They're Marvel's. No money. Don't sue. Any Kinda Breath Story goes here... It's adenocarcinoma, Mr. LeBeau. A non small-cell type of lung cancer. He blinked slowly at the framed watercolor on the wall and let the words run through him. How ... how do y' know? How can y' know? if not for the advanced technology isolated the reactive cells Remy, please sit down. There's a lot we need to discuss. Surgery could be an option chemotherapy not forget radiation remove the affected lobe Are you getting this, Mr. LeBeau? Another long blink. The watercolor was an original Cézanne. A study for one of his most famous pieces in his 'Bathers' series. Remy had pinched it from a rich miser who'd hung it in a trophy room and left it to gather dust. For a while it'd been too hot to unload, and by the time the coast was clear he'd fallen well and truly in love with it. That was art. Timeless. Is... is it serious? Henri? Is it... Cancer is never a matter to be taken lightly. But we ain' talkin', y'know, life or death. I feel fine. ...That's ... difficult to say at this stage. But I feel fine. It's jus' this cough, neh? I've had worse. Got better from it, too. Unless you're expecting intervention from the divine, Mr. LeBeau, we really do need to get back to explaining your treatment options. The room was warm, the heater having been turned on before he ever got up there. Bobby, probably, since he couldn't remember taking the time to do so earlier. Funny, that little gesture of consideration. The cold never bothered Bobby. I realize you need some time to absorb this. If you like, I can ... speak to Bobby about everything. And here it was heading into winter. Snow and snowmen, ice and everything that went with it. Santa, eventually, and plastic reindeer on top of houses. H-how long, Henri? What ... what're we talkin' 'bout? I can't say that at this point. Dr. Niles? I can give you statistics, but I don't think you're ready to hear them. Tell me. less than ten percent survive five years after diagnosis nine out of ten adenocarcinomas aren't symptomatic until after metastasis less than fifty percent are surgical candidates chances increased to fifteen or thirty percent after surgery cut out part of your lung just the affected part aware of scarring inside...? afraid chemo is a must need to do more tests good thing you're healthy ... the treatments will make heavy demands on your body's resources... I'll talk to Bobby let you think about just get some sleep fortunate Hank discovered this now rather than talk tomorrow I can tell Bobby ever read the Surgeon General's Warning? Just relax, and I'll break the news to The door opened, soft shush of wood over carpet. He blinked slowly at the painting. Cézanne had such a fine hand for displaying imperfect humanity in all its blunt beauty. "Remy." He looked. "Salut, Bobby." The man took a step inside and closed the door, dropping them back into semi-darkness lightened only by a bit of starlight. Remy could still see, though. His eyes were good in the dark. "Hank ... told me. He said ... he..." Remy gazed at him, red and black and dry-eyed. "Oh god ... Remy..." And then he was crying. Crying, and Remy was staring at him, distantly aware that he should be doing something. Instead he just sat in the chair against the wall, gazing, listening to voices in his head. Bobby kept standing there, tears coursing down his cheeks, body shaking all over. He remembered to stand eventually, moved by something more instinctive than reason, and held open his arms. Bobby was in them in less than a heartbeat, silent tears becoming loud, wrenching sobs that made his body shudder, his uninjured hand wrapping so tightly into Remy's shirt that the fabric popped in complaint. Trusting that unconscious drive Remy rubbed his back with one hand, then the other, whispering, "Hey, hey, it's okay." Nonsense words. Just sounds and syllables. "It's okay, it's okay." Meaning nothing at all. They found their way to the bed. Remy sat himself against the headboard, not releasing Bobby from his arms or paying any attention to the sting of bruised flesh, listening to the wracking sobs with detached fascination. "It's okay... it's okay..." And his hands stroked as if they knew a secret magic, and Bobby clung to him and said words like "can't" and "you" and "cancer." And after awhile the tears eased and the sobbing was dry and the face buried against his now-damp chest stopped pressing so insistently into him. There were hitching breaths for a short time, slowly spacing themselves out. Bobby fell asleep against him, and Remy stared at the Cézanne and listened to his thoughts. By the time the clock shone a steady 3:13, he'd found answers. He tipped Bobby's chin up with a finger and arched his neck to breathe a kiss across his lips. The younger man stirred faintly at that, a wordless sound coming from his throat, and Remy kissed him again just as gently. There was an answer in the braced hand that rose to curve around his neck, pulling him closer. Remy leaned in and slid his tongue into the waiting mouth, fingers lifting to stroke through disordered brown hair. He could play a kiss like the most subtle of blues, knowing the key of every chord, the touch that was able to coax out the most delicate of notes, the intensity that took the music of the flesh and let it vibrate in the air. He used every bit of that skill now. He wanted Bobby to wake with nothing but that physical music in his mind. A hand caressed down the T-shirt clad chest and tugged the fabric free from jeans, sliding back beneath it along warm skin. Fingers traced the muscle-cushioned bumps of ribs. He relished the shiver that called from his lover. The Iceman, shivering. He had to smile at the thought, busy lips curving upward. His mouth dropped to the throat so temptingly turned up to him. Was there an inch of skin there that he hadn't kissed? He decided not to take the chance, lips and tongue carefully thorough. Bobby gave a shaky sigh and rocked his head back. Remy could taste the tears that'd crept down from his face and stained his neck. Tears. For him. "Remy, I..." He shifted and caught the lips again, driving the words away, emboldening the touch of his hands to push them further from conscious thought. No words here, no distracting thoughts. Just sensation and the emotions that went with it. Emotions that reminded him that he'd made it out of his frozen hell with his own two feet, but he hadn't quite escaped entirely. Not alone. Maybe he'd never been meant to have this. Maybe he really should have died there. But he'd savor this moment and everything in it now that it was here, and relish the sweetness of it all the more with knowing how short a time it would be. He shifted, curling around Bobby, and the pull of the bruising across his midsection reminded him that he'd let those muscles stiffen too much. Bobby seemed to sense his not-quite-flinch and sat up, pulled away, eyes opening to full wakefulness. "Wait, you're not--" Fingers across his lips silenced him, and then Remy was back at his neck, his throat, easing up to an earlobe and catching it in a so-soft bite. Still he said nothing, guiding with touch alone, and Bobby slowly sank to the mattress under his determined ministrations. A gift, then. Unnamably precious. Unwilling to realize his own value in Remy's eyes or what his love meant to a man who'd believed that life would always be about paying the debts of yesterday. Love like that wasn't meant to be tested so harshly. It wouldn't be. If this was justice, at least justice had been kind enough to allow him these past months. The Iceman, shivering. He had to smile at the thought, busy lips curving upward. His mouth dropped to the throat so temptingly turned up to him. Was there an inch of skin there that he hadn't kissed? He decided not to take the chance, lips and tongue carefully thorough. Bobby gave a shaky sigh and rocked his head back. Remy could taste the tears that'd crept down from his face and stained his neck. Tears. For him. "Remy, I..." He shifted and caught the lips again, driving the words away, emboldening the touch of his hands to push them further from conscious thought. No words here, no distracting thoughts. Just sensation and the emotions that went with it. Emotions that reminded him that he'd made it out of his frozen hell with his own two feet, but he hadn't quite escaped entirely. Not alone. Maybe he'd never been meant to have this. Maybe he really should have died there. But he'd savor this moment and everything in it now that it was here, and relish the sweetness of it all the more with knowing how short a time it would be. He shifted, curling around Bobby, and the pull of the bruising across his midsection reminded him that he'd let those muscles stiffen too much. Bobby seemed to sense his not-quite-flinch and sat up, pulled away, eyes opening to full wakefulness. "Wait, you're not--" Fingers across his lips silenced him, and then Remy was back at his neck, his throat, easing up to an earlobe and catching it in a so-soft bite. Still he said nothing, guiding with touch alone, and Bobby slowly sank to the mattress under his determined ministrations. A gift, then. Unnamably precious. Unwilling to realize his own value in Remy's eyes or what his love meant to a man who'd believed that life would always be about paying the debts of yesterday. Love like that wasn't meant to be tested so harshly. It wouldn't be. If this was justice, at least justice had been kind enough to allow him these past months. Bobby gasped beneath him, and Remy smiled an unfettered smile as he sought to bring the sound again. He'd felt for years as if the ax hung over his head, waiting to fall and deliver the only sentence that was right, and now the waiting was over. He'd done his best to balance those scales tipped so far from level so long ago. Maybe he'd even halfway accomplished that. He'd tried. God, he'd tried. Bobby breathed his name like a prayer and shifted, turned, tried to take a more active role. Gentle hands pushed him back down and a kiss kept him there. "M'amour," he whispered against the gasping lips. "Let me." "But..." Another kiss, then another, deeper, soul-searing. "Shhh," he breathed when he broke it, dropping his lips to tickle an earlobe. "Shhh." He drew back enough to meet the bright gaze and to see some of the messages in it; trust, longing, and beneath those... He focused on the trust and longing and kissed those eyes closed to hide the rest. His hands roamed with the freedom Bobby had granted him all those months ago, seeking out familiar contours, playing fingertips over skin to call that note from the quivering body. Back to those lips, more ardent, not demanding so much as giving fiercely. His body hovered over the other's, supported by a quick hand here, a shift to an elbow, a hip settling briefly against blankets. Never still or resting for a heartbeat, divesting the both of them of clothing in motions so smooth and practiced that Bobby didn't seem to realize their nudity until he finally let himself lay against him, desire fully evident and impatient. Where fondly named Jacques was in a hurry, however, Remy intended to take his time. It was amazing how the importance of Time became so much clearer in just one night. Bobby breathed like a small steam engine, panting quickly and rapidly, his fingers tangling in the blankets. So much seemed so clear, now! As he stroked the planed lines of his lover's body, breathed in the scent of sweat and arousal, he marveled at the immediacy of the clarity he'd been searching for his whole life. Somehow it didn't even strike him as unfair that he should only start to understand it now. Understanding at all was something he'd never believed himself capable of. He wasn't quite sure of just what he was understanding, but he knew it was profound. Bobby's left hand tangled in his hair as Remy nibbled his way down the fit body. His lover had never bulked up tremendously, but his build was more compact than Remy's and carried the weight more densely. He'd been conditioned over these past months -- pushed himself more than Remy'd ever seen him push himself before -- and his body reflected it. Remy took Bobby in his mouth, slowly, ears attuned to the barely verbal responses he drew out of the other man. Just a taste, a touch, a silk-smooth warm caress with lips and tongue, and Bobby's breath exploded. Another stroke, fingers tickling lower still, and his lover arched up with a cry and nearly gagged him. "Bobby's fitness level has risen tremendously in the past few months," Scott said, unaware of the lurker just outside of the War Room who overheard the conversation to Muir. "And I can't imagine how he's gotten so flexible." Remy nearly choked again, this time for a far different reason. He did not need to be thinking of Scott Summers while making love to Bobby. Some things simply... didn't belong. Ever. A breathless, "Remy," and beckoning fingers opening and closing convulsively. He ignored them for the moment, mouth and hands already quite busy. Bobby shuddered again, groaning. How many nights had heard that sound since that first night? How many times had one or the other of them gasped or cried out or moaned in appreciation for the other's efforts? How many nights... ...how many nights would it not happen again...? His own breath