Post by Gambit on Dec 13, 2006 19:37:49 GMT -5
Wanda left her brother to make his own investigates of Lorna’s downfall and stepped down a long hallway towards the dormitories. She hadn’t any goal in mind aside from reminiscence, and turned a slow circle while traveling forward, looking all around her with a vague smile.
But her emotions had been upheaved. That strange brown man with the metal leg had thrown taunts at her brother, and Lorna in some similarly coloured younger woman’s body… she didn’t like any of it. As a result, when she passed several dormitory doors flew open, their broad wooden doors chopping against their interior walls with loud bangs.
Wanda’s slender fingertips drifted through the long red hair at her temple. She was deep in thought, too far deeper than she should have been, and sinking fast. The long oriental carpet that lay over the dark wood finish of the floor rippled like ocean waves, and a hollow, increasingly scathing whistle-like scream began to echo around her, as if she were in a wind tunnel beset by harpies.
One of the doors that flew open belonged to Remy LeBeau.
The young Cajun had been stealing a few moments of peace and quiet and getting some sleep. He'd done several perimeter checks already and everything seemed quiet enough, and man, he was tired.
He was thus yanked out of a surprisingly pleasant dream when his door slammed open. He sat bolt upright, his hair almost comically haywire and was standing up and ready to defend himself in an instant. After a few moments passed and hordes of Hunters didn't descend upon him, he relaxed his stance a little.
Moving with fluid grace to the door, he peered around it to see Wanda's retreating back.
"Everythin' OK, chere?" he asked, neutrally.
Turning like a dancer caught in some silent waltz, rather than facing him she merely turned sideways, leaning back against the wall beside his door. Her face continued the motion and blue eyes looked sidelong at him, some dreadfully mournful look on her beautiful features before it melted away into something more peaceful.
Wanda took careful, measured control of her mind before the chaos consumed her. It usually happened a few times a day. Not generally when people are about, but in the mansion it seemed you were never alone.
“Oh hello, my hunter…” She said fluidly. “I’ve received unsettling news, that’s all. I disturbed you. You’ll forgive me.” Wanda nodded once.
"Why chere," said Remy, gallantly, giving her his dazzling smile. "Forgiveness is th' easiest thing in th' world." He leaned against his door frame easily, folding his arms across his chest. "Nothin' too upsettin', I hope? Anythin' ol' Remy can do to help?"
He couldn't stop himself. He found this woman oddly alluring.
Her eyes flickered to his chest, the arms that flexed as he crossed them over himself. Like many mutants he was a beautiful example of physical power, and yet, more lithe than some. He lacked the bulging exaggeration of muscle some possessed. Wanda appreciated that.
“Ohh… only that the ministrations of the X-Men have done little to save my sister. Learning more of her death, there is much to be done. And I was so looking forward to some peace.”
Her face turned back towards the hallway, eyes drifting upward slowly towards the ceiling. The howling ceased but as her eyelids closed, the walls shuddered and draperies of rich green velveteen dripped from overhead, parting over each doorway. Remy couldn’t know this, but the green was precisely the shade of Lorna Dane’s hair. Wanda looked pained for a while.
“I have spent a long time wishing for freedom from this body….” She said, hands drifting over her throat, down her torso, falling to rest on either thigh. “And now my sister is free of hers, and all I wish is for her to return.” The orb of chaos around her positively vibrated, and a few voices were heard in the room next to Remy’s, confused and a little alarmed at whatever they’d sensed or seen.
"I know what it's like t'lose a sibling," said Remy, softly, his voice filled with genuine sympathy. "Know how y'feel, chere. Not a day goes by when I don't wish that Henri was stil with me, lecturin' me 'bout this, or that, or goin' on 'bout how he an' Mercy were gonna have a li'l brood of LeBeau kids..."
He laid his hand on her shoulder.
"I got a bottle of Mr Daniels' finest inside. Y'want t'come sit with me for a while? Let it out your system?"
