bigger and riskier heists; he was being more reckless, getting injured more, but it was good, it was a gleeful and masochistic sense of victory over something he couldn't even describe. Over time, a distinct pattern began to emerge - she'd show up here, and then there, and then back here again; her network of associates was determined, her potential targets established.
He of course, didn't care for any of these things. Just as long as he could be told when and where to find her, none of the rest mattered to him. He was weaving a secret web around her and she wasn't even aware of it; he was hunting her down, ghosting her every step without even being near her. He got a buzz, a rush out of this fact more than anything - that he seduced her without even so much as a touch or a kiss. She was going to be his in every sense of the word - no movement she made could ever escape him should he so wish.
And yet, he couldn't help the curious sense that she was the one baiting him, that he was the one being drawn into her web, and that she was the widow spider, lying in wait for him, calm and voluptuous, at the centre.
x
It had only been a few days into December when he had made the decision.
He'd woken up in the early afternoon with a raging hangover - the job the previous night had been shitty and after delivering the goods he'd spent the remainder of the night drowning his sorrows in some beer he'd purloined from a 7-Eleven on the way home. When he'd woken up, the first thing he'd thought about was her. He was bored of waiting. He needed some balm for the previous night and the best way to get that was to see her again.
She always made him think of the better days they'd shared - the days back at the mansion with Xavier's fucked up brood, days when he'd almost successfully kidded himself into believing there was something better, before they had so cruelly been cut short.
It was a little balm for his aching soul, and that day he'd wanted it.
The cheap and cheerful male voice had been even more cheerful than usual when he'd rung him up, which led him to suppose that he and 'his girl' had got back together.
"Yo, Remy, whassup?" was the never-changing greeting, one of the few peculiar constants in Remy's life. He'd gone to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, popped a few more pills. He wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.
"My side project. Got any updates?"
"Man, Rems, you sound rough. What happened last night?"
He didn't want to talk about it.
"Not'ing. Just wanna hear 'bout my side project, homme."
Something in his voice had communicated that this was more than just business. There was a deep breath on the line before the reply came.
"She's on the move. Tonight."
"Bon," Remy returned decidedly. He shut the cabinet, stared at himself in the mirror. Jesus, he looked like shit. "Look, I wanna make contact. Can you arrange a meet?"
"Sure. She'll be at the FoH Headquarters at eight p.m. tonight. Looks like this is gonna be a big one. I would warn you to stay out of it, Rems, but somethin' tells me -"
"No, I'm not gonna wait. It's contact t'night or never."
"Rems…"
"T'anks for de concern, mon ami, but it ain't needed. Her mission is her business, I ain't gonna pry. I just wanna meet. Okay?"
"Okay," came the wary reply. "But, man, this girl's got eyes. And I know how you get with the girls who've got eyes."
"Trust me. I ain't gonna pry."
Sometimes, he forgot Storm's old advice that it was a bad idea to make promises he couldn't keep.
-oOo-
He had gone to the FoH Headquarters at a quarter to eight and hung around in the shadows, his stomach churning with impatience and lust. He'd figured if he was going to bust in, it would've been through a back utility door, and sure enough, at eight o'clock on the dot, there she'd appeared. He'd had every intention of hanging around and waiting for her to come out again, but as soon as she'd disappeared into the building, his curiosity had got the better of him and he'd followed her in. She was tense, she was wary, but she was focused. If he had been less of a thief perhaps she would have noticed he was tailing her, but he could be a ghost when he wanted to be and she noticed nothing.
But when he'd realised it was Kincaid she was after, he should've known that then was the time to back away, if any.
He hadn't.
Killing Kincaid had meant little to him; what concerned him was the fact that it meant something to her.
Contrary to what she may have believed, he didn't kill for sport, and he didn't kill without reason. He killed Kincaid because she wouldn't; he killed him to protect her.
And from the very moment he'd done so, he'd plunged himself into something deeper than he'd ever intended to get himself into.