caught with something more complex than desire and he scooted up Bobby's length a bit, ever so briefly dropping his forehead to rest against the heaving chest. If he truly believed in God he thought he might take a moment now to pray -- to say, 'I can't, I can't, please help me, please,' not knowing exactly what he meant by the words but meaning them regardless. I can't. I can't. Please help me. Please. Fingers slid into his hair, caressing, then the other arm was over his shoulders, holding him there, holding him there, as Bobby shifted, stilled a tremble, slowed his breathing as if ready to ignore desire and end it all here and just hold him, he could let go... but he didn't want that, no thoughts now, no words even unspoken. He stroked the hardness pressing against his side and turned his pause into a leisurely tongue exploration of Bobby's skin. Stay in the moment. Cherish this. Make this time count. That was what he could do right now. Bobby's left hand left his hair and caught at his arm, pulling, and Remy slid up to meet the request, as breathless in the kiss as the other man. The hand vanished, crept lower and surprised Remy with a caress just where he needed no more encouragement. He caught a shallow breath and held it, reaching down, catching the hand and pulling it to his lips for a quick kiss. Bobby curled his fingers around Remy's and brushed them alongside the unshaven face, and Remy thought he felt his heart either swell or break, or maybe both. Eyes still full of that trust-longing-other, Bobby lifted his head from the pillow to kiss him again, then started to shift to turn over. Remy put a hand to his chest and nudged him back down. The smooth brow bunched slightly in question. "But..." "I wan' see y' face," Remy murmured. "A'right?" A slow nod with blue eyes luminous in the dark. Remarkable eyes. So plainly human, and yet somehow still he found himself drowning in their depths. Especially now, especially knowing... knowing that... Not now, something deep in his mind decided firmly. Not now. Now was for something else... And then... Mon dieu... Sound and sight and feel, all together, joined in some single overwhelming sense that fit no one name except Bobby. Sweat and heat, and Cajun French breathed in a rhythm with moving bodies. Bobby'd asked him once what he said when he spoke that way, and Remy had grinned his most charming grin and said that a guy had as much right to his secrets as a woman, didn't he? Which was just his way of avoiding the fact that there were some things he was ready to say that he wasn't quite ready to have heard. Some things that just ... just... God, the warmth, the warmth everywhere ... in his loins, in his mind, in his chest, in his ... heart... Everywhere. Some timeless eternity later found Remy slowly easing an arm out from beneath his lover's shoulders, ears attuned to the level breathing and listening for any hitch. Bobby slept the sleep of the sated, and the innocent. The Cajun had been slipping out on both for longer than he'd been calling himself 'Gambit.' ...even if he wanted nothing more than to lay his head back down on that smooth chest, grip arms around Bobby's waist, and hold on as tightly as he possibly could, not letting go, not letting go... holding on tight and saying goodbye all at once... He made himself don clothing with quick motions, denying instinct its gratification and not permitting so much as a look back at the quiet form on the bed as he dressed. There would be much to explain later, but still riding that wave of almost-euphoria, he didn't even dread it. Before he left he stopped to breathe the lightest of kisses over the hair-shadowed forehead. "Je t'aime," he whispered too quietly to wake the other. "Don' ever doubt that." Bobby's lips curved, but he didn't wake, and Remy made no noise at all as he slipped out. He didn't plan on sitting. He didn't even plan on pausing for long, really, since this announcement shouldn't take more than a minute at most. Less than that. It wouldn't go over well, but it didn't have to. Henri didn't have to like any of this any more than Remy did, but he had to accept it. As Remy had. Henri turned his full attention on him as soon as Remy pushed open the double doors and walked into the lab. He was alone this time, Dr. Niles gone for parts unknown, and he looked haggard and unkempt. "Good morning, Remy." "Mornin'." Henri gestured to the mismatched couch and chair in the corner. "Have a seat." "Non." A quick look, sharp. Very sharp for six AM. "Pardon?" "Non." He cleared his throat, then carefully smoothed his voice into unaccented English. They took him more seriously when he minimized the accent. "I'm not sitting. Or staying. I just came down here to tell you that I won't be taking the treatments you offered." Henri didn't move for a whole minute. Remy watched the seconds tick by on the large clock on the far wall. He couldn't read the spectacled blue eyes, but that didn't change his resolve. Silence wouldn't sway him. The doctor walked a few steps, seeming uncharacteristically flatfooted, and turned with an abrupt, graceless motion to lean up against the central table. "Why don't you explain why," he invited in a voice that held no question. Remy kept his voice low and clear, calm and steady. "You won't understand this. I don't think someone like you can. You're too..." A small smile. "... too much of a decent man." "Forgive me for not seeing just what your opinion of my decency has to do with your decision to refuse treatment." No, this wouldn't go well at all. Remy lost the smile. "You told me you didn't know how I survived. Down there." He almost shivered with the word. "Antarctica. Remember that?" "Of course. The conditions were extreme and you weren't equipped. Your survival under those circumstances is as close to a miracle as anything I've witnessed." "What if it was a mistake?" Henri's eyes narrowed slightly. "I believe I just misheard you, Gambit." Remy gestured expansively, wishing there was a way to convey exactly what was in his mind ... all that confusion and the giddy thrill of discovery. "Seems to me that whatever's up there or out there is trying to balance the scales. To fix a problem." He took a breath, shallow enough not to call on that deep cough, and rushed the rest out. "I wanted that trial, Henri, an' I wanted to ... pay for what happened. And I didn't pay. Not like they did. It's not right, an' I'm thinking it was just an ... oversight. And I was supposed to die." Then he stopped and caught his breath back, watching carefully. Somehow those words hadn't sounded as ... reasonable ... as they'd sounded earlier in his head. And he didn't think he'd conveyed the understanding he wanted to convey at all. The blue eyes held his for another minute -- also counted by the slow ticking of the clock -- and then, as if Henri timed it precisely, he reached up at the minute mark and pulled his glasses from his face, dropping them in dexterous furred hands to be polished against his lab coat. "Tell me something." "What?" The voice was tight ... sounded very angry. "Have you enlightened Bobby with this ... discovery of yours?" Remy looked away. Dropped his voice a little, half- consciously. "He ain' ready t' hear it." He barely noticed how easily his accent had crept back in. "I know it's gon' be hard on him ... but..." "'But'?" This wasn't going anything like what he'd planned. He should already be gone, not standing here discussing this. And where was that surety going, that comfort in his decision? It was here just a second ago ... just a heartbeat, really... His throat was suspiciously tight when he made himself look back to Henri. "It'd be a lot harder f' him t' watch ... t' watch it happen slow." Where had that come from? Henri didn't put the glasses back on. Didn't move away from the table. "You've become an expert on cancer in the past twelve hours, then? I must say, I'm astounded that you've managed to compress twelve years of education into that many mere hours! Most impressive, Gambit. For your next trick why don't you make the Statue of Liberty disappear?" Remy swore harshly enough to almost set off his fickle lungs, then had to stand there under those furious eyes for long seconds while he fought for composure. That wasn't just anger in that tone, no; that was disgust there, twisting it, making the normally melodic baritone vicious. His surety in his decision was fading so quickly that not even a ghostly afterimage tickled his mind in parting. "I heard what Dr. Niles said," he rasped when he was able. "Bad odds, Henri." "You're the gambler." Coldly. "It was my impression that you liked bad odds. 'Makes the pot sweeter' -- isn't that what you said?" Somehow he kept himself from snapping at that. "Y' wan' cut out my lung. Pump me fulla poison." "At this stage we don't even know if any of that would do you any good," Henri said bluntly. "We have more testing to do to discover if it's even operable." Slowly he put the glasses back on. "Don't you even want to know?" He made a desperate last grab for that certainty that this was only justice. "Maybe I ain' meant to. Maybe this is the universe settin' t'ings t' right." A glint of a fang between blue lips. "Oh, I see. And the universe just happened to decide to punish Bobby the same time it caught up to you." "That ain'--" "Because that's how he'll see it, if he hears you speaking this infantile rubbish. He's barely beginning to accept that being a homosexual doesn't mean that he's a freak or damned, and now you wish to tell him that some higher power -- God, as it were -- is actively punishing you for past crimes. What on Earth do you expect him to think about that, particularly when he sees that you've chosen not to fight? What's more natural at that point than the assumption that he is likewise being punished? And tell me ... just what does Bobby have on his conscience that he feels is perhaps worthy of condemnation other than the societal prejudice he was instilled with regarding his own orientation?" Henri crossed his arms over that thick chest and paused as if honestly waiting for an answer, then continued without letting there be one. "I suppose everyone who has been afflicted with a severe illness such as this is also being justly punished by higher powers. Let's look at Legacy, shall we? I'm sure that Jamie Madrox was a truly deplorable person. Certainly he hurt enough people in battle to deserve that manner of death. What about Moira? She had a son who killed people. Perhaps she's damned for that? We'll ignore for now the fact that she's given more to this world, unselfishly, than almost anyone either one of us could name. I'm certain that she deserves this punishment, indubitably." His voice went glacial. "In fact, only little Illyana could have deserved it more." "Va te faire foudre," Remy spat. "Don' try t' turn this into--" "You," Henri said, firmly enough to override him, "began this. I'm merely following it through to its logical conclusions." Other than more profanity, Remy couldn't think of anything to say. And after a moment Henri continued with a marginally less biting tone. "You have lung cancer because you smoked cigarettes every day for most of your life. Not because of some divine punishment. Not because of a nebulous 'balance' the universe maintains in each of our lives. You smoked. You got cancer." Another step down in tone, eyes gentling just a bit. "Sometimes it really is that simple, Remy." You smoked.
You got cancer.
That simple.
His feet suddenly didn't want to hold him. Rather
than letting himself collapse ignobly right where he
was he somehow made himself walk the interminably
long three yards to the stool by the nearest bed, and
he sank to it with a not-quite-steady motion. Just sat
and stared blindly at nothing.
A whisper of bare, furred feet over the floor. They
sounded like slippers, those feet. Henri pulled
another stool around and sat a few steps from him,
wordless.
Eventually Remy asked quietly, "Y' t'ink I got a
chance?"
"I don't have an answer to that yet." Always honest
with him, Henri. He could at least count on that
much. "That's what the tests will tell us."
I don't want to die, he wanted to say. But there
wasn't much point in saying that, was there? Instead
he asked, "When ... y'know ... when do we get
started?"
There was a pause, then an indrawn breath. "I'd like
to get some blood, and another sputum sample.
Then..." A hand was suddenly on his shoulder, and
Remy looked up into eyes that held no hint of the
anger of minutes earlier. "How much have you slept
in the past few days?"
"I don' know..." He made himself think about it.
"Few hours. I--" He stopped himself. Henri already
knew about the ... panic attacks. "I guess I'm a li'l
tired."
"Yes, that's what we in the scientific community call
'a big fat lie.' I'm afraid that's not even worthy of the
slightly less stigmatic label of 'understatement.'"
It wasn't enough to bring a smile. "But y' said we can
do these tests, neh?"
Henri didn't comment on how willingly he changed
his focus one hundred and eighty degrees. "I need
blood, and I need you to cough for me. Then you
will get some sleep if I have to knock you out to
inspire it."
"But--"
"This afternoon we'll begin." The hand squeezed his
shoulder, once. "But first, sleep. I can't
overemphasize how important that is."