Her eyes saw his hand through a veil of dark eyelashes before she looked up at him. He was always so strangely calm around him. Only her brother was able to be so…
Her brother.
Opening her mouth to speak, she paused, and tilted her head, continuing to look up at him with a curious expression. Her brother hadn’t been happy when she’d spoken of Remy before. But then Pietro was always afraid for her, afraid she would be hurt, or that someone you mistreat her. It was so rarely that way. So often the other way around.
Well then. What did Pietro care if she hurt this man? And he certainly wasn’t going to do her any harm…
Wanda’s smile dawned subtly through a more somber expression. “I’d like that…”
"Then come on in, s'il vous plait," he said, dropping into a low bow and gesturing her inside.
His room, much like the other guest rooms in the mansion was plain, but comfortable and gave very little away about its owner. He hadn't arrived with a lot of luggage, so most of the surfaces were bare, save for the aforementioned bottle of bourbon and a couple of glasses. His long overcoat was thrown over the back of a chair and his boots stood in a corner. He picked up the coat and threw it onto the bed.
"For you," he said, offering her the chair and then crossing to fill the two shot glasses with a healthy dose of Lynchburg's best export.
Wanda looked around, much as she had when they’d first met, surveying all before her like a noblewoman appraising her surroundings. Sitting, she eyed the jacket, wanting to have run her fingers along the worn hem, smell the unique patina of time and sweat and smoke only leather tended to take on, and regretted that he’d tossed it out of her reach. Then she caught herself, and shut her eyes quickly, looking away from it before it was destroyed.
Opening them again to look at him, she smiled more idly. “You often entertain guests, then?” She said, nodded to the glasses.
The faintest of smirks. "A gentleman always keeps a spare glass around in case any ladies come t'call." He handed her her drink and then flumped down onto the bed, lying on his stomach facing her.
"Here's t'lost siblings," he said, holding his glass up. "Henri an' Lorna."
His puppy-like lapse onto the bed brought a gentle spill of laughter from her lips, and when she lifted her glass to his, her eyes sparkled.
“To my Lorna, and to Henri. Thank you.” She took a healthy drink, and blinked rapidly, gasping softly. “Oh my.” Her tongue traced her bottom lip, and she looked at the glass.
“Such a beautiful colour…”
"Mr. Daniels produces an exceedingly good bourbon," said Remy, seriously, looking at the deep amber liquid contained within his own glass. "Pos'bly th' best you ever gonna taste." He took a hefty pull of his own bourbon with practised ease. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said.
He closed his eyes briefly and enjoyed the fiery afterburn of the drink. He wasn't a particularly heavy drinker, but there were times when nothing else would do.
This, he surmised, was one of those times.
“It diminishes me,” she said vaguely, in a lyrical sort of voice that indicated she wasn’t about to make the statement any more coherent on her next breath. Wanda took another sip, and looked at him over the glass edge.
“My brother has come to visit,” she shared. “I told him of you. And how you broke my magic.” The twisted shadow of a smile on her lips told him there was some mischief behind having done so. Once again the empress turned into the child. “You should come with me to see him while he is still here. Though he won’t like you.” Another sip, this one Wanda chased over her lips with her tongue again, frowning curiously at the taste. She drank very rarely. But this tasted fascinating…
"I find it hard t'believe that ANYTHIN' could diminish you for long," said Remy. His compliments were so easy, so natural, that it didn't seem to be anything but normal for him. "An' as for not likin' me...hey. chere."
He pushed himself up on his forearms and then round until he was sat cross-legged on the bed. "I'm used t'people not likin' me. One more ain't hardly gonna make a difference."
Remy winked lazily at her.
Wanda laughed, smiling as easy as his compliment.
“And he doesn’t like many, at least those who would speak to me.” Rolling the bourbon around the bottom of her glass, she crossed her long legs.
“I have no found Storm yet. She’s been very busy. Have you seen her about?”
