Silver Claws and Cat Tails
Abby Ebon
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Disclaimer; I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own X-Men.
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Mutants-By-Night
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Harry was left standing, baffled, behind Lance, both staring across at Pyro who even as they watched seemed to pick up the broken pieces of himself and walked away. Silently, Lance followed him – and Harry was left with little choice but to follow after.
What, Harry wondered as he glanced only once over his shoulder, was that all about?
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"He…isn't usually like that." For a moment, Harry hadn't been sure if Lance had spoken, but when the taller boy glanced down at him to catch his reaction, it became fairly obvious that he had been talking to him. Which was something of a relief, he wasn't sure about the mental stability of one of his roommates, and he surely didn't want to be the only one sane walking about.
"Remy?" Harry asked then, just to be sure they were talking about the same "he", but not quite wanting to meet their eyes. There was something frayed around the edges, as if they were weary and worn out, and they were far too young to know that ageless wariness.
Your one to judge, Harry thought to himself feeling that dulled edge – Hermione and Ron, after the war, had kept him from going about wishing for death, it didn't seem possible that there could be others who felt the way he did – yet, there were, and he was facing the facts – he wasn't alone. He didn't know how he should feel about that.
"Yeah, right…as if he's usually so much more reasonable." Pyro bit out sarcastically, Lance sneered at the red haired youth, teeth gleaming in the evening light that lit the dim hallway of the old – should have been abandoned and knocked down - house.
"Give it a rest. You know better then I do what he used to be like. If I can see that he's improved – you've got to have as well." Lance spat out, their eyes caught and held – it was a moment, but it was all Harry needed to know that Pyro had noticed the difference a getting "better" – whatever worse had been, Harry did not want to know - but it was there, out in the open.
Pyro was afraid of that "for better" change. Harry did not know why – and he held his tongue to keep form asking. There could always be questions later, for now tempers were being tightly leashed. For all that Pyro seemed to hold his emotions on a short leash, Harry know – in a way he sensed, not through magic or mystic means – but through body language, that this show of fear sparked anger was fed by something worse, something that fueled every emotion Pyro couldn't help but show – what it was, Harry almost did not want to know.
Didn't want to know what could happen to a person to make them feel something so strongly – so inescapably – that in filled every moment of their lives, an emotion that fed them and fed off them – it reminded Harry of a parasite. Not one that was mutually beneficial – but something that burned you out and left you a husk, so much like the fire Pyro manipulated.
That's not exactly fair, Harry mused as he climbed the stairs behind the other two, when a fire burns out, it gives things a chance to grow that might have had the life snuffed out of them.
Nonetheless, it could not be coincidence that the mutation seemed to mimic the traits and characteristics of the person it sprung itself upon.
Something, at least, Harry thought as without a word Pyro went to the top of the bunk and sprawled out carelessly and Lance bounced as he plopped onto his bed, to keep in mind.
Harry barely kept his amusement from showing – he sure knew how to choose his friends, as Hermione would often tease him. He'd stuck himself in as a roommate to a fire teaser and an earth shaker. He wondered which would overwhelm him first.
Be burned – or be buried. Harry fell into sleep then, he didn't think either choice worse then the other, and it – he knew – wasn't fair to either Pyro or Lance. Both of them had certain amount of mastery – or, at least, sheer stubborn control.
It was that control that Harry feared he lacked.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"What do you want, Pietro?" Red eyes glared into blue, and Pietro found himself swallowing, his throat gone dry. He had not known, exactly, what he was planning on doing having returned only three minutes after "the event" as he was coming to think of it. It wad one event in a loop of a seemingly endless chain of "events" but it was the first event that Harry, who Pietro found himself favoring despite himself, had witnessed.
"…Remy…" Pietro choked on the syllables that made up Gambit's name, simple enough to say, but to speak them with that red-on-black gaze settled upon you was something else entirely.
Gambit's lips curved with dark intent. The red eyes glimmered with mirth and a sudden inescapable "knowing" of the reason –which Pietro did not entirely want to admit to – for the visit.