It didn't mean that he didn't think Rogue was naïve and emotional and foolish. Her naivete irritated him, her sensitivity was something he found redundant, even dangerous in their line of work. And yet her innocence was part of what attracted him to her - it always had done. While it frustrated him that she still clung so stubbornly onto Xavier's legacy, it was also a source of comfort to him, something that he wished to protect in her at all costs - because it was an innocence that he'd lost himself. A radical, a militant and a dissident Rogue may be, but she wasn't a cold-blooded killer, and somehow, that made all the difference. It was something he wished to preserve in her as far as he could. That was why he had killed Kincaid. That was why he had pulled the trigger.
And he would again, if it would keep Xavier's flame burning inside her.
Still, out of the Kincaid disaster, he'd managed to get what he'd gone there for. She hadn't been able to resist him - he'd known she wouldn't. He'd taken her back to the safe house because somehow it'd seemed right, even though he hadn't stepped a foot within its four walls since he'd last been there with her. She'd been nervous, uncertain, standing in the middle of the room solitary and forlorn, a strange little girl with nowhere to go and no one to run to. He was her refuge, as she was his.
He'd placed his hands on her arms and smiled at her as encouragingly as he could. The smile she'd replied with had wavered on her lips like a candle flickering in the night. He'd kissed that smile, slow, unhurried, and she'd trembled under his touch; she kissed like a novice, self-consciously, and he found her inexperience endearing, arousing even. It was one of the things he liked most about being with her - that with her everything seemed meaningful, sincere, wistful and romantic. To him, nothing had felt like this in years - romance was a dead thing. But somehow, in the midst of the grim and monotonous horrors that encompassed everyday life, she had managed to remain untouched and unspoiled, a quiet little flame burning away in an unknown and neglected corner, one that seemed to burn just for him.
He was greedy. He wanted it all to himself, even if only for just one night of whimsical escapism.
-oOo-
He hadn't slept.
He'd lain in the darkness, listening to the regular sound of her breathing, watching her sleep. He dozed off at odd intervals, but whenever he awoke her face had been there, clear and untroubled. She was very beautiful. He hadn't touched her for fear of waking her and spoiling it all.
At about five thirty she'd woken. He hadn't wanted the softness of kisses, the carelessness of pillow talk. It had been far easier to feign sleep. He hadn't moved, hadn't blinked when he felt her touch his face, running a finger over his cheek with a tenderness he'd never wanted nor asked for. And when he'd heard her break down, when she'd moved away and gone to the window, it was as if a coldness had filled him from head to toe.
Her tears had been completely soundless, but he'd known that she was crying. He'd watched her weep at the window feeling awkward, knowing he was witnessing something more private, more personal than anything else he'd witnessed yet from her, and that in watching her he was crossing a boundary he had no right to cross. And yet, it was not only embarrassment that filled him. It was also anger. Anger at her weakness, anger at her sentimentality, anger that she cried for him. He didn't want it. He didn't want her affection, he didn't want her tears, and he didn't want her love. He wanted her to be strong, he wanted her to be as ruthless and impenetrable as he was. That she allowed herself to cry was a betrayal of the trust he'd placed in her, the trust that their meetings would be nothing more than pure indulgence.
And so he made no move to go to her, to comfort her. He'd made his terms clear; if she couldn't abide by them, he had no sympathy for her. He wasn't about to be guilt-tripped into a love affair with her.
The next morning he'd woken up still feeling angry. He'd shouted at her, very nearly smashed a few things and walked out hoping he never had to see her again.
It took him all of two months to change his mind.
-oOo-
The winter of 2009 gave way to the spring of 2010; Remy celebrated the New Year and a new decade by getting horribly drunk. All in all, he entered 2010 in just about the worst way possible. Ashamed, alone and completely paralytic. After the way he'd bowed out of 2009, he reckoned it was the least he deserved.
