Chapter Text
Charles felt the hesitation behind his office door. It was so unlike the presence he had known for years now. He sighed, pained at the realization that he was now becoming accustomed to this new aura after a couple of months of his X-Man’s return. Outwardly, the old, laid back, laissez-faire facade remained. The new, internal workings were unrecognizable.
Finally, decision. A knock on the door.
“Please, come in, Gambit.”
Remy entered slowly, a casual smile on his face. His eyes were on everything but the Professor, assessing the room with care.
“T’ought I had a good handle on my tells, Professor. Didn’t know jus’ a knock on ze door’d give me away. Gotta keep myself sharper’n dat.”
Charles exhaled a soft chuckle. He hoped Gambit was not taking the identification too personally.
“Have a seat. Would you care for anything? Water, tea…”
This was the first time since they brought Gambit back to the mansion that he willingly visited the Professor’s office. Charles wanted to put him at ease, as much as the still broken man was able to feel any ease.
Gambit shook his head as he sat in the chair by the Professor’s desk.
“Merci, non.”
Remy’s eyes continued to move restlessly, leaving a marked silence between the two men. Nearly ready to break the standstill, Charles heard Remy clear his throat.
“Beautiful mornin’.”
Casual small talk. Another bizarre change in Remy’s demeanor Charles noticed. He was accustomed to the man filling an empty room with meaningless gab, but not the kind you would make with a stranger beside you in a waiting room.
“It is. I’d believe we can safely say this early spring is here to stay.”
Remy just hummed and nodded, his focus still lost.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Remy?”
As comfortable as he wished for Gambit to be, he also knew the man did not come to him just to talk about the weather. Something was on his mind, and they may as well get their feet in the door to finding out what that was.
Finally, Remy’s eyes met Charles’. When they did, they were intense, unrelenting, and unwilling to move anywhere else. He was perfectly still, his words slow and deliberate.
“Since I… been back. Know we went t’rough dat whole song an’ dance wit’ Cerebro. Make sure it were only me. All of me. None of him.”
Charles suppressed a shutter at the memory. It felt cruel, having to subject Remy to such invasive procedures, when he had been nothing but invaded by Death and Apocalypse. But Gambit had requested it. He’d said it wasn’t safe for him to come back without knowing for certain there was no trace left of that cursed entity that so cruelly possessed him.
“We did indeed. And I promise you now as I did then, lad, there is no presence of the horseman left within you.”
“I know. An’ I believe you, Professor.”
Something about Gambit’s exclusive use of the first person unsettled Charles. That strange tendency to refer to himself in the third person could be interpreted by some as endearing, others as irksome. But it was undeniable that it was, simply, Gambit. And it was something that had yet to return to them with the man himself.
“But there is something that still troubles you.”
Gambit’s stare still did not leave the Professor.
“Ain’t dat I feel him in dere still. But dere’s… somet’in’. Don’ know how to explain it. Like… like he spent so much time inside of me, took up residence, moved himself in, along wit’ everyt’in’ dat belong to him. Now he up an’ gone, but all he brought in wit’ him still dere. Takin’ up space, makin’ noise. An’ I try to move around in dere now it’s mine again, but I don’ know what he done to ze place, an’ I’m trippin’ over t’ings weren’t dere before, hearin’ sounds in me dat ain’t comin’ from me.”
For the first time, Remy looked away.
“Know it don’t make sense. Jus’... don’ know how else to put it.”
“It sounds to me that you’ve put it quite well, Gambit.”
Charles wheeled out from behind his desk and moved in front of Remy.
“A squatter such as Death undoubtedly had no care in the world for the state in which he left the body, mind, and soul of the host he inhabited. It makes sense that you would still feel the effects of what he has left behind.”
The Professor placed his hand on Remy’s.
“It is an injustice that the burden has fallen on you to sift through the chaos he left in his wake. A most laborious spring cleaning, if you’ll pardon the analogy. I am more than happy to do what I can in helping you rid yourself of what was his, and reclaiming what is yours. As, I am sure, is everybody under this roof.”
Remy’s eyes met Charles’ again. He looked like he hadn’t slept in quite some time.
“Don’ usually care to ask for no favors. But if I can trouble you dis once more, you won’t catch me bot’erin’ you for not’in’ else.”
“My door is always open to you, Remy. How may I be of help?”
“I’m consentin’ in full, Professor. You look t’rough zis screwy dome, an’ you tell me, swear you’ll tell me, if you sense anyone else in dere dat ain’t Remy LeBeau.”
Part of Charles wished to prod at Remy’s reasoning for this invasive request. They had already established, definitively, that Death was not there anymore. But that likely meant that Gambit was looking for reassurance about something else.