Almost automatically, his eyes followed the long line of her legs as she crossed them. "Non," he replied, pulling his attention back to her question. She really was the most fascinating woman he had ever met - and Remy LeBeau had certainly met his share of women. "I ain't seen Stormy for a while. You need t'camp out outside her office t'stand any chance of gettin' to see her most th' time."
He dropped back down onto his stomach and surveyed Wanda thoughtfully.
"I got a question for you," he said, picking his words carefully. "I find that it often takes me a long time t'trust people. But you? I feel I've known you for a long time petite. I feel...comfortable around you." A wry smile twisted his face. "Guess that makes no sense at all, but...well, y'know. A man's gotta say what's eatin' at him."
“I eat at you…?” Her silky voice drifted between them, the fire of bourbon making her lips tingle as she exhaled. Her eyebrows raised. “Was that your question?” She smiled slowly.
So if Storm was difficult to nail down, Wanda had less to worry about. Not only was it futile to expect her delirious mind to settle in one spot long enough to wait for the white-haired thundercloud, but Wanda wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about getting permission to be here on behalf of her sister Lorna. She simply didn’t think it was necessary. And that native man knew who she was, that seemed to be enough for now.
He smiled back at her. "This gon' sound corny, I know. But I can't help thinkin' we've met before somewhere. I jus' feel like I know you Scarlet. Don't you feel it too?" He tipped his head slightly to one side.
Remy found himself transfixed by her lips. Full, rich, delicious.
Stop that.
His conscience brought an unconscious smile to his face.
Wanda took a drink, watching Remy watch her, watching him smile. She set the glass very carefully beside her on the table nearby.
“What you feel is probability.” Turning her wrist in a subtle figure eight, when she turned her hand up, a small cacophony of red shards of light spun in her hand, a miniature version of the hex sphere he’d seen the day before. It spun rapidly, and she held it up a bit as if it explained her point perfectly.
“In every moment, infinite possibility exists. In the next millisecond, this room might flood with water, or burst into flame. A plane might fall through the roof, or a tree grow up from between the floorboards. The probability is slim, but it is nonetheless present.”
Wanda looked up from the sphere to meet Remy’s eyes. “In every moment you have lived from the time you were born, there lied the possibility of us meeting. So yes, Remy. In some world, somewhere, we have met a hundred thousand times.”
"I know 'bout probability, although clearly not as well as you," he said, watching her with fascination. "Y'don't grow up in a poker-playin' family an' not learn a li'l 'bout probability an' odds."
He stretched his hand out curiously as though he would take the hex sphere from her. It almost instantly fizzled out of existence. The young Cajun's brow feathered together in a frown. "Now what's the probability of someone bein' able t'do THAT t'your powers, chere?"
“I’ve never seen it,” she said, a fluttering in her chest as she stared at her bare hand. It hadn’t been until Pietro bristled at the retelling that it dawned on her Remy’s ability to curtail her powers might be a bad thing. Wanda looked a little unsettled, and closed her hand quickly, looking away from it before something unintended happened.
She looked instead into his eyes. “You have a rare gift,” she said lightly, as if she understood his mutation and its inner workings completely. For all Wanda knew, she did. “One I hope you will use… wisely…”
Her thoughts were lost as she looked at him, that drifting, unintentional façade crashing away. He drove straight through the chaos that protected her and somehow, cleared things away to a stillness to which she was not at all accustomed. It frightened her. Fear, on the other hand, she could handle.
She whispered. “I don’t know… where you come from. I don’t have any answers for you.”
He reached out a hand and stroked the line of her cheek rather impulsively. "I don't know where I'm from, either," he said. "Nobody does. I was found on th' streets as a babe. Have very li'l memory of my early years, leastways 'til Jean-Luc took me in as his son. I ain't lookin' for answers, Scarlet. I'm jus' lookin' for ways to escape bein' who I am for a time, y'know?"
