Remy grunted with pain as Storm threw him down on one of the operating tables in the med lab.
"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't tried to escape from Pete and Warren when they brought you here the first time." She said simply.
"I. Don'. Like. Hospitals." He growled, clutching his shoulder. The fingerless gloves that he wore religiously were missing.
"Well, Mr. LeBeau," The big furry blue doctor that Storm had introduced as Hank McCoy said. "I will be the first to assure you that we mean you no harm down here. This place is for the betterment of all."
Remy snorted. "Dat's what they told me last time."
Storm looked at him sympathetically despite the fact she didn't know exactly what he meant. "It'll be alright." She smiled pleasantly at him. He rolled his eyes at her. "Besides, I got you a present." She reached over her shoulder and tossed him a bottle, which he caught with his still moveable arm deftly. The contents of the bottle sloshed around as if being awoken from a slumber. "At least you gave me a little bit of a heads up this time before you showed up and bled all over the place." She sighed.
"I knew I liked you." He commented to Storm while inspecting the bottle. "I mean, at one point I thought I liked you, but this seals it, I like you." He used his teeth as leverage to get the cap off of the bottle of bourbon and relieved the container of a good fraction of it's burden.
"Glad to hear it." Ororo smirked. "I'll be right back. I've got to go check on Bobby in the other room." She gave him a little wave as she disappeared out of the sectioned off rooms in favor of the one with the boy who had two fractured ribs, fractured scapula, mild internal bleeding, and a broken arm. Not to mention the broken nose and lovely shiner he had already cultivated beforehand.
Remy and his conscience had a good laugh just thinking about it, both of them agreeing this could count among his scant amount of good deeds.
Hank muttered something to himself as he rooted around in one of his cabinets.
"Whatcha lookin' f'r, Henry?" Remy craned his neck out of curiosity.
"Sedative." Hank stood back and scratched his head. "I could have sworn I had left it in there, next to the- Ah, there it is!" He grinned happily as he pulled a small glass container filled with clear liquid out of the recesses of the cabinet. "It's so hard to keep these things organized when all of the people authorized to use it are barely adults." He chuckled to himself as he opened a drawer to pick out a sterile needle.
Remy 's eyes grew as big as dinner plates.
"STORMY!" He felt like a bawling child running back to his mother for protection from the boogie man. "ORORO!"
"What?" She breathed as she came sprinting back into the room. "What's wrong, Remy?" She surveyed the room and immediately understood. "Hank," She said calmly. "Remy doesn't do needles."
"But, I need to relax the boy or his mutation might-."
"Hank," She cut him off. "Please try to understand. No needles."
Hank contemplated this for a moment, then nodded. "I suppose I'll just have to make do without, then. Is there any other way to get him to relax?"
They both turned to Remy in sync to watch him down the last of the bourbon.
"I think ahead." Storm smiled.
"Woman," Remy wiped his mouth with his bare arm. "It's gonna take a hell of a lot more than a cheap bottle of bourbon to get me to calm down!" He vowed, eyes burning.
Just then the doors to the med lab opened.
"Sorry," A flushed and slightly sweaty Rogue rushed in. "I had to go change right quick." She panted a little bit. "There was blood all over my gloves. I had to run there and back." She explained, pushing some damp white hair out of her eyes so that she could get a better look at Remy.
He knew he didn't look good. The ice spike had finished the job that the bone spike had started, stabbing all the way through the shoulder, though avoiding the artery there. Remy wondered if Bobby had done that on purpose or had simply misaimed. There was a lovely purple shade that had spread across his flesh in the area surrounding the swollen puncture. The fibers of the gauze that had been securely taped over the first wound were very nearly cemented to the newer one with fresh blood. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but his head was cloudy with the lack of blood and his limbs felt weighed down and slow. There were bruises all over his sides from where Bobby had struck him that were every color in the rainbow.
"It looks awful!" Rogue blanched and rushed over to his side.
Remy immediately relaxed his muscles and took on a more casual position so that she wouldn't actually see how much pain he was in. "I've had worse." He attempted to soothe her. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" She screeched, her arms drawn up to her chest in a fretting gesture, eyes wide with horror.
"Calm down, chere." He hushed gently. "Remy'll be fine." He promised as he took her hand and ran the pad of his thumb over her covered knuckles. They both paused a moment, enjoying the feeling of the other. Her wild emotions were coaxed back down into a manageable level as she watched the hypnotic motion of his finger over hers. He winced as he brought up his other hand to cradle her face, but gritted through it just do that he could get a good look at her eyes. "I promise." He mumbled to her.
She smiled faintly, but nodded her trust and took a deep, steadying breath.
He accepted this as the proper response and closed his eyes for a moment.
That's when Rogue saw it.
Perhaps it was because of the harsh lighting of the med lab or maybe how pale his features had become with all of the recent blood loss that allowed the paper-thin scars around his eyes that were normally invisible became more striking. They were obviously surgical in design based on the straight lines and sharp angles that they took . Planned and executed cleanly.