“You have my word.”
Gambit nodded, leaned back, and closed his eyes. It was clear he was ready to get this over with, and Charles did not wish to keep him waiting.
It did not take long. Charles was, perhaps unfortunately, quite familiar with the current state of Remy’s psyche. There was nothing he hadn’t seen before, only that for which he had not intentionally looked.
His brow furrowed as he withdrew from Gambit’s mind. Remy opened his eyes, and took notice of the Professor’s troubled expression.
“What all you see, Professor?”
“It is as we previously concluded, Gambit. There is no other entity that remains within you.”
“But.”
Perhaps Remy was gaining telepathic powers, with how often he’d been subjected to them recently. He knew there was more to say.
“Now it is my turn to struggle with an explanation. You said you feel the remnants of what Death left behind. I sense them as well. It is strange. There are…echoes, if you will, that still vibrate. No, perhaps that is an inapt description. It is almost as if there are strings connected to your psyche. Many. What they lead out to, I know not. But whatever they are, they seem to have real power. Your mind is reacting to the most minute tug. The motion is near constant.”
Charles pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I am so sorry, Remy. I cannot seem to identify the origin of these disruptions. But, I am confident in saying that you are not the source. It is most assuredly something external.”
Now that he was outside of Remy’s mind, Charles could not make out what the man was thinking. Gambit appeared oddly stoic and unfazed by the findings. He merely nodded and rose to his feet.
“Merci, Professor.”
“I will continue to investigate, should you wish,” Charles said as Remy made his way out of the office.
“‘Preciate yo’ time.”
And the door shut.
—
Even with so few people in the mansion, everything was still too damn loud for Logan. With less X-Men around, he was all the more tuned in to the ones that stuck around. Scott and Jean’s flirtatious whispers, Hank’s self-addressed mutterings on whatever research he was currently conducting, Charles’ conference calls, Kurt’s quiet prayers. All things Wolverine knew he wasn’t meant to hear. But everyone knew their teammate had enhanced senses. It was their own fault if they hadn’t adapted to that, unable to keep their private lives private at all.
Apparently it had been a great week for some R and R. The last big mission wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, nothing huge on the radar. Storm and Morph and Rogue all had some personal business they wanted to attend to, and Jubilee could not have been more excited to prove her independence by going on her first solo trip.
Gambit had only just come back earlier today from his own trip down to New Orleans. Everybody understood his need to visit family. After all he’d been through, he deserved to take whatever time he needed to find himself again.
Because the guy needed to find himself. He’d been murdered, and revived, and emptied, and transformed, and finally set free. But he wasn’t really free. Sure, the other guy using him as a vessel was gone. That didn’t mean Remy LeBeau was back.
Logan had been watching him closely ever since his return. Probably more for everybody else’s safety than for Gambit’s sake. The X-Men had dealt with far too many strange entities possessing their own before. No one could blame him for being cautious. Only after the Professor combed through Gambit’s head was he set at ease that Death wasn’t coming back. Not through Gambit, anyway.
But his watchfulness over their resident thief didn’t stop there. He saw just how different his current teammate was from the one he knew from all their years together. Any semblance of the old Gambit was an act. The brash, obnoxious, cocky Cajun was a role Remy LeBeau was now playing. Most of the time, he played it well. But he couldn’t stay in character forever.
The cracks were showing more and more frequently. Even more so upon his return from New Orleans that afternoon. Gambit had made a polite reappearance to everyone, letting them know he was back. He said he was tired from the trip, and they probably wouldn’t be seeing him for the rest of the day. He’d been staying in the boathouse, another accommodation that they all understood. Time. Space. All good things as he adjusted.
Still. Something nagged at Logan. He looked out the window of his room to the boathouse. His view of the manor grounds was well lit by the full moon. And, despite the late hour, the boathouse lights were still shining bright. It wasn’t unlike Remy to be up until the wee hours of the morning. But Logan usually saw movement behind the curtains. The place had been completely still for hours.
He was being paranoid. He knew that. Gambit was a grown-ass man, an X-Man. He didn’t need any babysitting, or anybody analyzing his every movement. Logan told himself that, again and again, with every step he took out of the mansion, across the grounds, right up to the boathouse entrance. He was being completely ridiculous.
That train of thought derailed at the sound he heard through the door. A loud cry, low, groaning, filled with nothing but pure, visceral pain. A sound he’d heard come from his own throat more times than he could now recount.
There was no knocking at the door. He flung it open wide, thankful it was unlocked, that he didn’t have to bust it down instead. Right in front of him on the bed was Gambit, pulled tightly in something like a mangled child’s pose, his hands desperately grasping at his head.