His touch was feather-light against her cheek.
“Then you could be anyone,” she said. “And can escape yourself at any time.”
She knew what he was saying more than he could know. The only static identity left to her was her memory, and sometimes, she hated it. Wanted to float away into chaos and forget it all. Sometimes kept her in one place, held a nucleus in her soul, and she didn’t know why. What caused her to remain?
“It’s all possible, you know.” Beyond her notice, the room had grown increasingly dark, until the shadow of the space around them nearly leaked into the daylight outside. Between them, it seemed like dusk.
“Remy…?” she said softly.
"All possible," he murmured, as though mesmerised by her words. When she spoke his name, he looked into her eyes. "Oui, chere?"
The fact that the room had darkened seemed to have totally escaped his notice, enraptured as he was by her words, by her beauty, by her very presence. He was totally and utterly beguiled.
“Keep alert,” she whispered, and lifted a hand towards his face.
It was a dangerous thing, focusing on someone so intently. Part of her was terrified something would happen at any moment and hurt this man she so badly wanted to continue talking to. It was true that if he were to be hurt, she wouldn’t feel sorry and were he to die, she wouldn’t mourn him. That was just her way, moving from moment to moment. You cannot mourn change when change is your very being. It didn’t mean Wanda didn’t want, and need, and wish just like everyone else.
Her fingertips traced the curve of his face as she leaned towards him, drew a line along his jaw, feeling the stubble there against the pads of her fingers. Her heart raced. Lifting her fingers again, she touched his eyebrow, followed the gentle arch, dropped them to the cheekbone just beneath his eye. Did he know she had never touched anyone but her brother in so intimate a way? That she hadn’t wanted to risk it?
Keep alert.
Remy LeBeau was a man who valued his ability to be aware of danger long before it reached him. In his life, he had made mistakes enough that he had worked on honing his senses to a fine point - yet this woman seemed to negate everything around him. It was almost as though when he was with her, they were sealed in some sort of bubble outside of mundane time.
Keep alert.
Her touch on his face was more than welcome and it was almost enough to illicit a purr from him, like a treasured pet. "You are..." he said, and then left the sentence at that. There were no words he could summon to describe how he felt.
She just was.
Wanda nodded quickly, understanding perfectly what he said, and what he didn’t. Once again she was dizzy, but a different sort of dizzy. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but she thought perhaps it was something more that Remy did to her when in her presence. No one had ever looked at her that way. No one but Pietro.
Leaning in, she dropped her hand and kept her eyes on his. If he were thinking clearly, he’d have seen the rush of innocence on an otherwise worldly face. With the impulse of a young girl, she quickly pressed her lips to his, pulling in a breath and closing her eyes.
It could only be enjoyed for a glimmer, not long enough even to think of what she’d done. The long, tall windows in the dormitory room shattered from top to bottom, sunlight flooding into Wanda’s darkness and the fresh air of summer disrupting their heady reverie.
Gasping, Wanda was on her feet within seconds.
Remy was similarly snapped out of whatever trance he had found himself in and reeled backwards, leaping off the bed and standing rigidly, his hands already in his jeans pocket, the fingers closing around a trademark playing card, ready to fire it at any intruder.
"Merde," he swore. "Scarlet, y'all right, petite?"
His voice was taut, tense, anxious.
Wanda looked around her, the expression on her face telling him quite clearly that the woman had absolutely no idea where she was. She had swept her mind in an attempt to save them both from further chaos, clearly her surface thoughts. It wasn’t something she found she had to do often, but when she did it disoriented her strongly.
She spoke no word of apology or relief. Meeting his eyes for the briefest moment, she lifted her hand-within which was a rapidly expanding hex ball- and swung it at the door. The door vanished without a sound or shudder, and Wanda ran through it into the hallway, her boot heels thunking quickly on the floor as she made her escape.
Confused beyond belief in a way he had never been before, Remy remained where he was, still waiting for an attack that didn't come.