He couldn't hold that gaze any longer. With a sigh
and a nod he dropped his eyes to the floor again.
"D'accord."
"I'll ask you this one time, and one time only: Are
you through playing games?"
His eyes closed and he nodded again. "Oui."
Another squeeze and the hand slid away. "Good."
Gently. "I know this can't possibly be easy, Remy."
And rather than waiting for a senseless answer of
agreement, he stood and went about gathering what
supplies he needed.
You smoked. You got cancer. Sometimes it really
is that simple.
He breathed too deeply and his chest seized up. The
coughs hit him hard, robbing him of breath, tearing
his chest, tasting foul.
Sometimes it was that simple.
Hank met Bobby just outside the medlab doors,
having been warned in advance by the ping of the
elevator. Bobby's feet were bare, his hair mussed,
and he wore only hastily drawn on jeans. Those
normally quick, bright blue eyes stared out between
red-rimmed and puffy lids set in a sleep-lined face.
He looked anxious and tired all at once, like he'd
cried himself to sleep and woken to find that the
world had gone wrong somewhere. Or stayed wrong,
stubbornly refusing to go back to normal when the
sun rose.
Even in this midst of his hurry he calmed when he
saw Hank. "Is he down here?"
"Yes." Hank waited patiently while Bobby stepped
forward to peer through the windows on the medlab
doors. Remy was already asleep in there; he'd
dropped off nearly the moment his head had hit the
pillow, letting three days of near sleeplessness catch
up with him all at once. And as for any other
concerns Bobby might have had...
"Blankets," Bobby said quietly. "You put them on?"
"Yes."
Bobby took a breath. "He gets cold real easy. He
won't admit it, but he does."
"I'm aware of that."
A restless brush of a hand through slightly longish
brown hair. "I woke up and he was gone. I didn't
know where he went."
"He ... wanted to come down to talk about the
procedures we'll be doing." All true. "We'll begin
this afternoon."
Bobby didn't even look at him. "Earlier he was so ...
he was..." A pause. "I thought he might be planning
something stupid."
"He's not, Bobby." Not now, at any rate. "But he
needs sleep right now more than anything."
"Yeah." Eyes flicked to his, then back to the
windows. "He doesn't look bad, does he? I mean, he
doesn't look sick."
Hank put an arm around the other's shoulders and
started to steer him away. "Come on, Bobby. Allow
him his rest. Maintaining his general health is the
most vital thing right now."
"But he doesn't. He looks fine." He let himself be
guided, but his head was still turned back toward
those windows. "I just don't get ... how he can be
sick."
"His general overall health is misleading, I'm afraid.
It made it far too easy for the symptoms to be
overlooked." This wasn't a direction that would be
particularly helpful, Hank decided abruptly. "I
imagine you'd like to discuss our next step...?"
Finally Bobby let his reddened eyes come back
around, nodded and looked ahead of them instead of
behind as Hank motioned him into a waiting room.
Bobby took a corner of the neutral beige couch. With
an eye to comfort Henry sat down beside him rather
than across from him. Clinical detachment would
only frighten his friend more.
The blue eyes were still distracted, but fixed on him
readily enough. "You said last night that there were
more tests you had to do. Before you'd ... know."
Everyone always wanted it to be so simple. Easy
answers, everything laid out, the problems clearly
defined so that coping could begin. Hank only
wished he had some way of making that happen now.
To just be able to say, 'Yes, he'll live, but he must
undergo this treatment,' or even, 'I'm sorry ... there's
no chance' -- allowing them the opportunity to
know how much time they had. It was this
uncertainty, this fear-hope-confusion-dread, that
made the process so anguishing.
"I'll be doing a CT-scan this afternoon," he said,
losing himself in the details of what he could
accomplish instead of musing over what he couldn't.
"Marcus was able to pinpoint what appears to be a
growth on the X-rays. Now we need to get a more
detailed image of its exact size and location. The
scan will supply that as well as showing us whether
or not there are other growths the X-ray hasn't
revealed and then, using that information, we can
conduct a biopsy." He'd explained this to Bobby
earlier but wasn't entirely sure of just how much had
actually reached through the haze of shock.
Bobby blinked a few times, visibly making himself
focus. "Right. And the biopsy is for ... what'd you
say it was for?"
"It will tell us what type of cells any abnormalities
the CT-scan reveals consist of. It's necessary to
allow us to be certain of what we're dealing with. We
were able to isolate the reactive cells when we ran the
cytology on the sputum sample, but that doesn't
necessarily connect those cells with the mass seen
on the X-rays."
"'Abnormalities,'" Bobby echoed distantly. "You
mean the ... c-cancer."
Hank nodded and wondered how long it would be
before Bobby would be able to say that word without
his voice threatening to break. "That's correct. What
we do from that point will depend on what we find in
the biopsy."
"When will you ... the biopsy? This afternoon?"
"Tomorrow morning. Marcus will be arriving at
seven."
A short nod, almost composed now. "And after
that?"
"...A lot depends on the results of the biopsy."
"Hank..." Just his name in a level voice, but there
was no mistaking the pleading in those eyes. Bobby
was managing by dint of some heretofore-unseen
self-control to keep his expression almost unreadable.
Almost.
Well. He might as well have some idea of the
possibilities now. "If the biopsy tells us what we
believe it will tell us, the next step will be a relatively
minor surgical procedure to test whether or not the
cancer has entered his lymphatic system."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, it will tell us if the cancer has metastasized."
He explained that before Bobby could ask: "If it's
spread beyond the localized area, which in this case
would first be detectable in his lymph nodes."
"And if it has?"
"If it has..." He hesitated. It was early, and they
really didn't know much yet. Perhaps too early to put
forth such a grim possibility.
Probability. Nine out of ten adenocarcinomas didn't
show symptoms until after metastasis. Marcus had
commented that if the abnormality he'd noted was the
cancer growth it was unusually central for its type,
more likely to trigger symptoms early, but
nevertheless -- there still remained a ninety-percent
chance that Remy's cancer had already spread. And
if that were the case...
If that were the case, Bobby had a right to know
about the ramifications ahead of time. "If it has, we
begin looking for signs of cancer cells throughout the
body, primarily in the liver or brain.
Adenocarcinoma is usually ... an aggressive form of
cancer. If it has gone systemic it will probably move
quickly. And if that's the case ... there isn't much we
can do. Pain management, mostly. Perhaps we could
give him a little more time with radiation or
chemotherapy..."
Bobby's throat bobbed on a hard swallow. "More
time before ... before he dies."
There was no point in circling it. "Yes." No point in
dwelling on it yet, either. "But it's far too early to
look at that as the only possibility, Robert. We may
discover tomorrow that surgery will be a viable
option."
"You said you might..." He paused long enough that
Hank almost spoke into the silence, then continued
just before the words would have come. "You might
cut out his ... his lung."
"It's a possibility. Another is that we'd have to
perform a lobectomy -- ah, removing just a portion of
the lung. I wouldn't worry so much about that ... we
humans generally don't use nearly our full lung
capacity, so with a little training and practice he
should be able to recover quite comfortably."
"But he could never ... I mean, he wouldn't be..."
Hank barely held that gaze, those desperate eyes.
"He hates being sick. And not being able to be
active, he just wouldn't--"
"Stop." Bobby stopped. "Listen to me." He at least
looked as if he were listening... "I do not have all
the answers. No one-- no one does. We could go
in tomorrow and discover that there's absolutely
nothing we can do." A sheen of moisture sprang
instantly to the eyes holding his own so intently, but
nothing fell. "We may also go in and find that a
lobectomy could facilitate a remarkable recovery.
We don't know." Bobby blinked, too rapidly, and
Hank reached out to rest a furred hand over the
uninjured smooth one. "I would love nothing more
than to be able to give you a straight answer, Bobby.
Any sort of answer. But I'm sorry to say that all I can
do is explain each phase as well as I am able."
An unsteady nod that was so far from real
comprehension at this stage that Hank felt a pang for
him. "That guy that was here ... Dr. Niles...?"
"He's the best oncologist in the state. Perhaps even in
the country."
Bobby nodded again, breathing out a little shuddering
breath, and pulled his hand free gently to rub it over
his eyes. For a long moment he just left his hand
there pinching at his forehead as if to ease an ache
somewhere inside.
Then he dropped his hand and turned to lean back,
the top of his head just bumping the wall over the
sofa, staring at the utilitarian light fixture. After a
moment of the heavy silence Hank stood, intending
to give him his space, let him digest this information
in his own way.
"Wait."
"Yes, Bobby?"
He didn't look away from the light. Kept staring, and
suddenly Henry noticed that his eyes were ... shining?
Not with damp moisture, but...
Frozen.
And he didn't blink anymore when he cleared his
throat and said, "I'd like to know ... what you're gonna
be doing. Details. When and, and how and why. I
wanna know everything you can tell me right now."
Oh, Bobby. He closed his eyes briefly behind
their spectacles, then opened them and slowly sat
back down. Across from the couch. And waited
until the frozen eyes looked at him.
"Not like that, Robert," he murmured. "You know
the danger of a partial transformation for any length
of time."
"I'm okay like this."
"No." I'm so sorry, my friend. He had to have
enough faith in Bobby to believe he could handle
this, though. No matter the findings of the biopsy, he
knew that it would get much--
--much--
--harder before it was over. He couldn't encourage
Bobby to start removing himself, one little step at a
time. His friend would never last that way; not on
this long road.
"I will answer every question you may have, but not
while you're like that."
Bobby stared at him with those glassy eyes for a few
seconds that felt much longer, then nodded once.
The ice receded without fanfare and left two blinking
blues in its wake.
"Thank you," Hank said softly. Those eyes were
warming, tearing up already, but he found the tears
easier to gaze at than the other. "Now ... what do you
want to know, Bobby?"
Another blink, sending a few unselfconscious drops
down unshaven cheeks. "Everything," he said simply.
Hank settled himself more comfortably and prepared
for a long morning.
Time. Tripped. By.
Bobby'd been staring at the clock for exactly seven
minutes and twenty-four seconds. It fuzzed out every
fifteen seconds or so when his gaze went unfocused,
but he quickly narrowed his eyes and brought the
picture back clearly. If Time insisted on traveling so
slowly then it would have to contend with his
scrutiny.
It sounded stupid to him even as tired as he was, but
he found comfort in his inane distractions. Before
this had come counting how many times the letter 'e'
was used in an article in Newsweek magazine. For
all that he'd been trained as a number-cruncher,
though, he'd lost count somewhere around three
hundred and nine. Before that was an attempt to
estimate how many small glass pebbles were in the
bottom of a very fake floral arrangement that graced
the waiting room table. He'd poured the thing out
finally and counted them up, one by one, and took no
particular pleasure in noticing that his guess of four
hundred twenty-eight was only off by fifteen. Before
that he'd closed his eyes and focused on his
heartbeat for a while in a futile attempt to lull himself
into a snooze. Before that he'd paced an ordered
little path back and forth, back and forth, until he was
fairly sure that he'd worn a patch of carpet down to
threads, though he hadn't bothered to check. Before
that...
Well. It had been a long hour. Long enough for him
to realize that most of his mind-absorbing distractions
featured meaningless numbers, which made him
wonder why he hadn't been more successful as an
accountant.