He woke up the next afternoon sprawled out on the sofa, several bottles of whiskey littered about the floor around him. He got up painfully, vomited violently and showered. He couldn't stomach breakfast, so he got some coffee and rifled through the newspaper. He didn't read the newspaper much these days - but that day he'd had a specific reason to look.
He found it on page fifteen, in a small column underneath another short article about the Sentinel Mark 3 project being delayed due to technical problems.
'MUTANT KIDNAPPER STILL AT LARGE'.
Remy scanned the article quickly, but found very little of interest. A mutant activist had broken into a little-known juvenile internment camp on the outskirts of the city and abducted one of the inmates. The current whereabouts of both the kidnapper and the captive were a mystery, despite the police, the military and Hounds all being put on the case. The article was very brisk, very terse, and gave no more news on the matter.
Remy took a swig of coffee and flipped back to the front page. The Kincaid murder was still headline news. Headway on the subsequent murder investigation was slow and incompetent - people were now calling for a public inquiry, they wanted to know if it was an inside job, if security shouldn't be tighter, whether the militia shouldn't be doing something more about mutant terrorists. Kincaid, they said, had always been a champion of baseline human rights - he was a natural target for radical mutant groups, he should've been better protected. Even those fancy new power nullifiers based on state-of-the-art nano-technology hadn't been good enough to save him. What was needed was more internment camps. The last of the mutant radicals needed to be flushed out and sent to the gas chamber. They'd been tolerated long enough. Might as well kill the others in the internment camps too - people like the X-Men were still mutant figureheads, they could still cause trouble.
It was the usual anti-mutant hyperbole, but underneath it all Remy could see one thing very clearly - nothing much had been discovered about the case. No one knew about him or Rogue. Yet.
Remy closed the paper again disdainfully, got up and went for the Tylenol. He was as annoyed with himself as he was with the media. After all, if he hadn't been such an idiot last month he wouldn't have had to read the stupid papers anyway. Killing Kincaid had been one thing. Almost getting caught on a job had been another. It had been the first time he'd allowed his emotions to get in the way of his work, and it had almost cost him everything - his better judgement, his freedom, his life. He'd even had to move apartments a couple of times because of it, and a month down the line he was still lying low on the business front. His employer hadn't called in weeks as a precaution. But all that was neither here nor there. What bothered him more acutely was that, five weeks on, the case still left a bitter taste in his mouth and he knew it'd be a while before the nightmares disappeared completely.
He should've known from the moment his boss had told him he had to go to a juvenile internment camp that the whole exercise had been bad news. But he'd still gone and done it because he was reliable and he never turned down a job - it was what he prided himself in, the fact that he would do any job, however grey, no questions asked. But he hadn't been prepared for this.
It was only when he'd been looking at his target on the other side of prison bars that he'd had any idea what he was letting himself in for.
His name was Leech.
He was little more than a child; it must've been only a year or so since his powers had first manifested. He was ugly and stunted, horribly deformed, more alien than human, a true mutant in every sense. And yet, as he had sat hunched at the back of his cell, staring back at Remy without even simple curiosity, there had been something in his eyes that suggested something more human than Remy had ever seen, even in himself. It wasn't the resignation, it wasn't even the anguish. It was the pleading in that boy's eyes that had tied knots in Remy's stomach, the pleading to be delivered from the torment he endured daily, to a life he could simply call 'normal'.
It was something Remy hadn't been able to offer him.
Leech knew suffering. It was a kind of suffering most mutants didn't experience, even mutants double his age. Leech was precious to the military because of one crucial thing - his mutant power. He had the ability to cancel out other mutant's powers.
It was a power that Leech had never asked for, nor that he had ever found of any particular use. But to the military, it was a godsend - it was an effective way of stopping other mutants from accessing their own powers. Leech was their weapon; he was forced to watch his own kind be tortured while he stripped them of their powers. It was their screams that lulled him to sleep most nights in bed, when he grappled with the knowledge that, at thirteen, he was nothing, he was worse than nothing, lower than the low - he was a mutant, and a traitor of mutants; he was the torturer and the tortured.