Logan took in the room, immediately noticing a clear, glass bottle on the bedside table. It was mostly empty, save for the last dregs of a strange, thick, shimmering black liquid.
Panic threatened to overtake him. Survival instinct won out over empathy. He grabbed Remy by the shoulder, pushing him onto his side so he could see his face.
“The fuck did you take, Cajun?”
Gambit’s face was contorted in pain, his eyes pulled shut so tightly Logan couldn’t begin to think what it would take to pry them open.
Through gritted teeth, Remy managed to get a few words out.
“Non… Logan… ain’t what… zis look like…”
“Like hell it ain’t!”
He started pulling Gambit upright.
“Hope gettin’ yer stomach pumped was on yer to do list fer the night.”
“Non!”
Remy was completely rigid, not a muscle in his body lax. He pushed away from Logan, fell onto his side again, and grabbed him by the wrist. Logan was shocked the grip didn’t break bone. Gambit managed to open his eyes, completely black as the pupils swallowed the irises.
“Swear… I swear… dat ain’t what zis is.”
“Well, if it ain’t, Gumbo, you got less than a minute to explain before I assume yer full of shit.”
Another cry of pain escaped Remy as he held Logan’s wrist even tighter, curling into a fetal position.
“Oui,” he panted. “Zis stuff…” He pointed to the empty bottle. “Care of… Dr. Strange. Ze voices… dey gon’ be free… soon. Real soon.”
“What voices?”
So far, Remy wasn’t making a good case for himself. Logan desperately hoped this wasn’t some sort of psychotic break, but it wouldn’t surprise him one bit.
“Souls.”
Remy couldn’t continue to speak. He breathed, fast and shallow, through his teeth, growling on each exhale.
It’s not that Logan couldn’t sympathize with the man’s pain. But he was not going to let it stand in the way of understanding what was going on. Not if he was at risk of losing a teammate right before his eyes.
“Keep talkin’.”
“All dem souls, Logan. Zat Death… I… took. Death gone. Dey still tied to me. Can’t be free. Can’t find peace. Zis stuff… only t’ing’ll cut ze strings.”
Logan, for the first time since entering the room, took a breath. He saw the gleam of sweat across Remy’s face, the tears that began to squeeze out of his now shut eyes at the mention of Death’s victims.
“Went home… folk I trust… ask ‘em if zis really do what—agh!”
Another gasp for air.
“...what it ‘sposed to.”
The words Gambit now spoke were more breath than voice.
“Twenty-four hours. Dat all it gonna take to set dem free. Hurtin’ like… hell an’ a half… all over… everywhere… everyt’in’... for one day. Den it all gon’ be over.”
Remy turned back into the position where Logan originally found him. His breaths heaved as he clawed at the sheets.
Logan almost took a step back at all the information he’d just been given. So all this time, ever since they managed to pull Gambit out of Death’s hold, he’d been a walking purgatory for every soul Death ever claimed. No wonder the man wasn’t himself. He wasn’t himself. He was so many others, all in pain, all at once.
And no wonder, a man carrying so much, from so many, was driven to such extremes to let them all go. Willing to endure whatever magic torture potion Strange was crazy enough to give him.
The voices that tormented him. How many were there? How did Gambit ever manage to get any sleep, to function in any capacity?
Logan continued to stare at Remy. Now, he wasn’t afraid the kid was suicidal. He was afraid he was witnessing another Genosha. Another noble, self-sacrificing, reckless, painful attempt at saving people Gambit would never know. And leaving his team shattered in the aftermath.
“For fuck’s sake, Gambit,” Logan muttered. He sat on the edge of the bed, regretting it when Remy winced at the shifting mattress. “How deep in this are ya?”
“Started at…t’ree.”
Logan checked the clock. 1:16AM.
“Ten hours,” he grumbled. “You were plannin’ on sweatin’ this out all on yer own the whole damn time, eh? Ever occur to ya you’ve got a house full’a folk who’d bend over backward to help ya through this hell?”
Remy’s voice was higher now, breaking.
“Ain’t dey burden, Logan.”
This fucking team and their fucking martyr complexes. Every member. Every one willing to die for the other, none of them willing to share when they’re dying themselves.
Logan again placed a hand on Remy’s shoulder. He didn’t attempt to move him this time, just kept it there, firm and steady, squeezing tight, probably tight enough to bruise. He knew from experience, sometimes pain’s best company was pain.
“Ain’t yours, neit’er,” Remy muttered.
“No, kid, it ain’t. But it sure as hell ain’t yers, much as you might believe it, and here you are. Ain’t leavin’ ya ‘til we’ve seen this thing through.”