Nine minutes, two seconds.
It wasn't fair. It really, really wasn't fair. One minute
Time was racing along merrily, dragging him by the
scruff and not giving him a chance to even get his
feet beneath him, and the next it ... stopped. Paused.
Held still and breathless, keeping him waiting in
this room for more hours in the past few days than he
wanted to remember. Hurry up and--! Sit here.
Rush-rush-rush and--! Relax. Take a breather.
Watch the Country Music Channel.
No. It definitely wasn't fair.
He could be watching the 'procedure.' The
'operation.' The thing they described by nice
detached words that didn't say what really happened.
He'd sat -- well, stood -- in the observation room for
the biopsy, cringing internally, heart pounding as that
needle was guided by unfeeling machinery down,
down, down ... denting the flesh of Remy's back,
piercing, penetrating, traveling through him down
into the 'abnormality' in the lung... And he'd stood in
there for the longer hours the next day while Dr.
Niles made an incision just below a collarbone
Bobby loved to kiss, watching the calmly
professional doctor pass a snaky metal thing into
the cut, guiding it beneath flesh down Remy's torso
until it gathered the evidence it needed to indicate
that the cancer had not, thank god, spread to the
lymph nodes. That was the moment the question was
answered; there was the instant when they found out
that Remy actually had a chance.
He'd stood in there this morning, hardly noticing the
voices of friends who'd tried to offer support that he
didn't know how to accept, and he'd tried not to go
pale when he saw what they were doing, saw how the
motionless man was laid on his side, saw the blood
from the incisions, saw the thing they used to spread
the ribs, Remy's ribs, apart, saw...
Ten minutes, forty-three seconds. He stood and
started pacing again.
A lobectomy. Doctor-speak for "we're gonna cut out
a piece of his lung and we're not putting it back, but
don't worry, he'll be fine, unless he dies on the table
or the disease is more widespread than we think in
which case he won't, but you probably shouldn't
worry too much about that, he's really healthy except
for this whole deadly cancer-thing, so don't get
yourself in a tizzy, Bobby, just sit down and smile
and drink coffee or take a nap and this'll all be over in
just a few hours, honest, really, there's a lad."
Okay, so that wasn't exactly what Hank and Dr.
Niles had said ... but it was definitely the gist of it.
They'd been in there so long. Bobby's nerves had
driven Jean out early on, her pretty face pinched with
the pain of the headache he'd inadvertently caused.
Scott hadn't lasted anywhere near as long as she had;
his personality didn't bear up well under the constant
fidgeting, and Bobby hadn't been able to force
himself to listen to a word the leader said. Rogue had
put in her appearance, then quietly left. Logan hadn't
even poked his nose in. By now he was down to Sam
Guthrie, who'd thus far survived by simply being
quiet and remembering many short errands that got
him out of the room frequently.
Bobby tried to appreciate their support. He really
did. But it was so hard to divide his attention
between their well-meaning words and the realization
that everything - hinged - on - this. What the hell did
the quiet assurances of "it'll be okay" mean against
that knowledge? How could anything be "okay"
until Hank marched his furry blue butt down here and
walked in and looked at him and said it was all
"okay"? For all the years that Bobby had uttered
those same reassurances, he'd never before truly
realized how completely shallow and meaningless
they felt from the other end.
And Time just kept dragging...
The blue furred face was either the most wonderful or
the most terrible thing Bobby thought he'd ever seen,
and it all depended on what words he was about to
hear rumbled out in that baritone voice.
Hank smiled tiredly, but it looked (please-god-let-it-
be) genuine. "We're through. It went well."
Bobby just blinked at him, not quite sure he
understood. "He's okay...?"
A nod. The doctor clasped his shoulder. "He's in the
recovery room. The operation went ... resoundingly
well, actually."
Tears tried to fall, then forgot to and just stayed
quivering and ready. He couldn't pull his gaze away
from his friend's tired, spectacled eyes. It wasn't
possible. The nightmare couldn't be over so quickly.
It couldn't be true that he could stop fearing now,
that these feverish four days were finished...
"Is he ... better? I mean, what's it...?" Don't dare to
hope don't dare to hope don't dare...
"We're going to start him on chemotherapy as soon as
he's recovered enough from the surgery to withstand
it, as I explained to you," Hank elaborated, taking a
seat on the overstuffed couch and motioning Bobby
to sit across from him. "But for now..." He smiled
more broadly. "Marcus is guardedly optimistic."
Bobby sank down to a chair, feeling as if his legs had
turned to Jell-O. "He ... he's okay. He's really okay."
He fixed Hank with a dazed look. "Really?"
"It's a little early to say that there won't be any further
complications," Hank cautioned, "and we do still
have much to do before we can say he's safely in the
clear ... but it looks auspicious at the moment."
With a breath that wanted to catch in his throat
Bobby tipped his head back and closed his grainy
eyes very briefly. All the apprehension of the past
days and nights ... all the desperate searching for some
guarantee that it would be all right... and now
Hank had done it. He'd given Bobby the miracle.
Thank you, he thought; at Hank or at something
bigger, he wasn't sure. I promise to never again put
Insta-Curl in Hank's shampoo, or say the 'G-D' word,
or make fun of televangelists, or ... or... It didn't
matter. None of that mattered. Only-- Thank
you.
Hank was waiting patiently, and when Bobby finally
opened his eyes the blue lips were again stretched in
that quiet smile. Bobby swallowed hard and returned
the expression more stiffly. "Can I see him...?"
"Of course." The doctor stood in a shush of fur and
lab coat. "I believe you know the way..."
Hank watched as Bobby quickly gained his feet and
hurried out, to all appearances intent on being there
when Remy awakened. His younger friend had so far
risen to face these trying circumstances with the
fortitude Henry had always believed was hidden
behind the mischievous grin. It was encouraging,
that determination. Heartening. If Bobby's
resolution had faltered in these past four days then
the coming months would have looked very bleak
indeed.
They were going to be long months, but for the
moment at least it was appearing as if Bobby would
be able to bear up under them. Hank mused on that
briefly, finding reassurance there, as he headed more
composedly for the recovery room.
No one had remembered to mention the coughing.
Remy counted that as a relatively small offense in the
larger scheme of things, but when it was coupled
with the wide assortment of other small offenses it
came to carry a bit more weight. They hadn't
remembered to mention the coughing and they'd let
the fact that he'd have to practice 'deep breathing'
twice a day slip their minds. Neither of these things
were comfortable. Neither made him a particularly
happy Cajun.
'The cilia in your lungs that you destroyed by
smoking are growing back,' Henri had informed him
matter-of-factly; almost cheerfully. 'They aid in a
process that transfers mucus up along the walls of
your lungs to your throat, where you then swallow
the mucus down your esophagus as your body's way
of disposing of it. Smoking destroys the cilia, so now
that the hairs are growing back you've got mucus
with smoke byproducts -- tar, for example -- that's
been trapped in the bottom of your lungs for years
being brought up, thus the sooty color. It will pass in
time.'
Remy rather thought that he didn't really want to
know that. Any of it. Ever. Now he was supposed to be 'taking it easy.' Three
weeks after the lobectomy he was still shaky on his
feet, knocked to his ass by a bad enough cough. Dr.
Niles had said that they wouldn't be starting
chemotherapy until after he was comfortably back on
his feet, which was almost enough encouragement
to stay in bed longer ... but the enforced idleness was
driving him to new extremes of mentally climbing
the walls. Being the sort to always be on the go, he'd
never really noticed just how many hours got
inconsiderately crammed into each and every day.
And as much as he appreciated Jean and the support
she'd offered for his relationship with Bobby, he
thought he might very well tear her a figurative new
hole the next time she gave him that encouraging
smile and said, 'You're really doing so well.'
He sighed now, forcibly deep to exercise his
diminished lung capacity, and focused on what he'd
been doing for the past fifteen minutes -- walking the
hall.
This never used to be so exhausting.
Warren, thank whatever watched over thieves and
rascals, wasn't an issue at the moment. Not only had
he and Betsy not been staying at the mansion, but
now he'd been summoned overseas for 'business
interests' that needed his personal attention.
Elisabeth herself had yet to show any intention to
return to action now that her telepathy was defunct.
It had come as no surprise to hear that she'd
accompanied Warren to Europe; Remy had gathered
that she was showing increasing interest in the
running of Worthington Enterprises.
Heh. Maybe the unpredictable lady would go
vicious-bitch on Warren, insinuate herself into his
finances, then overthrow him and keep the fortune for
herself. Though he didn't particularly like Elisabeth,
Remy couldn't deny that he found a certain appeal in
that thought...
At the top of his current avoid-if-at-all-possible list,
Rogue was showing an uncomfortable amount of
interest in his health. He was never sure how to
respond to her less-than-tentative overtures of
'friendship.' What had gone wrong between them
still rested solidly on his shoulders, he knew that, but
that didn't erase the edginess he felt in her presence.
The awareness of his current ... vulnerability...
doubled when she entered the room. Tripled, even.
He recognized it as a subconscious reaction, out of
his immediate control, but still battled with it
whenever it made itself obvious. He didn't want to be
a slave to memories of past mistakes.
Scott was distantly supportive, though he was clearly
not planning to get involved in Remy's treatment any
more than he had to, which suited the Cajun just fine.
None of these people were particularly 'friends'; the
time when he would've given them that label had
pretty much gone the way of the dinosaurs and didn't
look any more likely to return.
He chose to ignore the creatures currently living in
the Savage Land. They ruined his analogy.
Sam Guthrie was busily falling into his role of trying
to fill the gap left by both Remy and Bobby taking
leave time from active duty. The kid was running
himself ragged with a cheerful smile. Bobby
admitted in his more uncomfortable moments that
Sam's example was enough to have him more than a
little ashamed of his past history of
underachievement. Remy didn't have the energy to
blunt the edge of that self-castigation these days. In
what he considered his more selfish moments he
found himself simply hoping that they'd pass with
time.
Then there was Logan. Logan, who was the only
person in the mansion who treated him almost
exactly the same as he had previously. The Canadian
never went out of his way to ask how Remy was
feeling or knocked on his door when he hacked and
wheezed and groaned and generally felt impossibly
sorry for himself in between his bouts of resolution to
get himself back to full functionality as quickly as
possible. Logan hadn't said a single
uncharacteristically nice word to him in all this time,
and Remy wouldn't have it any other way.
It would be less tortuous to him, though, if the man
would obey Henri's orders and quit smoking.
Smoking. Remy missed smoking. He longed
daily for that feeling of scratchy warmth, filling
roughness. It didn't matter that he was living through
one of those horrible commercials they put out to
keep kids from picking up the habit; he still wanted
a cigarette first thing in the morning and last thing at
night.
He didn't have the breath to spare to sigh as he slowly
paced the empty hall, but he felt the sentiment fully.
When his breath gained the warning rattle loudly
enough that he couldn't ignore it he forced himself to
slow, heading straight for the room. Anytime he
pushed it did this. In a moment his chest would seize
up, his throat would constrict, and he would--
He'd almost made it to the room when his fragile
control over his lungs fractured and the agonizing
coughs hit. The lightning stabs of pain stretched all
the way from muscles along his ribcage, still
recovering from the surgery, to the very top of his
skull, which seemed to want to pound merely for the
pounding. He gritted his teeth, fumbled his door
open, and walked/fell through gracelessly.