Remy's fingers touched his jaw – danced along the smooth skin of his cheek. Pietro swallowed, unable to deny that he was bound to the other, sucked up by the under tow of darkness in him. Like a fly was drawn to the sliver strands of a spiders web in the dawns light.
"Gambit knows what you want." The rough whisper breathed over Pietro, shivering down his spine and teasing his desires. Remy leaned into his personal space – usually it was a joke that Quicksilver didn't have any personal space – but as Remy leaned his face close enough so that Pietro smelled the musk of his skin – the spice of his sweat – he knew he had personal space and it was all but being invaded by and surrendered up to Remy.
Remy's lips stretched into a mocking – though somehow seductive – smile.
Remy pressed his lips against Pietro's and a quivering breath escaped the slender silver haired youth as he gave in to the heat in his groin and the need that danced beneath his skin. He slumped up against the wall, held in place only by Remy.
Remy pulled away from him, and dazedly, Pietro wondered why.
"Go to bed, Pietro – Gambit don't want you tonight." The words were purposely cruel, meant to have the effect they hand. Remy watched as Pietro jerked, hurt, away from him. His lips trembled with unasked questions – questions which Remy was glad Pietro did not have the heart and strength to ask. Pietro sighed, and still hurt, gathered himself up and gave Remy a mockingly brave smile.
"That's fine, Remy – I'm sure I'll find someone else tonight." Only, they both knew Pietro wouldn't – Pietro, for some reason Remy could not determine, wanted him. It was a powerful feeling – addicting with the power it offered and teased him with. But Remy knew he was not ready – did not trust himself – with that much power over another person.
Most especially, not the much power over Pietro. Who cared about more then he wanted to admit to.
So it was with a heavy heart he watched the youth walk away, off to his room with his sister and Rogue. Then, more then ever, Remy regretted his inability to sort his own wants and desires from those around him. He clenched his teeth, deciding that a walk was, perhaps, not such a bad idea.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Flame flickered up from the lighter, though it would have affected the eyes of anyone else, the flame only had to catch on the edge of a cigar, lighting it up the a ember red glow that caught Remy's gaze and held it. He was helpless to it. With a sigh, he came forward from the shadows.
Steady as stone brown eyes flicked to him, glared him down with a measurement and weighing that Remy didn't want to know if he passed, or not. It wouldn't change who he was now – wouldn't stop him from being compared to who he had been in the past.
"Swamp rat." It's an acknowledgement, the cigar tipped-and-dipped up and down with the words. A smile formed around it, welcoming – but wary all the same. That watchful distrust he feared would never fade from a man he had gained the respect of, only to have it all go wrong too fast to change.
"Logan." Remy murmurs, smoke burning his eyes and making him blink. Or at least that's the excuse he gives for the sudden dampness in his eyes.
"Fairly far from your usual walking grounds." Logan comments, to distract them both, it's unreasonable to think that Logan can not – if not smell the dampness – see it. Remy is grateful all the same that he doesn't tease him about it – or let his appearance bring the silence and unease he has learned to loath.
"Gambit needed a…distraction." He can admit that to Logan, if to no one else, Logan understands that – unquestioningly.
"Storm's worried sick about you kids." Logan says, and Remy knows it's with those words that Logan admits his own worry for his "kids". Rogue may have been, originally, the only tie shared between them, but Remy learned quickly that the way things started out rarely meant they kept that way. Rogue had loved Pyro and Remy – as friends, then as something more that Remy on his best days kept himself from hating for what was lost.
It had been broken, and the breaking had been Remy's fault.
"Been fine, shouldn't let her worry so." Remy stated after a lingering silence. Logan would talk, and then, if Remy still felt restless – they would fight till Remy was too tired to think, it was the usual way between them.
Logan grunts at Remy's words, his gaze distant.
"How's Pyro?" It still stings sometimes, even Remy admits, to think of what he had almost done to his once lover. There was no excuse for nearly killing him – and what had set him off, Remy still didn't know – perhaps it had only been his own insanity finally it's talons in.