Eventually, of course, he realised that there was no threat and he did the only thing a good Louisiana boy could do under the circumstances.
He poured himself another bourbon.
But her emotions had been upheaved. That strange brown man with the metal leg had thrown taunts at her brother, and Lorna in some similarly coloured younger woman’s body… she didn’t like any of it. As a result, when she passed several dormitory doors flew open, their broad wooden doors chopping against their interior walls with loud bangs.
Wanda’s slender fingertips drifted through the long red hair at her temple. She was deep in thought, too far deeper than she should have been, and sinking fast. The long oriental carpet that lay over the dark wood finish of the floor rippled like ocean waves, and a hollow, increasingly scathing whistle-like scream began to echo around her, as if she were in a wind tunnel beset by harpies.
One of the doors that flew open belonged to Remy LeBeau.
The young Cajun had been stealing a few moments of peace and quiet and getting some sleep. He'd done several perimeter checks already and everything seemed quiet enough, and man, he was tired.
He was thus yanked out of a surprisingly pleasant dream when his door slammed open. He sat bolt upright, his hair almost comically haywire and was standing up and ready to defend himself in an instant. After a few moments passed and hordes of Hunters didn't descend upon him, he relaxed his stance a little.
Moving with fluid grace to the door, he peered around it to see Wanda's retreating back.
"Everythin' OK, chere?" he asked, neutrally.
Turning like a dancer caught in some silent waltz, rather than facing him she merely turned sideways, leaning back against the wall beside his door. Her face continued the motion and blue eyes looked sidelong at him, some dreadfully mournful look on her beautiful features before it melted away into something more peaceful.
Wanda took careful, measured control of her mind before the chaos consumed her. It usually happened a few times a day. Not generally when people are about, but in the mansion it seemed you were never alone.
“Oh hello, my hunter…” She said fluidly. “I’ve received unsettling news, that’s all. I disturbed you. You’ll forgive me.” Wanda nodded once.
"Why chere," said Remy, gallantly, giving her his dazzling smile. "Forgiveness is th' easiest thing in th' world." He leaned against his door frame easily, folding his arms across his chest. "Nothin' too upsettin', I hope? Anythin' ol' Remy can do to help?"
He couldn't stop himself. He found this woman oddly alluring.
Her eyes flickered to his chest, the arms that flexed as he crossed them over himself. Like many mutants he was a beautiful example of physical power, and yet, more lithe than some. He lacked the bulging exaggeration of muscle some possessed. Wanda appreciated that.
“Ohh… only that the ministrations of the X-Men have done little to save my sister. Learning more of her death, there is much to be done. And I was so looking forward to some peace.”
Her face turned back towards the hallway, eyes drifting upward slowly towards the ceiling. The howling ceased but as her eyelids closed, the walls shuddered and draperies of rich green velveteen dripped from overhead, parting over each doorway. Remy couldn’t know this, but the green was precisely the shade of Lorna Dane’s hair. Wanda looked pained for a while.
“I have spent a long time wishing for freedom from this body….” She said, hands drifting over her throat, down her torso, falling to rest on either thigh. “And now my sister is free of hers, and all I wish is for her to return.” The orb of chaos around her positively vibrated, and a few voices were heard in the room next to Remy’s, confused and a little alarmed at whatever they’d sensed or seen.
"I know what it's like t'lose a sibling," said Remy, softly, his voice filled with genuine sympathy. "Know how y'feel, chere. Not a day goes by when I don't wish that Henri was stil with me, lecturin' me 'bout this, or that, or goin' on 'bout how he an' Mercy were gonna have a li'l brood of LeBeau kids..."
He laid his hand on her shoulder.
"I got a bottle of Mr Daniels' finest inside. Y'want t'come sit with me for a while? Let it out your system?"
Her eyes saw his hand through a veil of dark eyelashes before she looked up at him. He was always so strangely calm around him. Only her brother was able to be so…
Her brother.