It was precisely this power to negate mutant powers that had made him so precious to Remy's employer.
Being faced with the eyes of a young child had made Remy reckless, even lose his nerve. Men, even women he could do - but children were a different matter. How could he free this boy from bondage and turn him over to bondage of a different kind? For the first time, Remy had questioned himself. And it was that hesitation that could've cost him his life and his sanity. It was only when he'd realised that surveillance had spotted him that he'd made up his mind. He'd broken into the cell, unshackled the prisoner.
Leech hadn't moved.
In the end he'd had to take the boy over his shoulder and carry him out. It'd slowed him down, made him more conspicuous. He hadn't had time to free anyone else as he'd first intended. By the time he'd got to the perimeter fence he'd been jumped on by four guards and beaten up pretty bad. How he'd managed to get both himself and the boy out had been more a fluke than down to any skill on his part - it made him shudder just to think about it.
But what haunted him, what made him shudder the most was the last look Leech had given him before they'd parted.
The wounded, accusing stare of the mute.
Afterwards he'd gone to the 7-Eleven, stolen some beer and come home wasted.
The next morning he'd woken up and decided he needed to see Rogue again.
-oOo-
It was early February when his boss finally called him again. He didn't know whether to be glad or upset. He didn't need to be employed to be happy - in the couple of months he'd been jobless, he'd got back in touch with his thieving instincts, thus making his living in other, equally dubious ways - but on the other hand he felt tied to his employer in a less than genial way, as if he was being threatened to remain in their service. That was why, ultimately, he always went back, even if the incident with Leech had somehow subtly changed him.
Thankfully his new assignments were less risky, both physically and emotionally, which was a good thing because his taste for breaking out and freeing mutants had waned. Consequently he spent most of his days wandering listlessly and picking random pockets. After all those years keeping feverishly busy, this was a loss of purpose that was alien to him.
On Valentine's Day, Murray was away on business.
Remy paid a visit to Rita, who was in a more morose mood than usual, but she didn't kick him out after all. As soon as he'd walked in the door, he knew it was probably a mistake going to see her, but then again, he figured they both needed a little solace that day, even if they could only find it in each other. Besides, he hadn't seen her in months.
It was all very listless and pointless; afterwards they sat up in bed and barely said a word. Even Rita seemed reluctant to elaborate on her problems. Ever since their last encounter, something had shifted between them - it was like shooting at a target board askance. It had taken something out of the pleasure of their association. Perhaps it was because the true nature of their relationship had now been revealed to them in stark and certain terms - he'd divulged a very personal part of himself that he'd divulged to nobody else, and in a way, it made him uneasy to know that Rita knew one of his innermost secrets.
"So," she asked, when even the silence had begun to depress them. "Did you ever find her? That girl?"
Remy stared into the bottom of his ashtray and gave a non-committal grunt of agreement. It was Valentine's Day, and he didn't want to think about Rogue. He regretted the way they'd parted last December. It wasn't her fault she was so idealistic, and after all, he was the one who'd gone chasing after her.
"Yeah," he said at last. "I found her."
"How was it?" she probed.
"I dunno. De novelty wore off pretty fast."
"Oh," she said. He made no further elucidation, placed the ashtray aside, and got out of bed. He felt restless - he often did, but not for stretches this long. Even work had lost its buzz. He'd never felt this directionless in his life.
"Wanna talk about it?" she asked. He stepped up beside the window, opened it as he often did, and looked out. Rain was pouring in thick slats, filling the room with the raw tang of moisture and ozone.
"I dunno," he muttered.
"It might help," she remarked matter-of-factly. He looked back over his shoulder. She was lying on her stomach, her white, freckled skin glimmering against the dark blue comforter. She had every appearance of a very pampered feline.
"Fuck you, Rita, you ain't my shrink," he mumbled uncharitably.