A'most twenty minutes, he thought with
satisfaction that wasn't entirely occluded by the pain.
Four days ago it'd been barely over half that.
Measurable improvement. It somehow made the
coming months less daunting.
He clutched the edge of the dresser and fought the
clawing, tearing, damp coughs grimly.
The door opened -- he saw the motion out of
peripheral vision -- and then almost immediately
there were hands on him; left at his back, brace-wearing
right half-clutching at his tense biceps
muscle. "What are you doing up? You should be in
bed ... easy, breathe shallow..."
It made him struggle harder to control himself. After
a too-long space of minutes he was slowly able to
quiet the coughs, standing with his eyes closed and
still holding tightly to the dresser. Bobby's worried
murmurs hadn't stopped.
When he could speak again he said, "'m fine.
Leggo."
Bobby didn't seem to hear him. "C'mon. You should
rest."
"Non, I--" He forced himself to slow when his throat
gave a warning squeeze. "Non. I ain' gettin' better
by spendin' all my days in bed." He shrugged
roughly. "Let go."
Expression bordering dangerously on
shattered/scared/oh-no-don't-be-mad-at-me, Bobby
let go and took a very small step away. "... Okay. ...
Are you gonna lie down?"
"Tu ne m'aide pas..." he all but growled, voice
strangled still. "Y' wan' keep me in this room f' the
rest a my life?"
"No!"
"Then I gotta walk--" He had to pause to catch his
breath. "--don' I?" For once he didn't feel up to
taking the time to soothe Bobby's ruffled feathers,
either. "Jus' gimme some respect here, Bobby.
This is hard enough wit'out havin' t' fight you."
"...fight me...?"
Remy straightened and forced more breath down into
his lungs. "I'm gettin' myself better so they can start
poisonin' me that much sooner. I'm tired an' I'm
hungry an' I don' feel good, but I still got enough
common sense t' decide when I need a 'nap.'" He
scowled irritably at Bobby's outright-conflicted
expression. "An' merde, don' look at me like that
right now."
Bobby blinked, stricken puppydog-eyed look chased
away by the blank surprise on his face. Cleared his
throat, opened his mouth as if he were going to
speak, closed it and rubbed his left hand through his
hair restlessly. "I ... uh ... then is there anything I ...
can ... do? Anything?" There was almost a wistful
note in his voice. "There's gotta be something..."
"Y' can drop the solicitousness, f' starters," Remy
informed him in a voice that he couldn't really claim
was anything other than a grumble. "I don' like bein'
babied."
"...okay. Um." He tugged at his brown hair
absently, briefly catching his lower lip between his
teeth. "You're annoyed. Aren't you?"
Red-black eyes rolled in exasperation. "No, Bobby, I
always like t' hack an' wheeze an' tell my boyfriend
t' buzz off."
"...oh. Um." He turned a little hesitantly and took
an uncertain step for the door.
Now he was running? Remy felt the bite in his voice
and was too tired and generally grumpy to restrain it.
"Where y' goin'?"
A startled look. "You said ... you're hungry, right? I
thought you might want ... something to eat..."
It was Remy's turn to blink. "...Oh." Well. That
was ... thoughtful.
Of course it was thoughtful. When Bobby wasn't
hovering anxiously, all but begging for something to
do, he was always thoughtful. Which wasn't
always the same as helpful.
But it was rather difficult to stay mad at someone
who'd been all but waiting on him hand and foot,
completely absorbed in his well-being, for nearly
three weeks. No ... counting those nights of the panic
attacks, those arms in the dark, it was a good bit
longer than three weeks.
Thank God the panic attacks at least were in the past.
Henri had explained to him that in all likelihood they
were a symptom of his body trying to tell him that
something was wrong -- a subconscious defense
mechanism. It sounded true enough, and they hadn't
returned since he'd found out about the cancer, so...
So ... Bobby was still staring at him, looking very
much as if he expected another rebuke. Remy sighed
silently and didn't let himself show how weary he
was when he pushed away from the dresser and
walked over to take him in a hug. Bobby hugged
back, arms as tentative and gentle as they'd been
since the surgery.
Then Bobby drew back, expression suddenly
purposeful. "I'll go get food. You do whatever ...
whatever you need to do. I won't be long." Now that
he had a Mission he was in a hurry to get started. He
planted a quick kiss on Remy's lips and vanished
through the door while Remy was still trying to think
of what kind of food to ask for.
"Huh."
Well, there wasn't much he wouldn't eat. He
shrugged, considered his respiration for a moment,
then decided that he might as well walk himself into
another coughing fit. Painful, yes, but the sooner this
was over, the sooner the chemo would be over in the
long run, and the sooner Remy could look back on all
of this as a particularly ugly dream.
He took a breath, ran a hand through his hair to order
it, and opened the door to begin again.
His forehead rested against the cold porcelain, which
seemed to be trying to leach enough of his body heat
to take on its own warmth. Given how long he'd
been here, that probably wasn't going to happen if it
hadn't already. Remy wasn't sure what the heat-
exchange-rate was for flesh-to-toilet-rim -- it wasn't a
mathematical problem he'd pondered often -- but it
definitely wasn't an even trade. It seemed that he was
getting colder while the porcelain stayed cheerily
chill.
So get up, maudite idiot.
He thought the words with some vehemence, just on
principle, but there was no particular inclination to
actually go about obeying their order. He'd been
successfully not listening to them for nearly twenty
minutes, though for about fifteen minutes before that
he'd been too busy fighting with (and losing to) his
upset stomach to think much of anything beyond not
again not again oh shit again oh shit and the like.
This was getting to be almost routine.
He heard the not-quite-melodious singing moments
before the door opened, and he jerked himself back
from the toilet and fumbled for the flusher with one
hand as he stumble-staggered to his feet. By the time
Bobby's off-key tenor performance made its debut in
the doorway Remy was spitting mouthwash into the
sink and reaching for a towel to dry the face he'd just
stuck beneath the running faucet for a few seconds.
"Remy!" Bobby called, singsong, obviously in an
enviably good mood. "You in here?"
He caught a breath, finished toweling his face, and
made his unsteady way to the bathroom door where
the door frame itself was quite willing to offer him
support. He found himself smiling despite his
wooziness at the brightness of the face he was
greeted with.
Bobby's grin seemed nearly unwilling to be bound by
the stretch of lips. "You'll never guess what
happened today," he said in something rushed enough
to almost be a babble. "Try. Just try to guess. Try."
He half-bounced, half-walked over and tipped his
chin up to brush a kiss across Remy's unshaven
cheek.
And then the exuberance faded abruptly. Bobby's left
hand lifted to trace across his other cheek while
concern darkened the sky blue of his eyes. "You're
cold and clammy."
It took an effort for Remy to keep from rolling his
eyes. He twisted the smile wryly instead. In the
month since the surgery and the week since he'd
started chemo Bobby had become quite the medical
technician. Remy couldn't count the times he'd
woken to find his lover tap-tap-tapping away at his
computer keyboard late into the night, eyes endlessly
scanning lines of text that covered everything from
assorted brands of cancer to potential side effects of
the kind of chemo Remy was undergoing to warning
signs of recurrence of adenocarcinoma. A week into
chemotherapy now, and hardly a day went by without
the sweet-if-still-irritating observations about his
health. 'You didn't sleep as much last night.' 'You
threw up twice this morning. Twice.' 'The
Oncology Newsletter said you can have all the clear
Jell-O you want.' 'You're not, um, experiencing ...
what's it called ... pyrexia, are you?' And worse.
At least his focus had all shifted toward encouraging
as much activity as possible instead of restraining it.
He'd caught on fast to that much.
Maintaining the smile, Remy caught the curious hand
and kissed the back of it quickly before letting go.
"Just splashed m' face. Stop worrying."
Bobby didn't look entirely convinced. "We could
take your temperature..."
"Bobby. Cut it out." He was amazed at how patient
he sounded. Then again, he'd always been fairly
good at patience when it was needed to misdirect
someone. He didn't like Bobby to play even belated
witness to these periods of nausea. "What happened
t'day t' get y' so excited?"
"Huh? Oh." That grin came back readily. Bobby
twisted his fingers neatly and caught the hand Remy
had caught his own with, swinging it a little. "I was
at the grocery store, right? With Jean? 'Cause Scott
made me?"
Scott consistently 'made' Bobby do many things these
days. Sometimes it was the only way to get him out
of the house, and totally coincidentally, out of the
mother-henning role he kept falling into with Remy.
"Right. Y' don' gotta make everyt'ing a question,
Bobby."
A quick flush of embarrassment that didn't even dim
the grin. "Sorry. Well anyway, I was at the store
with Jean, and this guy comes up to us and says, just
outta nowhere, 'Excuse me for being so forward' -- he
said it just like this, I swear -- 'Excuse me for being
so forward, but I couldn't help noticing your distinct
physical presence. Would you consider modeling
for me?'" The guilelessly charming face couldn't
decide between pink and pure crimson. The grin,
however, was firmly fixed. "Wanna know the
funniest thing?"
Remy blinked. Bobby was still swinging his hand
endlessly as though full of energy that needed the
outlet. "Funniest thing?"
"He was talking," Bobby told him distinctly, "about
me."
Remy blinked again.
"Me," Bobby said again after a moment, grin
fading into a slightly perplexed look. "That guy. He
was talking about me instead of Jean. And using
words like 'distinct physical presence.' About me."
Remy blinked again. "He was hittin' on you."
The smooth brow furrowed. "No. I mean, he was an
artist, right? He was just, y'know, wanting me
for ... art. 'Cause guys don't just walk up to you in a
grocery store and ... and..." Something dawned in
the baby blues, slowly. "I mean ... they don't, do
they? Just walk up to you? In the grocery store?
That wasn't in any of the books..."
"Did he say nude modeling?"
Bobby shook his head dazedly. "No, but ... but Jean
was awfully giggly afterwards..."
Remy realized distantly that he wasn't even thinking
about his stomach anymore. "Y' never been hit on by
a guy b'fore?" His lips twitched involuntarily.
"Other than me?"
A quick cough and a flash of returning blush. "Um.
No. No guy other than you." Another cough, and
then Bobby was freeing his hand and walking over to
sprawl with a thoughtful grunt across the lower half
of the bed. "Huh. You really think he was hitting on
me?"
Only Bobby could find doubt in this situation ... "I
t'ink if he'd been hittin' on y' any more he'd'a been
down your pants."
"In the middle of the store??"
"Well he wasn't, Bobby..." Suppressing the
automatic sigh that wanted to go with the movement,
he pushed away from the door frame and paced
steadily to the bed, sitting with a bit more caution
than Bobby had used. Maybe he wasn't quite as over
the nausea as he'd thought. "What'd you say t' him?"
The head rolled and brown hair, growing longer now,
fell untidily over Bobby's face. "I said something
like, 'Um, sorry, I have somewhere to be.' Which
means that if you're right I came off as a totally
clueless jackass."
Remy tipped back slowly and tucked his hands
behind his head, lying parallel on the bed, staring at
the ceiling. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of
another man hitting on Bobby. Especially not when
he really wasn't feeling up to being proper
competition most days. "What'd he say?"