Opening her mouth to speak, she paused, and tilted her head, continuing to look up at him with a curious expression. Her brother hadn’t been happy when she’d spoken of Remy before. But then Pietro was always afraid for her, afraid she would be hurt, or that someone you mistreat her. It was so rarely that way. So often the other way around.
Well then. What did Pietro care if she hurt this man? And he certainly wasn’t going to do her any harm…
Wanda’s smile dawned subtly through a more somber expression. “I’d like that…”
"Then come on in, s'il vous plait," he said, dropping into a low bow and gesturing her inside.
His room, much like the other guest rooms in the mansion was plain, but comfortable and gave very little away about its owner. He hadn't arrived with a lot of luggage, so most of the surfaces were bare, save for the aforementioned bottle of bourbon and a couple of glasses. His long overcoat was thrown over the back of a chair and his boots stood in a corner. He picked up the coat and threw it onto the bed.
"For you," he said, offering her the chair and then crossing to fill the two shot glasses with a healthy dose of Lynchburg's best export.
Wanda looked around, much as she had when they’d first met, surveying all before her like a noblewoman appraising her surroundings. Sitting, she eyed the jacket, wanting to have run her fingers along the worn hem, smell the unique patina of time and sweat and smoke only leather tended to take on, and regretted that he’d tossed it out of her reach. Then she caught herself, and shut her eyes quickly, looking away from it before it was destroyed.
Opening them again to look at him, she smiled more idly. “You often entertain guests, then?” She said, nodded to the glasses.
The faintest of smirks. "A gentleman always keeps a spare glass around in case any ladies come t'call." He handed her her drink and then flumped down onto the bed, lying on his stomach facing her.
"Here's t'lost siblings," he said, holding his glass up. "Henri an' Lorna."
His puppy-like lapse onto the bed brought a gentle spill of laughter from her lips, and when she lifted her glass to his, her eyes sparkled.
“To my Lorna, and to Henri. Thank you.” She took a healthy drink, and blinked rapidly, gasping softly. “Oh my.” Her tongue traced her bottom lip, and she looked at the glass.
“Such a beautiful colour…”
"Mr. Daniels produces an exceedingly good bourbon," said Remy, seriously, looking at the deep amber liquid contained within his own glass. "Pos'bly th' best you ever gonna taste." He took a hefty pull of his own bourbon with practised ease. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said.
He closed his eyes briefly and enjoyed the fiery afterburn of the drink. He wasn't a particularly heavy drinker, but there were times when nothing else would do.
This, he surmised, was one of those times.
“It diminishes me,” she said vaguely, in a lyrical sort of voice that indicated she wasn’t about to make the statement any more coherent on her next breath. Wanda took another sip, and looked at him over the glass edge.
“My brother has come to visit,” she shared. “I told him of you. And how you broke my magic.” The twisted shadow of a smile on her lips told him there was some mischief behind having done so. Once again the empress turned into the child. “You should come with me to see him while he is still here. Though he won’t like you.” Another sip, this one Wanda chased over her lips with her tongue again, frowning curiously at the taste. She drank very rarely. But this tasted fascinating…
"I find it hard t'believe that ANYTHIN' could diminish you for long," said Remy. His compliments were so easy, so natural, that it didn't seem to be anything but normal for him. "An' as for not likin' me...hey. chere."
He pushed himself up on his forearms and then round until he was sat cross-legged on the bed. "I'm used t'people not likin' me. One more ain't hardly gonna make a difference."
Remy winked lazily at her.
Wanda laughed, smiling as easy as his compliment.
“And he doesn’t like many, at least those who would speak to me.” Rolling the bourbon around the bottom of her glass, she crossed her long legs.
“I have no found Storm yet. She’s been very busy. Have you seen her about?”