"Didn't stop you from spillin' last time," she noted wryly. "What happened? Did she reject you?"
He looked away, laughing humourlessly at the rain. "Heh. Who ever heard of it? A woman who rejected Remy LeBeau?"
"Maybe it'd do you some good if someone did," she pointed out sardonically. "It might make you a more sensitive person."
"I'm very sensitive," he retorted acidly, annoyed at her words. "Don't I always know exactly what you want whenever I come here?"
"That's a different kind of sensitivity, Remy." He heard her roll over onto her back. "So did she? Reject you, I mean?"
The rain was getting heavier, so heavy he could barely peer through it. Reject him? Hardly. If anything he was the one who'd rejected her, and yet, having just slept with Rita he was being mysteriously haunted by memories of kissing that beautiful, soft mouth, of feeling the electricity he got when she closed her eyes and kissed him back…
"Non," he answered in a sudden, vehement rush without thinking. "I told her to fuck off. Stupid femme was takin' everyt'ing too seriously. I got pissed 'cos I did her a favour. And before you say it, no, not de sexual kind. I did somet'ing big for her and she was fuckin' ungrateful. She wanted more when she knew I couldn't give anymore. And she knew from de beginnin' dat I couldn't - she knows de deal b'tween us. I ain't gonna be guilt-tripped into a relationship wit' anyone."
He halted and took in a deep breath. There. He'd said it. He'd said it all and he was surprised to feel relieved that he'd actually talked about it, that he'd actually vented his frustration in some fashion. Behind him, Rita laughed, deep and sexy.
"Remy, baby, surely you're savvy enough to know that something like this was bound to happen sometime? The girls are crazy about you!"
"You're not."
"Of course I'm not. I already love someone else. That doesn't make me immune to your charms, but it makes me immune to fallin' in love with your sorry ass."
"Pfft. Dis femme knows de score. She knows how t'ings work b'tween people like us."
"Yeah, whatever," she retorted disdainfully. "But get a woman together with a man like you, and logic is bound to be blown outta the window. It ain't just the sex appeal, Remy. It ain't even the bad boy appeal. You've got a certain something else that drives girls crazy. Just a look from your eyes and you can make them believe they're the one. Do you even realise that?"
He shook his head.
"Dis girl ain't like dat. She knows me. She's just bein' stubborn. God knows she was always so goddamn stubborn." He sighed, a little of the rancour going out of him. "Guess I can't blame her for dat. She was always dat way. Always so damn emotional. Never met anyone wit' so much self-pity. I remember, once she said -"
He halted abruptly mid-sentence, realising that he'd just been about to recount something he'd never repeated to anyone, let alone a casual acquaintance like Rita. Her face in the dimness, those questing green eyes staring at him through the smoky haze of a dimly lit bar, so serious, so earnest, so wonderfully disarming, so disarmingly child-woman…
Ah first used mah powers when Ah was thirteen. And when Ah did… Ah changed. Haven't felt like mah old self since then. Ah'm just Rogue. That's all.
Rogue and yet so much more.
He wondered whether the voices in her head still screamed at her at night.
"What did she say?" Rita asked indifferently, lighting up a cigarette in the background. A gust of wind blew up by the window; rain sprinkled against his face, cool as sea-spray.
"Doesn't matter," he murmured.
"You still angry at her?" she asked.
"Kind of. Sometimes, I just wish she'd wake up, you know? She's still so… so old world. Still so morally black and white, even when she knows it could get her killed."
"And you just wanna protect her from that?" Rita half-queried, half-stated. He paused, and thought about it, not for the first time unnerved by Rita's astuteness. He turned away from the window. Rita was lying on her back, pale and voluptuous.
"Yeah," he replied at last. "I guess a part of me does. And de other part just wants to shake all dat old world shit outta her."
"Why bother?" Rita advised him evenly. "Maybe she clings to what she does because it's what keeps her going. Just like sex and cigarettes and kleptomania are what keep you going. Different things are precious to different people. One day, she'll learn - the hard way."