A whine escaped from the broken man, and Logan felt Remy’s hand grab his own hand that rested on his shoulder. Remy squeezed again, and this time, Logan was sure he felt a bone or two snap. That was fine. Gambit could reach through Logan’s ribs and squeeze his heart until it burst if he needed. Logan would heal. He always did. It was Remy’s heart that would never recover if it burst. And, from the looks of the number these first ten hours had done on the kid, that was a very real possibility in the next fourteen.
—
3:00AM.
Halfway. Logan had turned the lights out, figuring any additional sensory input would just be another layer of suffering Gambit didn’t need.
He knew that a human body could only take so much pain before it simply gave out. Either falling unconscious, or a more permanent release. Whatever magic was in this soul purging potion seemed to keep the person who consumed it conscious at all costs. Apparently modern medicine and modern magic were on equal footing in their care for suffering.
“Halfway there, Rem.”
Remy didn’t answer. He seemed to have found some place deep inside him that was apart from the physical pain, at least. Sweat still dripped from every pour, his muscles still spasmed uncontrollably, and his breath was still gasping and shallow. Logan wondered if he had somehow found his way onto the Astral Plane, if that was, somehow, better than what was going on here on earth. No matter what, Logan was not about to do anything to disrupt what strained sense of peace the kid managed to find. This fucking elixir was sure to do that to him soon enough.
—
7:47AM.
Animalistic sounds. Low. Loud. Primal. Agonized. The type of sound Logan had heard coming out of his own mouth more times than he cared to count. He knew this kind of pain. It had been his companion, in so many lifetimes, where nothing else was.
“Yer doin’ good, Remy. Don’t gotta stop yerself from shoutin’ it out. Just keep it low and slow, just like that.”
Logan heard when the pain tried to win out as Remy’s groans inched higher, but the kid managed to get his voice back under his own control again.
“Time…”
It was the first word Remy said in hours.
“7:50.”
A choking sound came out of Gambit’s throat.
“Goin’... backwards…”
“No screwy time travel goin’ on, kiddo. Yer movin’ forward. Doin’ a damn good job of it, ya hear me? Yer gonna be free real soon. Feel a bunch of souls lighter, too. Just keep movin’.”
—
1:09PM
Remy had slid onto the floor about an hour or so beforehand. It seemed that there was no difference between mattress and hardwood now. No comfort that any physical thing could provide.
Logan tried to keep tabs on the kid’s heart rate when he could. His pulse was scary. He figured that if magic hadn’t been involved, there was no way this young, healthy man wouldn’t have gone into cardiac arrest hours ago.
No water had touched his lips, kept him hydrated as all the fluid in his body washed away in streams of sweat. At this rate, he was bound to be mummified alive. This potion better have a built in healing effect after these twenty-four hours were over, or Logan would march over to the Sanctum Sanctorum and shred Stephen Strange to ribbons, and use his own magic to revive him, and do it all over again.
Gently placing a hand on Remy’s back, Logan immediately recoiled as Gambit jerked away from the touch. Apparently, even that was now doing more harm than good.
Remy’s strength was waning. That much was obvious. So it came as a shock when Logan saw Gambit push himself up into a semi-upright position, still on his knees, and lean his weight against the bed.
“Mon Dieu. Mon Dieu,” Remy uttered between panting, open-mouthed gasps. “Désolé. God forgive me.”
Logan remembered the scene Gambit had made, years ago at the monastery where they first met Kurt. It was almost theatrical, how much of a fuss he made over not believing in anything to do with religion. Either Logan was witnessing a case of ‘no atheists in a foxhole’, or a man in desperation, crawling on his hands and knees back to something that he spent a lifetime running away from.
Getting down on his knees as well, Logan knelt at Remy’s side, pulling his weight off of the bed and letting the man collapse onto him. Remy’s head fell heavily onto Logan’s shoulder. His shaking hands reached around Logan’s back, and his fingers dug into his skin until it tore.
“Almost there, kid. I’ve got ya. Almost there.”
—
3:00PM
All the tension in Remy’s overwrought body immediately released. Still shaking, still panting, he sunk against Logan, all his weight falling against Logan’s chest. Logan moved closer to him, pulling him up as he slumped down.
“You did it, Remy. You did it. It’s over.”
Logan was surprised Gambit had any ounce of energy left to keep him awake, even for the last, weak, rasped thought to pass his lips.
“ ‘t‘s quiet.”
Then the last vestige of resistance left him, and Remy was gone, limp against Logan’s secure hold.
And for just a moment, before carrying the dangerously broken man back to the manor, down to the lab, getting him the care he so desperately needed, Logan breathed a sigh of relief. Remy wasn’t going to die today, not again, not on his watch. But the look on the kid's face told him that he was, finally, going to be at peace.