"He didn't. Jean sorta glared at him and he said
'okay' and 'bye' and left. I thought she was, y'know,
maybe a little jealous? She's the model and all..."
He blinked a few times behind the hair. "Wow. I'd
heard about 'Gaydar,' but this is the first time I've
seen it..."
"Read about it in one a y' books?" Let him say 'yes' ...
Remy didn't want to think what other part of Bobby's
life he might've missed in recent weeks. Not that
Bobby had particularly had a life other than
worrying over Remy, not that he'd seen, but now
there was this whole area of Outside that Remy
couldn't touch as easily as he had once, and he
realized with a little jolt that Bobby still had a
presence there. An independent Self.
An independent Self that was evidently attractive to
other gay men.
"Yeah." A hand suddenly reached up and caught
Remy's again. "God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to run
off with that. How're you feeling?"
How was he feeling? Uncharacteristically
competitive, outclassed, and uninformed. None of
those were particularly comfortable things for a thief
to feel. He forced a smile and squeezed the hand in
his, then released it. "Great." It wasn't a big lie.
And besides, he was beginning to think that he could
use a little more outward focus here. "Tell me
more 'bout your day."
He hated watching this.
He hated the thought of Remy having to go through it
alone even more, though, so he put on an attempt at a
smile and pretended to be comfortable and tried very
hard not to think about just what was being
pumped into his lover through the port into his chest.
Uncomfortable enough to look at, that. It had been a
minor surgery, but the results were a constant
reminder that no matter how well the lobectomy had
gone, Remy's health was still a concern. Twin tubes
ran out of the port that went into his chest. Hank
handled the several-times-weekly administration of
the chemotherapy, which was injected slowly through
one or the other of those tubes and sent into the body
to come out near the superior vena cavae.
Chemotherapy, Dr. Niles had explained, was very
hard on a person's veins: The least stressful way to
introduce the chemicals into the body was to skip the
smaller veins in the arms and go straight to the area
around the heart.
Dangerous chemicals being fed almost directly into
Remy's heart. Oh yeah. No problem.
These sessions took about an hour. Usually Jean
would come join them, sitting and chatting amiably
through the process as if she didn't notice that they
were busily poisoning his lover. A few times Scott
had.
Bobby preferred to have just the two of them. There
was this look Remy got sometimes when they had an
'audience' ... this wary, defensive bearing that he
couldn't seem to help. Hank was Bobby's secret
weapon in figuring out the confusing psychological
variables that made up his lover, but even Hank's
sensible explanations of Remy's fear of vulnerability
didn't really help Bobby figure out how to ease that.
What did he say? 'Don't worry, they don't bite'?
He rather thought that Remy would consider leaving
him in Antarctica a little worse than biting.
Hank talked companionably through the awkward
few minutes it took to set up the chemotherapy.
Bobby joked back nervously. Remy was mostly
silent. This was the second session of the treatment;
the first had lasted two weeks and had been tolerated
fairly well, and the two-week break in between had
helped, but a few days into session two already had
Remy sick. Hank and Dr. Niles said the same thing:
It was a normal side effect, nothing to worry about.
He was still holding up remarkably well under it all.
Bobby wondered where the cutoff point between
"holding up remarkably well" and "we're gonna lose
him" was.
Stop that, he told himself sternly. He's fine most
of the time.
Remy had settled into the recliner that Jean had sent
down here for just this purpose. As was becoming
tradition for medlab furniture, it was hideous. Where
Hank's chair in the corner was a particularly loud
shade of blue and the sofa complementing it mingled
more hues than a psychedelic rainbow, this cushiony
thing was actually ... fuchsia. Bobby had been
horrified when he'd first seen it, thinking for a few
seconds that Jean was making fun of them. Remy,
however, had laughed until he'd clutched his chest in
pain.
When exactly had Remy's sense of humor become
better than his?
Bobby reclined on his sofa, feet up on the armrest,
and flipped through a medical text that he thought he
could use for weight-lifting exercises if he were so
inclined. 'Dry reading' didn't begin to describe it.
He'd read worse, though. He'd survived getting a
degree in Accounting, and after that this was a
piece of cake.
Remy flipped through the newspaper, as casually
interested as always in keeping up with current
events. For a short while there was no sound but the
almost inaudible hum of the machinery running the
chemo, the soft rustle of papers turning and the
comfortable sigh of slow, relaxed breathing.
When Rogue came in, the leisurely atmosphere
became abruptly strained.
Remy greeted her with a nod and her name, sounding
courteous, but Bobby didn't miss the way his eyes
flickered to the IV-pole and the bag holding the
chemicals that hung there.
"Howdy, boys," she said congenially enough. "Just
thought I'd come keep ya company for a bit."
Reflexively Bobby glanced at the monitor set up to
display Remy's pulse. It was a habit he'd acquired
during the first two weeks of chemo, and in this latest
round it had proven more enlightening. Maybe it was
the chemicals, maybe it was the sickness caused by
them, but something was making his partner jumpy
on a regular basis.
From the climbing numbers displayed on the
monitor, it looked as if Rogue's arrival definitely
didn't help. His lover didn't show it, not on the
surface, but her very presence raised his heartrate.
The Cajun's jaw was set a little too hard, his smile a
little too forced. No, this wasn't helping at all.
Which meant that it had to go. Or, more specifically,
she had to go. "Rogue," Bobby said as politely as
he could manage. "Maybe that wouldn't be the best
idea right now."
Remy shot him an openly surprised look. Bobby
didn't often breach social protocol like that. He didn't
particularly care if it was atypical, though, and just
stared at her with pseudo-patience while waiting for
her answer.
"I just wanted to talk t' Remy, sugar. Won't take but
a minute." Her voice was still quite friendly as she
settled casually into Hank's chair. Her eyes were
uncompromising. "Actually, I was gonna ask if you
would excuse us."
"He's not hurtin' anyt'ing by stayin'," Remy said
quietly, folding the newspaper very precisely and
setting it aside. "Leave be, Rogue."
"I need t' talk to you 'bout a few things. Private
things, Remy."
Bobby's eyes flicked to the monitor again. Another
little jump upward in pulse. He thought he saw a
muscle tick in Remy's jaw.
"This ain' really de best time." A humorless smile as
a long-fingered hand found the IV-tube and flicked it
in indication. "Catch me later; we'll go f' a walk or
somet'in'."
You can't, Bobby wanted to point out. The
chemo would hit him a little while after
administration and he'd be lucky if he could even
really get out of bed for a bit. Remy didn't like to be
reminded of his weaknesses, though, and he
particularly hated having them exposed in front of
anyone who could be kept in the dark about them.
Was this then Remy's way of putting Rogue off?
Her lips curved into a wistful smile that Bobby
wanted to tear from her face. Didn't she see what she
was doing to him? "Y'know, swamprat ... I remember
days when you'd be on your feet in a heartbeat t' walk
me anywhere."
You bitch.
Green eyes flicked toward Bobby as if she'd heard the
thought. Her smile was fixed and fake. "But things
just change all over, don't they? In the strangest ways
imaginable."
Remy didn't say anything, but his pulse shot higher
and the automatic blood pressure cuff hissed softly as
it was called into action.
"Yeah," Bobby said when his lover stayed tensely
silent. "Things change all over. Look, you heard
him ... this isn't a good time."
Eyebrows arching, she fixed him with a more direct
look. "Sugar, I didn't come down here t' argue with
you. Why don't ya go for a walk an' let me an' Remy
chat on our own?"
The blood pressure cuff relaxed with a long sigh and
a reading was displayed in blocky illuminated letters.
Bobby's jaw hardened. "I really don't think he needs
what you've gotta say right now."
"Bobby." Low voiced, from Remy, with hardly any
inflection.
"That ain't for you do decide," Rogue put in irritably,
scowling a little. "Go on, Bobby. I'll call ya when
we're through."
He jabbed a finger at the monitor. "Look at what
you're doing to him already! If you think for one
second I'm gonna--"
"Bobby." Real anger that time. Remy's face was
masked so blankly that he had to be livid.
"Arretez-donc. Stop that."
"Look at your blood pressure!" he protested. "The
second she came in here--"
"Ferme ta guelle!"
Bobby wasn't sure exactly what that meant but it
sounded pretty adamant. He choked off his next
words. Didn't quell his glare. Get out of here, that
expression was meant to tell Rogue plainly. Couldn't
she see? Didn't she care even a little?
She looked from one to the other, then slowly
unfolded herself from the chair and stood. "I'll come
find ya later, Remy," she murmured. Another glance
at Bobby, then she strode through the door. The latch
clicked solidly.
Remy stared in stolid silence at the chair she'd
occupied.
"Remy," he began hesitantly, "I didn't mean to--"
His lover tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
That jaw didn't unclench much. "Just lemme 'lone,
Bobby."
"Wh-what? I was just trying to--"
"I wanna be alone."
And Bobby realized with a sudden sinking in his
chest that Remy only said that because, hooked up
to the IV, he couldn't leave himself.
So Bobby did.
"I can't figure him out. Am I just blind?
Hopelessly clueless? Why the hell is he nice to
her?"
"She is a teammate," Hank pointed out mildly as
he adjusted some knob or other on the microscope he
was peering into. "How else would you have him
relate to her?"
Bobby was pacing restlessly, reflecting absently on
how he seemed to do this a lot in recent months. The
auxiliary lab where he'd found Hank didn't really
have room for it, but he managed. "I had the proof
right there, Hank! She walks in and boom, his
blood pressure goes up. I just don't understand it.
He's uncomfortable around her. He doesn't like
being around her. So why is he nice?"
"Analyze the question, Robert."
"What?"
"Analyze it. Why would he be so congenial to our
displaced Southern belle?"
"That's what I'm asking you!"
A sigh, but not an especially deep one. He wasn't
really annoyed yet. "Your partner burdens himself
with an unseemly amount of culpability."
"You mean guilt? Yeah." He could swear that he felt
his heart twang at that. "I know he does."
"And what is the companion for guilt?"
"Uh..."
"Remorse. Contrition. Penitence."
"Huh?"
"He feels bad and tries to make nice with the people
he thinks he's hurt."
"Ooh." He paused in his pacing and rubbed irritably
at his head. An ache was forming somewhere just
inside his skull, tap-tap-tapping merrily at his nerves.
"But Hank, he ... he really shouldn't be doing that
right now, y'know? It's not good for him. And
he..."
Hank glanced at him after he'd trailed into silence and
stayed there for a minute. "Did you intend to finish
that thought?"
With a sigh that he tried to suppress Bobby sank
down on the folding chair set in one corner. "I wish I
spoke French."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. He said something, and I don't have any idea
what it meant, but it sounded ... bad. And he was so ...
angry." He swallowed hard, stared at the
incomprehensible tangle of equipment on the table
beside him. "I wanna help him, Hank, but I can't
seem to figure out how. It's like he's tackling this ...
this thing, all by himself. I-I know he doesn't need
me, but now ... Y'know, I can barely keep my shit
together when I hook up with an accounting job or, or
as an X-Man or when I'm talking to my dad or--"
"Is there a point to this self-castigation?"
"Yeah." A breath. "This thing is pushing him;
making him see what he's capable of. What if he's
seeing ... seeing those ways we're different and maybe
getting sick of my ... limits."
"Your limits?"