There was an ominous quality to her voice that made him shudder instinctively. Outside, the rainfall had now grown into a storm. He pulled the window to; the wind and rain pelted against the pane, incessant and violent. He walked over to the bed and slid over Rita's long-limbed and shapely body, closed his eyes, kissed her pale pink lips, and this time there was an emotion inside him, one he couldn't place…
He paused, hesitating; and then her fingers were in his hair, stroking him, sympathetic, encouraging…
"It's okay…" she whispered into his ear, "I know, Remy. That when you fuck me… she's the one you'll be making love to."
-oOo-
It was May when he went back to the safe house.
He hadn't stepped a foot in there since December, and when he turned the key in the lock and pushed the rickety, creaking door aside, a part of him half suspected that she would still be in there, waiting.
She wasn't.
Of course she wasn't.
The room was inhabited only by dust and a faint, musty odour. The bed sheets were still crumpled on the mattress the way they had been when he'd left, when she'd stood right there with them gathered, snow white, at her feet. She was gone; she'd always been gone.
Silently he dropped the heavy pack at his feet, turned, and locked and bolted the door. Then he went over to the mattress, bent down on one knee and curled his fist into it, raised it to his face, closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. It still smelt of her, very faintly. Orange blossom and vanilla. She had lain right here that night, on her stomach, looking at the wall, trying desperately to ignore him when all the while her body had been screaming to him so painfully it had been obvious.
He opened his eyes again, dropped the fistful of linen, and set about straightening it. Then he went back over to his pack lying in the middle of the floor, and unzipped it. Methodically he unpacked its contents - towels, a kettle, an electric heater, a lamp. When he had done this, he zipped up the bag again and stared at the items laid out in an orderly row across the floor. He felt strange, looking at such ordinary household items in the middle of such a small, dreary space. What was he doing here, why was he doing this? What was the point?
It wouldn't do to ask questions. He simply switched off his mind the same way he switched it off whenever he had to kill someone and got to work arranging the various items around the room. Five minutes later, he was done. He went to the window and opened it a little to take away the stale odour of disuse, then looked about at his handiwork. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. Stupid, stupid, he thought. It had been dangerous, coming here without any real necessity. Even taking her here for nothing more than sex was dangerous, and yet it seemed right to do it, to do this.
He didn't want to stay a moment longer than he had to. Quietly he shut the window again, picked up the empty pack, and unbolted the door.
He turned just once before he pulled open the door and stepped over the threshold. Having secured the dingy apartment once more, he slipped away as silent as a revenant into the night. Some time, maybe in a month or two, he would return.
But for now, it was back to business.
-oOo-
He went back two or three more times, each time with something different in his pack. Spring slipped into summer, weary, sluggish… By autumn she was on his mind most days, and more than just a few nights. He would dream of her, dream of running his hands over that silky sea of skin, of sinking his body into it and…
He would wake up slick and aroused, panting, feeling an acute and penetrating sense of loss. She would lie there with him almost every night, silent and ghostly, invisible arms about him, fuelling his lust, his desire.
And yet he possessed nothing of her, not even her name. No physical connection by way of an address written on a small scrap of paper that he could horde in his wallet. No photo - the only photo he'd seen of her had been on Xavier's desk in his office years ago, an informal group affair that had stared at him every time he'd sat across that desk awaiting a stern reprimand for some minor misdemeanour or another. He had very few memories to speak of - their acquaintance during their time with the X-Men had spanned little more than a year, and they'd never really got closer than a few casual dates. He didn't even know basic things about her. What was her favourite food, her favourite colour, her favourite place? All he knew for sure was what she presented him with whenever he encountered her. The insular reflectiveness, the childlike uncertainty, the tentative tokens of affection; the way she kissed him, shy, self-conscious; the malleable smoothness of her body against his; the softness of her cries as she clung to him, as she orgasmed with him…
The way she called his name.
It was all he had.