Almost automatically, his eyes followed the long line of her legs as she crossed them. "Non," he replied, pulling his attention back to her question. She really was the most fascinating woman he had ever met - and Remy LeBeau had certainly met his share of women. "I ain't seen Stormy for a while. You need t'camp out outside her office t'stand any chance of gettin' to see her most th' time."
He dropped back down onto his stomach and surveyed Wanda thoughtfully.
"I got a question for you," he said, picking his words carefully. "I find that it often takes me a long time t'trust people. But you? I feel I've known you for a long time petite. I feel...comfortable around you." A wry smile twisted his face. "Guess that makes no sense at all, but...well, y'know. A man's gotta say what's eatin' at him."
“I eat at you…?” Her silky voice drifted between them, the fire of bourbon making her lips tingle as she exhaled. Her eyebrows raised. “Was that your question?” She smiled slowly.
So if Storm was difficult to nail down, Wanda had less to worry about. Not only was it futile to expect her delirious mind to settle in one spot long enough to wait for the white-haired thundercloud, but Wanda wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about getting permission to be here on behalf of her sister Lorna. She simply didn’t think it was necessary. And that native man knew who she was, that seemed to be enough for now.
He smiled back at her. "This gon' sound corny, I know. But I can't help thinkin' we've met before somewhere. I jus' feel like I know you Scarlet. Don't you feel it too?" He tipped his head slightly to one side.
Remy found himself transfixed by her lips. Full, rich, delicious.
Stop that.
His conscience brought an unconscious smile to his face.
Wanda took a drink, watching Remy watch her, watching him smile. She set the glass very carefully beside her on the table nearby.
“What you feel is probability.” Turning her wrist in a subtle figure eight, when she turned her hand up, a small cacophony of red shards of light spun in her hand, a miniature version of the hex sphere he’d seen the day before. It spun rapidly, and she held it up a bit as if it explained her point perfectly.
“In every moment, infinite possibility exists. In the next millisecond, this room might flood with water, or burst into flame. A plane might fall through the roof, or a tree grow up from between the floorboards. The probability is slim, but it is nonetheless present.”
Wanda looked up from the sphere to meet Remy’s eyes. “In every moment you have lived from the time you were born, there lied the possibility of us meeting. So yes, Remy. In some world, somewhere, we have met a hundred thousand times.”
"I know 'bout probability, although clearly not as well as you," he said, watching her with fascination. "Y'don't grow up in a poker-playin' family an' not learn a li'l 'bout probability an' odds."
He stretched his hand out curiously as though he would take the hex sphere from her. It almost instantly fizzled out of existence. The young Cajun's brow feathered together in a frown. "Now what's the probability of someone bein' able t'do THAT t'your powers, chere?"
“I’ve never seen it,” she said, a fluttering in her chest as she stared at her bare hand. It hadn’t been until Pietro bristled at the retelling that it dawned on her Remy’s ability to curtail her powers might be a bad thing. Wanda looked a little unsettled, and closed her hand quickly, looking away from it before something unintended happened.
She looked instead into his eyes. “You have a rare gift,” she said lightly, as if she understood his mutation and its inner workings completely. For all Wanda knew, she did. “One I hope you will use… wisely…”
Her thoughts were lost as she looked at him, that drifting, unintentional façade crashing away. He drove straight through the chaos that protected her and somehow, cleared things away to a stillness to which she was not at all accustomed. It frightened her. Fear, on the other hand, she could handle.
She whispered. “I don’t know… where you come from. I don’t have any answers for you.”
He reached out a hand and stroked the line of her cheek rather impulsively. "I don't know where I'm from, either," he said. "Nobody does. I was found on th' streets as a babe. Have very li'l memory of my early years, leastways 'til Jean-Luc took me in as his son. I ain't lookin' for answers, Scarlet. I'm jus' lookin' for ways to escape bein' who I am for a time, y'know?"
His touch was feather-light against her cheek.
“Then you could be anyone,” she said. “And can escape yourself at any time.”