"Same." If his answer is a bit short, he knows Logan will understand. It was frustrating. There were good days – when Remy could pretend everything was normal and he and Pyro were, at least – friends. It was Pyro he missed the most. Rogue he loved, but he had distanced himself from her as soon as she had started crying in her sleep, and treated her at arms length when the trust in her was replaced with tired desperation to "fix" him. On bad days he wanted to kill Lance for being closer to Pyro then he could be.
"Can't blame him, swamp rat." Logan reminded him after exhaling the smoke that only took a moment for his lungs to heal up from the treatment.
Remy knew that – when Rogue had taken things in her own hands, had called up old ties to the Brotherhood to get Remy away from the feelings and thoughts of people who crowded around in the mansion, they had left Pyro behind. For months after, Remy learned later from Logan, Pyro was hostile to them, most especially to Bobby Drake who, bafflingly, had been his best friend since coming to the institute.
After nearly killing each other, Pyro had been asked to leave – he hadn't looked back when he left. It had surprised Rogue and him when Pyro had showed up at the Brotherhood house. Lance had not been a fool; he had welcomed Pyro with open arms, had comforted him – and replaced Rogue and Remy in his life. Or, at least, that was the way Remy saw it.
"Gambit knows it." He did too – the Brotherhood suited Pyro in a way that it didn't Rogue and he, it had not taken long for Pyro to make the most of his lot in life, becoming Lance's second in command. But, it had been Remy who was given missions – first with Juggernaut who had only needed to be shown Remy's power once before giving over to his judgment. Then, later with Sabertooth – who he had known how to deal with from Logan's accounts of him; never mind that he dealt with those missions the best he could – they had changed him.
Remy knew from Logan that, after that, Pyro and Rogue thought he didn't trust them. But it hadn't been that – he had only hated himself for what he had become. Had wanted to protect them from it, he knew now his mistake. He should have counted on their support, his withdraw had only drawn them away from him. They would stay by his side as best as they were able, but they would always have a certain amount of distance between them.
Or, at least, they would until Remy found away to build again the bridges he had so carelessly burned early on. At least enough to be friends, he knew it was likely he had lost Rogue forever. Logan had told him, eventually, what he hadn't seen before – that because of the stress of being the only tie between the Brotherhood and Wolverine (their only still savable link to the X-Men) and between Remy and Pyro – it had been Wanda, seeing that, who had saved her.
They had become friends – then, after, lovers. It was the last that Pyro still resented and felt was Remy's fault. It had been Pietro though, who had approached Remy – had shown him he was still human despite the strangeness of being telepathic and empathic – an almost overwhelming combination that Remy had almost lost himself to. But Remy was not fooling himself into thinking that Pietro only wanted him – he felt for Pyro the same way he felt fro Remy – and there was something about Lance that Remy could not see that tied the speedster to the Brotherhood leader.
It wasn't something he was proud of, but he had teased Pietro to him, just as attracted to the silver haired youth as he had been found "interesting".
"What about the new kids?" Logan fished, trying to find the reason for Remy's appearance. He didn't, Remy reminded himself, yet know about Harry.
"Fred and Mortimer do not yet understand – they still take Gambit's side." Truth was, Remy found that attention – that support – frightening as much as it was enlightening to know he was worth something, even to strangers.
The two were protective, seeing the general distress towards Gambit as, in part, directed at them. They did not know that the others worried for their physical safety. Did not know that by thinking Gambit a misfit with them they put themselves in danger from the very person they sought to protect.
Remy did not yet have the heart to tell them the truth about their "hero".
"Perhaps that's for the best." Logan agreed in the silence. For a while the older man studied him, knowing there was something else that lingered on Remy's mind but unwilling to push, Remy was grateful for the – at least verbal, privacy. But it had been the reason he had come to Logan on his "walk", so, without waiting for the silence to grow, he spoke in a rush, feeling a bit foolish like a schoolboy with his first crush.
"Perhaps, but now…now there is this stray Pyro brought home to stay in his room…"
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Note; likely soon-ish I'm going to be doing a re-post(s) of Remy/Rogue accents, so if you've noticed something about that – or something in general you think needs correcting (grammar/spellings) now is the time to give me a shout out.
Thank you for reading…