It wasn't nearly enough and he needed more.
x
Mid-November would have been temperate if it had not been so windy. The grey, grimy streets of New York City were windswept, dying leaves and stray plastic bags zooming down the sidewalks faster than thought.
That day, Remy stepped out of a local convenience store, pocketed the cigarettes, condoms and cards he'd just bought, and stared out over the skyline. A convoy of Sentinels was patrolling a street several blocks down, their perfectly symmetrical and dispassionate faces looming over the skyscrapers, menacing and omnipotent. No doubt the military would be nearby as well. It was best if he went back to his apartment right now - for a mutant to be seen on the streets by a patrol was to invite a stop-and-search at the very least, and that was the last thing Remy needed.
He lit up a cigarette from the new packet and pivoted on his foot, began walking in the general direction of his apartment with an outwardly unruffled yet hurried pace. To be seen rushing anywhere was suspicious in the vicinity of a patrol. Many people had had the same idea as him; the streets had suddenly become flooded with people eager to move out of the path of the Sentinels. Even baseline humans preferred to stay out of their way. Nevertheless Remy kept up his relatively calm pace - ten minutes at least and he'd be home.
It was then that the scream pierced the air, shrill and plaintive, neither discernibly male or female; it could not have been closer than a couple of blocks away, and yet that one sound sent everyone on the street into a wordless frenzy. Even the statics were suddenly running, looking back over their shoulders with worried, hunted expressions over their faces - whatever the trouble was, no one wanted to be part of it, it was a group consensus between both baseline human and mutant that no one should be involved. Within a few seconds, Remy was part of a huge, swimming crowd, being jostled this way and that - he was literally swept along on the tide of bodies towards the end of the street.
It was just as he'd resigned himself to this that someone bumped into him from behind, ran past him, and back into the crowd. For a split second he caught a streak of white hair, the unmistakable scent of a woman. It was only a split second, he had barely seen a thing, no face, no form, but at the sight of that white streak of hair something inside him had inexplicably burst into flame, and his heart was suddenly thudding painfully, he was picking up his pace, he was pushing into the throng, elbowing people aside, swallowing down the urge to call out her name for fear he might give her away…
And suddenly he'd broken out of the front of the crowd, and there she was, only a few metres in front with her back to him, arm outstretched, hair streaming out behind her…
"Tommy!" she called in a strange, high-pitched voice he didn't recognise.
A little fair-haired boy was cowering in the middle of the sidewalk, and Rogue was bending down onto both knees, her arms encircling the small child, crushing him against her bosom in a motherly, protective embrace; she was sobbing, rocking him, cradling him…
She opened her eyes and they were brown.
As soon as he saw her eyes it was as though his heart had been ripped from his chest.
It wasn't her.
"Tommy, you naughty boy, I told you not to run away from me like that, don't do that again Tommy, promise mommy you won't ever do that again…"
She stood, still cradling the weeping boy against her, and he saw that her body was wrong, the way she walked, the way she held herself was all wrong… And the face, it wasn't only the eyes, the lips were too thin, too wide… Stupid, stupid, he'd been a fool to believe it was her…
He stood there, rooted to the middle of the sidewalk, feeling drained, deflated, as if the flame inside him - the flame that had burst into life so quickly - had simply been snuffed out in a moment. The crowd had caught up with him, were pushing past him; but he remained there, watching the woman carry her child away; watching Rogue walk away from him, watching Leech walk away from him, watching everything walk away from him.
-oOo-
-END OF PART THREE-
A/N: Wow. You guys have been so generous with your reviews. I do so enjoy reading the speculation, so I certainly won't object to more of the same. ;) BTW, Remy's memories of past Rogue will become important later, so watch out for that. And next chapter Rogue will face one last line to cross - not a particularly pleasant one (since when have they ever been), but it's something that will come back to haunt her (and Remy) later - in more ways than one.
Lastly - with many thanks, a treat for all you fab guys:- deviation/39112309/
-Ludi x