"I could never have fought this the way he's
doing," he breathed out, painful honesty. "Hank, can
you just imagine what it must feel like? And how
sick he's gotten, and the cure being worse than the
disease--"
"The cure is only worse than the disease if the disease
is halted in its tracks," Hank cut in. "I assure you,
had he chosen not to undergo treatment he would
have been far less comfortable or drugged to the
figurative gills."
"But that's just it! He could've decided to just let go
and not fight, and you would've put him on drugs,
and he'd've just ... just faded away, y'know? Without
all this knowing and being sick all the time and
wondering if there's even any point to it." That was
more than he'd meant to say. He forged on before
Hank could pause him on those words. "I don't ... I
don't know if I could do it, Hank. I know the
question would've entered my mind early on about
whether or not to even try. But somehow he just ...
did it. No questions, no hesitation, like there wasn't
even another option. And some part of him's gotta
know that I wouldn't have the guts to just face it
like that." The words dried out then, without even
really saying all that he had to say. Despite the
regard he held for Hank he also had to believe that
now would come the false reassurances ... now would
come the big words that he'd have to look up later
that would be meant for no other purpose than to
mislead him into thinking that he had 'strength
waiting to be tested' and that Remy had 'hidden
vulnerabilities' and that everything was okay, he had
no reason for concern, Remy didn't think less of him
for his weakness...
Slowly, face thoughtful, Hank sat back from the
microscope, chair squeaking beneath him. A large
hand found his spectacles; pulled them off and rested
them in his lap as he stared at his teammate. Bobby
wanted to squirm, but damnit, he'd meant all that
and Hank wasn't gonna make him take it back just by
looking at him.
"Oh, Bobby," Hank said finally in a voice much
lower and softer than the distracted version from
moments before. "I fear I have done you a
disservice."
Wha...? "I don't follow."
Warm eyes, a little sad. "Sometimes it is still far too
easy to gaze across the bridge of time and see you as
the boy you were when we all first came to be here."
He knew that tone of voice; that was storyteller
mode. Hank had something he believed Bobby
needed to hear, and it wasn't a simple something.
"I'm listening."
"I think I wanted to protect you in those days, Bobby.
Restrain your embarrassment for a moment ... You
were small and frightened, younger than all of us and
plunged into a terrifying situation. On some level,
despite my moral abhorrence for the practice, I
believe it became natural for me to attempt to...
shelter you, when I could. To at the least not burden
you with knowledge that you could do nothing to
alter. I had no desire to agitate you needlessly and
pointlessly."
Some of the fuzz of anxiety was clearing from his
thoughts. Bobby didn't say a word, but nodded
shortly in encouragement. Whatever Hank was
working around to, something told him that he
wanted to know.
His friend glanced down briefly at his glasses in
thought, then looked up again, seeming almost
resigned. "You're laboring under a misconception.
Remy is not superhuman, any more than you are
something less. He has not faced this without his
own share of uncertainty or fear or ... indecision." A
louder creak as the heavy weight settled more
comfortably into the chair. "Let me tell you about the
morning after we informed him of his illness, when
he came down to ... discuss treatment."
Bobby nodded more slowly, put his milling thoughts
on hold, and listened.
He'd made an attempt to talk himself out of anger.
He really, truly had.
When it failed, he didn't feel too bad.
Remy had wanted to refuse treatment. He'd wanted
to give up, resigning himself to death, claiming it his
due in that horrible, guilty way of his. The
morning after they'd been together--
--so together--
--his lover had gone down to the medlab to tell Hank
to let him die.
Humanity. Courage and fear, strength and weakness.
Despite the fact that Remy had entertained the notion
of giving up, Bobby couldn't fault him for it.
Aborted past decisions didn't tarnish the admiration
he held for the man who was currently wading
through hell for nothing more than a chance at
survival. Even if it was now a good chance after
the surgery, the possibility was still there that this
was all for nothing.
Since Bobby's opinion of Remy couldn't fall he found
himself reevaluating a lot of the preconceived notions
he'd held to be true all his life.
It was so different from what he'd imagined. He'd
seen the movies, watched the television shows, read
some of the books. A person going through an illness
like this was supposed to hit certain stages -- his
loved ones were supposed to feel this at this
juncture and that at the next. All laid out, all
somehow satisfyingly choreographed. There had
been limited roles in his mind for each of them to fall
into and that hadn't seemed a bad thing at all;
merely an expected truth.
Reality was ... something else entirely.
How could he have expected to find himself laughing
uncontrollably one night when Remy had dryly
observed that he should ask Hank to leave the port in
and acquire himself a nice heroin addiction, just to
keep the port from going to waste? It wasn't even
funny, not a little, but it came after a session of
holding Remy's hair away from his face, rubbing his
back, trying and failing to think of words as the man
wretched painfully over the toilet for the fourth time
since lunch. And what could have prepared him for
the conversations that carried so naturally and paused
so abruptly when one or the other of them mistakenly
tossed out a mention of long-term plans, forgetting in
the normalcy of the moment that those plans were
still in question? Smiling over irritable grumbling,
biting back tears when Remy tossed that offhand
Cajun grin his way, losing himself in music he'd
never even listened to before, staring up at jeweled
stars in a nighttime sky and honestly wondering
what happened to a person when the heart finally
tripped to a halt...
No. It was something that those diluted, twisted,
melodramatic portrayals that he'd always taken as
truth ... couldn't capture. Couldn't even touch.
Remy -- bold, daring, face-every-challenge Remy --
had been ready to lie down and accept his fate ... and
Bobby was forced to reconsider everything he'd
based on his own false assumptions.
The first thing he was reconsidering was something
that had happened just over a year back. Something
that he'd let himself lose sight of in the maelstrom of
confusion that had surrounded it. Something that had
contributed to the decision that Hank hadn't allowed
Remy to make unchallenged.
"Rogue," he said flatly, breath pluming in the outside
air. "We need to talk."
Her motions didn't pause; she continued rubbing a
cloth over the hood of her convertible casually.
"What about, Bobby?"
"You know what about."
She glanced over her shoulder. Met his blue eyes
with her green ones and held the gaze mildly. "No
offense, but I think what I had t' talk to Remy about
needs to stay between me an' Remy."
"Fine," he said shortly. "We still need to talk."
Slowly, indolently, she curved her body, turned,
leaned back against the freshly polished crimson car.
She exuded lazy Southern style, but her eyes were
sharp and stared hard. "What've we got to talk
about?"
Still angry. Hurt? Still wounded over the choice
Remy had made, the man he'd taken to his bed. And
even Bobby knew that a wounded animal was that
much more dangerous.
But damnit, he couldn't let this go. He couldn't.
Remy was in there, sick and nervy and altogether
miserable, and she was contributing to that,
intentionally or no, and it didn't matter that he was
confronting possibly the most powerful teammate he
had because he was mad enough to almost manage
to forget that, and besides, hadn't Logan once said
something about an animal defending a wounded
mate being more dangerous still...? "I want you to
leave him alone."
And with those words, that confidence in his
rightness was abruptly back.
"Excuse me?" A trace of that tone that grated on his
nerves every time he heard it from her. "That ain't
your call to make."
Well. So much for the vague hope that this would be
easy. "I'm not ordering you, Rogue. I'm asking you.
I'm asking whatever part of you cared about him
once. He can't take what you do to him right now."
"What do you know about it?" She hadn't really
raised her voice yet, but her eyes were flashing
enough to warn him that it was coming. "There's no
law saying he an' I can't still be friends, Bobby.
He's a grown man. He can make his own decisions."
"Decisions like blaming himself for what you did
to him?" he all but hissed, thinking that his eyes
might be flashing as well. "Decisions like thinking
that he owes you somehow for having cared about
you?"
She drew up, stood straight and tall. "Don't go there.
Don't you dare go there."
"Or what? Leaving me in Antarctica isn't really
gonna cut it, I don't think. Try the Sahara, maybe?"
His throat was so tight that the words were said even
more harshly than he heard them in his head, but
he didn't care at the moment. No one -- no one had
really addressed this. No one had confronted her.
Storm asked her about it once, Bobby thought, and he
was pretty sure that Hank had made plain his horror,
but Rogue had yet to be held accountable for what
could so easily have been murder. Why? How had
they all let this go? Was it so easy to fall victim to
Remy's determined abandonment of the issue?
She looked ready to cry or scream. Her voice was
choked. "You got no idea what really happened
there... you weren't there... you didn't hear what he
told me in my head, Bobby..."
"Tell me, then! Tell me what the fuck gave you
enough reason to leave him there!"
"You... you wouldn't understand..."
"Try me."
"I can't ... it's not..."
He clenched a fist. Unclenched it. "Why did you
leave him there?"
"Because he told me to!" She turned in a motion
so fast and fluid he could barely follow it, her hand
slamming down, denting and mangling the carefully
tended hood of her convertible with a screech of
metal. "He was in my head, he made me see what he
was feeling, and he told me to leave him there.
You got that? Can you swallow that, huh?"
His mind was whirling around it all, but somehow the
information was still, amazingly, falling into order in
his brain. Like numbers lining up, information
making sense even when it was presented so
chaotically. This belonged here, that belonged
there. She couldn't lead him into contemplation of
abstract concepts if he cut down to the core of truth
behind them.
"He told you to let him die," he said unsteadily, as if
waiting for confirmation.
"Yes."
"You gave him what he thought he wanted."
"I didn't want to ... I know this ain't easy to
understand, but he made it so clear..."
"Uh huh." Numerical alignment. "Did you know he
told Hank to let him die, too?"
She went still. Very still. "What?"
"When he was diagnosed with cancer. When he
found out how bad his chances were. He thought he
deserved it. He thought he was supposed to have
died when you left him in the snow, and he told
Hank that he didn't want treatment."
Rogue didn't turn. Her fingers curled against the
already twisted metal of her car's hood, making it
bend and warp even more. "It ... it ain't the same..."
"No person of any sorta conscience is gonna just
accept that decision from a man in that condition.
No one." And now he felt tears of anger and
something less easily defined trying to start up in his
eyes. It was so easy to get caught in conflicting
emotions nowadays. He took a step closer and
dropped his voice, hearing it go rough. "Everything
that'd just happened down there ... everything that'd
been said to him and about him ... all of it was just
stacking up, making him feel like he couldn't take it
anymore. If you ever cared about him ... if you were
even fucking human at heart, you wouldn't have
done that to him."
A tremble passed through her. "Back off, Bobby,"
she said hoarsely, not turning.
The warning in her voice was plain, but he didn't
back away. She might touch me. Yes, she might.
Steal his mind, steal his memories, see what he felt
and thought and believed. He didn't want that -- he
certainly had no desire to share himself or any of the
tender moments he'd had in Remy's arms with her --
but he wouldn't let this go, either. At the very least, if
she dared to do that, then she'd be forced to see
how it all looked through the eyes of someone who
loved the man she'd abandoned.
"What was he to you?" He felt sick even heading in
this direction. "Did he feed your ego? Make you feel
pretty? Was he property, Ro--"
She'd turned and shoved him back before he finished
saying her name. A shove from Rogue wasn't
something to sneer at, either. His torso snapped
back, dragging his legs through the air after him,
and he spared half a heartbeat to wonder if whiplash
via angry Southerner was covered by his insurance...