"What happened?" She asked before she could stop herself.
Remy's fingers left the grace of her hand and traced lightly over the scars as if he needed to be reminded they were still there.
"Apparently," He mumbled. "My eyes are very interestin'." The air of closure around the statement firmly told her that the subject of the scars around his eyes was closed.
"And these?" She recaptured his hand and ran her daintily encased fingers over the spider webbing of scar tissue that ran over his thumb and wrist.
"When my powers first manifested," He flexed his hand experimentally. "It took me a little by surprise."
"What about this one?" She traced what looked like a small cylindrical burn mark on his other arm.
"Julien's cigarette."
"Julien?" She interrupted with a quizzical look.
He cringed.
"Just a homme that didn't like me very much." He mumbled his answer.
"And this…" Rogue placed her hand hesitantly on his chest, smoothing her fingers over the jagged scar that stretched over a good portion of his chest as if it was still going to cause him pain. "How did you get this?"
He brought his hand up over hers and gently lifted it off of his chest and up to his lips.
"Now that, chere," Remy smiled. "That is a story."
"You'll have to tell it to me one day, Cajun." Rogue smiled faintly.
"Promise y' won't hate me after I'm finished tellin' it?" His smile was fainter than hers.
"As if I could hate you." She snorted.
"I dunno, chere," He eased himself back down into a vertical position. "I dunno..."
Ororo stood in the corner and watched the exchange. She watched Remy dole out answers that left Rogue feeling satisfied that she had received some information on him with out actually sacrificing any information at all.
"Rogue," She interrupted the both of them. They both jumped slightly and blinked up at her as if she were some novel thing they had not been expecting despite the fact she had been in the room the entire time. "I think that it's time to let Hank take care of Remy's shoulder, don't you?" She didn't wait for a response before she shooed the girl out of the room. "Maybe you can go check on Bobby." She suggested before proverbially 'slamming' the sliding door in the girl's face.
When Storm turned back to Remy her eyes were snow white.
"Uh- I - uh-," Hank stuttered. "Perhaps I should finish with the boy's shoulder before we have whatever inevitable discussion is next?" He suggested hopefully.
If only someone had heard him.
"You. Are. RIDICULOUS!" Storm threw her hands up in the air.
"What?" He backed up his back into the wall next to the table. "What'd I do?""You can't even answer her questions about scars? Scars, Remy! Scars!" Storm was moments and the physical barrier of Hank McCoy away from strangling him. "What on earth could she do with that information that could hurt you?" She demanded. "Are you just to afraid to let her in? She trusts you and you can't even tell her about scars!"
Remy could think of a lot of things that the girl could do to make him hurt, none of which he felt like sharing with Ororo.
"I just…" He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I just don' wan' 'er t' know who -what- I actually am. Though I kinda think I let the cat outa de bag on dat one when I was 'bout t' blow up de ice jackass."
Storm took a deep breath and counted to forty-nine before she could squelch the urge to kill him.
"She couldn't hear you." Ororo sighed. "You were talking to low and there were to many explosions. That is still a little secret between you, me, and I guess now Bobby. "
Remy's eyes flashed.
Bobby.
"If we are quite done with this," Hank interrupted. "I'd very much like to sew up your shoulder before you die."
"Oh…" Remy looked at his shoulder, having almost forgotten that there was a hole through it. "Sure thing, Henry." He laid himself out on the table again, forcing his muscles to relax.
"Anything else you would like to add before I attempt to actually heal the boy, Ororo?" Hank turned to the weather witch.
She nodded and made her way to Remy's side. She traced the scar on his chest dully with one hand.
"Don't hurt her."
"Should I…" Remy swallowed thickly. "Should I tell 'er?"
"I think so…" Ororo mumbled and then stood. "But, Remy, the choice is yours. You can be the good guy, or you can be the one that's going to get stabbed to death by Logan."
"Y' ain't leavin' me with much of a choice 'ere." He tried to joke.
"Didn't want to." Storm smirked. "Just remember - Lighting, unfriendly places…"
"I get it!"
Outside of the door, Rogue sighed heavily, contemplating trying to get back into the room. Her hand hovered above the door for a moment, poised to knock, but she eventually decided against causing any more mayhem in the room and keeping Remy from the attention he required.
She hesitated another half a second before walking away, completely unaware of the sharp eyes that followed her.
Riptide toyed around with the wires in his hands, the small bits of the electronics that they had belonged to still clung to some of them. The hunter instinct inside of him kept him concealed in the shadows as he stalked his two prey.
The first step of successfully breaking a spirit is to find out what they love most…
… And then killing it…
-
Argh- Sorry this is so short and doesn't really do anything and Im sorry that I haven't updated in a while (I was busy dying of a *duh duh duhh* MEDICAL MYSTERY!) But I'm back (ish) and healthy (sorta) and ready to write (as always!)