She knew what he was saying more than he could know. The only static identity left to her was her memory, and sometimes, she hated it. Wanted to float away into chaos and forget it all. Sometimes kept her in one place, held a nucleus in her soul, and she didn’t know why. What caused her to remain?
“It’s all possible, you know.” Beyond her notice, the room had grown increasingly dark, until the shadow of the space around them nearly leaked into the daylight outside. Between them, it seemed like dusk.
“Remy…?” she said softly.
"All possible," he murmured, as though mesmerised by her words. When she spoke his name, he looked into her eyes. "Oui, chere?"
The fact that the room had darkened seemed to have totally escaped his notice, enraptured as he was by her words, by her beauty, by her very presence. He was totally and utterly beguiled.
“Keep alert,” she whispered, and lifted a hand towards his face.
It was a dangerous thing, focusing on someone so intently. Part of her was terrified something would happen at any moment and hurt this man she so badly wanted to continue talking to. It was true that if he were to be hurt, she wouldn’t feel sorry and were he to die, she wouldn’t mourn him. That was just her way, moving from moment to moment. You cannot mourn change when change is your very being. It didn’t mean Wanda didn’t want, and need, and wish just like everyone else.
Her fingertips traced the curve of his face as she leaned towards him, drew a line along his jaw, feeling the stubble there against the pads of her fingers. Her heart raced. Lifting her fingers again, she touched his eyebrow, followed the gentle arch, dropped them to the cheekbone just beneath his eye. Did he know she had never touched anyone but her brother in so intimate a way? That she hadn’t wanted to risk it?
Keep alert.
Remy LeBeau was a man who valued his ability to be aware of danger long before it reached him. In his life, he had made mistakes enough that he had worked on honing his senses to a fine point - yet this woman seemed to negate everything around him. It was almost as though when he was with her, they were sealed in some sort of bubble outside of mundane time.
Keep alert.
Her touch on his face was more than welcome and it was almost enough to illicit a purr from him, like a treasured pet. "You are..." he said, and then left the sentence at that. There were no words he could summon to describe how he felt.
She just was.
Wanda nodded quickly, understanding perfectly what he said, and what he didn’t. Once again she was dizzy, but a different sort of dizzy. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but she thought perhaps it was something more that Remy did to her when in her presence. No one had ever looked at her that way. No one but Pietro.
Leaning in, she dropped her hand and kept her eyes on his. If he were thinking clearly, he’d have seen the rush of innocence on an otherwise worldly face. With the impulse of a young girl, she quickly pressed her lips to his, pulling in a breath and closing her eyes.
It could only be enjoyed for a glimmer, not long enough even to think of what she’d done. The long, tall windows in the dormitory room shattered from top to bottom, sunlight flooding into Wanda’s darkness and the fresh air of summer disrupting their heady reverie.
Gasping, Wanda was on her feet within seconds.
Remy was similarly snapped out of whatever trance he had found himself in and reeled backwards, leaping off the bed and standing rigidly, his hands already in his jeans pocket, the fingers closing around a trademark playing card, ready to fire it at any intruder.
"Merde," he swore. "Scarlet, y'all right, petite?"
His voice was taut, tense, anxious.
Wanda looked around her, the expression on her face telling him quite clearly that the woman had absolutely no idea where she was. She had swept her mind in an attempt to save them both from further chaos, clearly her surface thoughts. It wasn’t something she found she had to do often, but when she did it disoriented her strongly.
She spoke no word of apology or relief. Meeting his eyes for the briefest moment, she lifted her hand-within which was a rapidly expanding hex ball- and swung it at the door. The door vanished without a sound or shudder, and Wanda ran through it into the hallway, her boot heels thunking quickly on the floor as she made her escape.
Confused beyond belief in a way he had never been before, Remy remained where he was, still waiting for an attack that didn't come.
Eventually, of course, he realised that there was no threat and he did the only thing a good Louisiana boy could do under the circumstances.
He poured himself another bourbon.