And then he was ice, caught and slowed to a halt by a
ready slide that formed beneath him, and in almost
the same thought he was guiding a pillar of crystal
water to erupt beneath Rogue's feet, launching her
skyward, flinging her into the air with enough speed
and force to even catch her by surprise.
She recovered quickly, spun in the air in a catlike
motion, and dove for him with a shouted word that he
couldn't make out. Instinct and anger mingled for
once: He sheeted ice around her outstretched form
with less than a thought, thickening it automatically,
springing back as the ice boulder started to fall to
earth.
Rogue broke free a few yards above the ground. Ice
shattered, quieter than glass, and began to fall as she
regathered herself for another lunge for him.
He gathered the ice, fused it with more and encased
her again, thicker this time.
Another fall, all the way to the ground, and another
spray of crystalline water outward. She was livid
now, madder than before, and the expression on her
face gave him a chill.
It didn't even touch the anger in his chest, though.
Frozen teeth bared, he sheathed her in ice again,
leaving her head free and trapping the rest of her
more securely. The ice trembled immediately under
the strain of her struggling but he thought he had
maybe a moment, maybe two, in which to make her
hear him.
"I could trap you in a glacier," he told her in words
made level and uninflected by the very truth they
reflected. "I could bury you in Antarctica, deep
enough that you might never get out." He barely
heard the words and had no idea where they were
coming from. "If I were the sort -- if I were the
sort, I could send ice crystals through your arteries
directly into your brain." She was panting raggedly,
not struggling anymore, listening to him. "I could fill
your heart with ice. I could kill you, Rogue."
Deep beneath the words and the sentiment he sat
inside himself and watched his actions in timorous
awe.
"I know that if you touched me you could steal my
mind and my powers." Icy lips twisted. He took a
shaky breath. "But you'd have to touch me first."
She said nothing. Glared with enough heat to
figuratively scorch.
"All I was trying to say was leave him alone. All I
care about right now is that you stop trying to put
your shit off on him and just let him focus on getting
better. If you wanna have a heart-to-heart with him,
wait until he comes to you." His voice thickened.
"You don't have a right to reach out to him. Not after
what you did. And ... and you can't justify that.
You can't. He may not see that, but I do, and I'm
not gonna let--"
The ice quivered and shattered. Rogue was trembling
from head to toe; with anger or some more worthy
emotion, he couldn't tell. "Stop," she said flatly.
"Just stop."
"Not until you--"
"Bobby...?"
His frozen heart felt even harder and colder suddenly.
He turned his head slowly and tried not to panic.
"Remy ... what are you doing out here...?" He'd just
taken chemo ... it would be hitting him at any moment
and then he'd be sick again, and he was already
barely standing straight, swaying a little, with a hand
braced against the brick wall just outside the garage,
staring at Bobby with a dazed look, and... "You
should be taking it easy..."
A little tremor ran through the long body wavering
there so unsteadily. "I heard..." He shook his head.
Looked past Bobby at Rogue, who appeared more
frozen than she'd been encased in ice. "Cher,
why...?"
"Don't call me that," Rogue said hoarsely.
Remy blinked slowly. "I was talkin' ... t' Bobby."
Ice transformed to flesh. Bobby barely spared a
moment to be relieved that long habit had caused him
to don his uniform pants beneath his clothes, just in
case something unexpected happened. The daily
clothing had cracked and fallen away, leaving him
now bare-chested and clad only in the second-skin
leggings.
Mind on more important matters, he ignored that fact
and went to Remy, leaving Rogue standing
motionless in the winter grass.
"I'm sorry," he said when he was close enough to be
heard only by his lover. "But I don't take a word of it
back." His stomach fluttered uneasily, doing lazy
flipflops, but he didn't dare let this surety in his
actions escape him. He'd meant it all, even if he
hadn't known he'd meant it until it was out.
Remy stared at him as if looking at a stranger.
Crimson and midnight eyes were too full of surprise
to show anything else he might've been feeling. "I...
Oh."
Bobby took a breath, extended a hand. "Can we ...
shouldn't we get you to your room?"
The eyes dropped to his hand. Blinked. "What
happened t' y' brace?"
"My...?" He looked. "Um." Those little bones in his
hand had still been sore after his altercation with the
wall, and the brace had been worn to remind him not
to use it. But now they ... didn't hurt? At all. He'd
actually forgotten about it. "I guess it ... broke off."
Forgotten. When he hadn't transformed to ice for
months simply to avoid risking misaligning those
bones. "It doesn't hurt..."
Remy nodded faintly, then closed his eyes suddenly
and swallowed hard. His hand against the wall was
trembling, sending shivers up along his arm and all
through the increasingly leaner body. He didn't say a
word; Bobby had seen these signs enough to know
them by now, though. Quickly he slipped an arm
around Remy's waist, hating the flinch away from his
colder-than-usual flesh, but not taking it to heart. He
murmured, "Come on," and waited until fingers
slipped from the wall to slowly creep behind his
neck, over his shoulders, letting him reach up to take
the hand in his to offer more support.
Out of his peripheral vision he caught a last glimpse
of Rogue as they turned. She still hadn't moved. She
still watched them silently. She was crying.
A part of him almost felt sorry for her, but the part of
him that really mattered was busy with thoughts of
Remy, and she didn't rate so much as a concern next
to that.
He was wearing more clothing than he'd thought he
could fit on his body; bundled to the teeth, and
thickly. Winter sat cold and unfriendly over the
grounds with no Ororo returned to ease its weight.
Today he felt good, however, and in the last three
months there had been perhaps as many days when
that had been the case, so he was going to enjoy this,
damnit, even if it meant slogging miserably through
the numbing morass of wet New York snowfall. No
way he'd miss it. Not when he was about to sign over
yet another series of seemingly endless weeks to a
third round of chemotherapy.
"Have you made any attempt to contact Ororo?"
Beside him walked Henri, far less bedecked in
clothing than he, strolling with the stride of a man
who was determined to enjoy such a rare moment of
wintry sunshine in the holiday season. His
concession to the Christmas spirit was a floppy Santa
hat he'd been wearing nearly every day since
December 1. Remy was determined to steal it and
stuff the tin bell at the tip with cotton before the day
was out.
"Enh." His half-shrug was buried beneath fabric.
Lots of fabric. Pointedly not festively colored
fabric. "Be hard t' get in touch wit' her..."
"That's the voice of a man dissembling. With your
connections I'm certain it wouldn't be too difficult."
His breath turned to mist. God, he wanted a
cigarette, even now. "I ain' usin' my ... 'connections.'
Right now."
"Oh?"
He shrugged more brusquely and declined to answer.
Henri's head bowed briefly, gaze dropping to the
ground in front of them. "Isolating yourself may
prove detrimental, Remy," he said almost casually,
not pushing.
"Just givin' m'self a li'l time t' get better, Henri." He'd
seen to it personally that the most news regarding
him that went out of this mansion was the offhand
reference that he'd been sick, but underwent
treatment. Let the teams think what they would.
Being a spectacle wasn't something any thief worth a
cheap take could stomach.
On a deeper level, the thought of having his
vulnerabilities displayed ... disturbed him,
fundamentally. For rational reasons as well as
instinctual ones. There were plenty of people out
there who'd love nothing more than to facilitate an
end to Remy LeBeau's life. Letting word of his
current weakened state get out would be painting a
neon sign saying "Good Eats" above his head.
He had a habit of falling out of contact with everyone
around the holidays anyway. This shouldn't surprise
any of the people he usually kept in touch with.
"Very well." Henri tipped his face back up, sunlight
caressing blue fur and making it glow softly. The
bell tinkled with tinny cheer. "I know how little
you're looking forward to this, but in the vernacular ...
I'm afraid you'll have to suck it up. No matter what
feelings you may have for past experiences you at
least have the assurance that you've endured worse."
"Understatement," Remy murmured. "Tell me again
why we're doin' all this...?"
Henri's step hesitated, continued. "You're perfectly
aware of the rationale."
"Am I? Y' friend Niles cut out the cancer. Why y'
keep pumpin' that shit into me, Henri?"
"I've already explained to you," Henri began with a
voice of infinite patience. "There's a possibility that
the surgery failed to expunge all the carcinoma from
your body."
"Possibility," he echoed. "Chance."
"Yes."
He pondered that a moment, then nodded with
sarcastic comprehension. "Y're poisoning me on a
chance."
Henri sighed deeply, steamy breath spreading in a
diffusing cloud. "In all likelihood there is no cancer
left inside you. As far as anyone can tell at the
moment, the lobectomy was sufficient
independently."
He was cold -- it felt as if the snow were seeping
through his clothing, clinging to him wetly, biting.
He was exhausted. He was bitter. "Funny how y'
never put it quite like that b'fore." Before the
treatment it had always been referred to as
'necessary.' It was only after he'd agreed to let them
introduce harmful chemicals to his bloodstream that
he'd come to understand that the doctors' definition of
'necessary' didn't exactly match his.
"The dilemma is that there is a possibility that we
missed some of the cancer cells. We're unable to
detect the disease on such a small scale, at least for
now, I'm sorry to say. It doesn't take much for cancer
to acquire a foothold."
"Y' t'ink y' got it all, but y're gon' make me go t'rough
all dis again just in case." He nodded sagely. "I
gotcha."
"Essentially ... yes. That's correct." A gentler tone:
"But regardless of how it sounds, we wouldn't be
asking you to submit to this without compelling
reason."
Silence for a bit as they walked. Remy shivered and
tucked his hood higher. The chemo had thinned his
blood, he decided. Made him that much more prey to
the chill in the air. Facing these current challenges
had made it easy to slide the memory of Antarctica to
a distant corner of his thoughts, but the experience
never quite faded entirely.
Eventually-- "Last one got ... pretty bad, Henri." He'd
taken the first two-week session well enough, then
spent another two weeks recuperating before
beginning the second course. That one hadn't been
tolerated nearly as well. He'd lost weight with a
rapidity that had caused Bobby to ply him with
caloric foods at just about any time that he wasn't
kneeling over a toilet or basin and emptying his
stomach. Found bed too tempting, ended up dozing
in chairs instead when he refused to give in and lie
down. His clothes had stopped fitting properly. He
wouldn't buy more for an intermediary stage,
however, so made good use of belts with extra holes
punched.
Only now was he even beginning to feel vaguely
human again, so predictably it was time to hook back
up to the poisons. Merry Christmas, Remy. Ha ha
ho.
"Your body's actually handling the chemotherapy
extremely well," Henri said unflappably. "The
nausea is affecting your overall health, but the
Compazine eased that somewhat and you're not
suffering many of the prototypical reactions to the
treatment."
Reflexively Remy slid a hand into his hood and ran
fingers through his auburn hair. He hadn't admitted
to anyone just how much trepidation he'd faced the
idea of losing his hair with. "Lucky me," he
muttered. "What happens if I say I don' wan' do the
next treatment?"
"If you insist on being so self-destructively stubborn,
no one can force you to acquiesce."
A humorless chuckle. "Li'l late, innit? Be a bitch if I
quit now an' the cancer comes back." Be a worse
bitch if he kept going and the cancer came back, he
thought, but that pretty much went without saying.
Besides ... once he decided to fight, Remy LeBeau
was no quitter. Jean-Luc raised him better than that,
even if he'd lost sight of that for a time.
Even if some part of him still thought...
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