. IV.
(Friday, 9:38 p.m.)
Fontanelle was sitting in the parlour like some bordello madam, slouching cross-legged with a glass of bourbon clutched rather obscenely between her PVC gloved fingers. She eyed Remy with that same old hawkish look he often found amusing to bestow upon her. Right now though, he wasn’t in the mood for banter, whether implied or otherwise: sitting himself down firmly on an adjacent chair, he carefully avoided her gaze.
“I’m smelling a rejection,” she noted somewhat airily, the ice in her drink tinkling as she lifted the glass to her lips.
“Looks like de honeymoon, she be over,” Remy grumbled, shoving his hands sulkily into the pockets of his jeans. He felt more sullen than angry. He knew he was being childish and he didn’t particularly care.
“Oh,” was all she said. He could tell she was goading him into talkativeness.
“Okay, not just de honeymoon,” he added, a little more irately.
“Hmm. Thought so.” He heard her take a sip from the glass again.
“I guess I deserve it,” he muttered.
“My dear boy, why ever should you deserve it?” she asked theatrically.
“I dunno. ‘Cos everythin’ bad in my life kinda makes me feel better ‘bout what went down wit’ de Morlocks.”
“It makes you feel better?” she repeated in mock incredulity.
He didn’t know what to say to that. Obviously it didn’t make him feel any better. It just made him feel the way he thought he should feel – that he should be bitter, guilty and shamed for every last sorry day of his life. Days like these were the atonement for all his past mistakes. Rogue had been his balm, his solace, and in some odd, tragic way, his redemption. Because loving her was the only truly good thing to ever come out of him; and now it had been thrown unceremoniously back into his face.
Dey do say what you give gets given back t’ you threefold, he thought miserably. An’ right now it looks like my life is gonna be spewing bad for good indefinitely.
“Rogue was de only good t’ing I had,” he murmured. Self-pity had never been his thing – at least not publicly. He had always been of the opinion that he deserved to feel bad about himself and it was none of anyone else’s business. But for some reason, now it felt appropriate to talk about it.
“Remy,” Fontanelle replied soberly. “You’ve got to stop looking at Rogue as some sort of weird karma for everything that you’ve done wrong in your life. How many years are you going to spend recriminating yourself, hmm?” She turned to him, poked him in the chest with a long finger. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t tangle Rogue up with your pain and guilt, lover-boy. She has nothing to do with the way you were then. Don’t expect her to be your guardian angel. You’ll only end up despising her when things get bad.”
“I love de girl, Fonty,” he scowled, removing her finger from his chest. “Dere’s no way I could hate her, not never. She’s got her own problems right now. When she sorts them out and she wants me back I’ll be dere for her. Always.”
“Hmph.” Fontanelle sat back, pursing her lips. “You know, Remy, there’s a very fine line between love and hate. And you, of all people, should know that.”
“I know what I’m feelin’, Fonty, an’ it ain’t hate,” he retorted vehemently. “De only t’ing I’m hatin’ right now are dose damn Diaries,” he muttered fiercely. “An’ Destiny, for all she’s done t’ us.”
Fontanelle drained the rest of her drink thoughtfully. “I take it you’re leaving.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I only came back ‘cos of Rogue.”
“She doesn’t want you to leave.”
“She wants her own space.”
“Different thing.”
“Perhaps.”
“No. Definitely.” She stood up, crossing the room to make herself another drink. Remy followed her with narrowed eyes, hearing the thinly veiled suggestiveness in the older woman’s voice.
“Why do I get de feelin’ you’re tryin’ t’ tell me somethin’ I’d rather not hear?” he asked suspiciously.
Fontanelle didn’t answer for a moment, opening the glass decanter and pouring the drink with a slow deliberation, her back to him all the while. “Rogue doesn’t want you to leave for very personal reasons. But of course, you know all about that, don’t you? You just don't want to believe it.”
“What are you…?” He stopped, a realization suddenly dawning over him. “You managed to penetrate Rogue’s dreams, didn’t you?” he levelled at her quietly.
“Just about.” She turned, a sarcastic smile on her face. “Not that I wanted to stay round in that girl’s mind for very long. It’s like taking a trip into a Tim Burton movie. Or a Salvador Dali painting. Or maybe even an Escher,” she added to herself as an afterthought.
“Why didn’t you tell de Professor?” he asked.
“The particular dream I scraped has nothing to do with what the Professor wanted to know and everything to do with you,” she answered cryptically.
“Okay, enough wit’ de riddles already, Fonty,” he replied irritably. “What exactly are you getting’ at?”
The older woman half-smiled, lifting the glass to her lips and taking a long draught before answering. “Rogue felt an overwhelming need to protect you. When she was under the influence of Carol Danvers, she rescued you from a timely attack by the Marauders.” She paused, swirling the contents of her glass around pensively. “What I saw in her dreams points to a bizarre connection between you and Sinister. But it is not simply that you’re his target. Rather, that you become him.”
“Heh. Now that’s de biggest laugh I’ve heard dis year,” he returned sourly.
“Doesn’t it bother you that Sinister was looking out to get you that night, Remy?” she asked him evenly.
“Like hell it does. Me an’ Sinister, we’re history, bad history, you hear? I don’t give a damn what he wants wit’ me.”
“Remy, in case you hadn’t noticed, Rogue’s dreams are precognitive, and more precisely, they are finely tuned into the events described in Destiny’s Diaries.” Her tone, though sarcastic, was laced by an underlying seriousness. “Sinister has something to do with those Diaries, and by extension, so do you. Destiny had a vested interest in you – so, it appears, does Sinister.”
He looked at her sharply. “An’ would I be mistaken in t’inkin’ dat you surmise Sinister is workin’ for Destiny?”
“Precisely. But how and why I’m not sure, apart from the fact that it has something to do with you.” She pointed at him with one finger, hand still curled around the glass. “Which inevitably leads to the conclusion that they need you for something.”
Remy crossed his arms, thinking.
“If they be wantin’ me for somethin’ it means I’m in a prime position to do what Gambit does best – infiltration.”
Her scarlet lips curved up into an inane Cheshire cat grin.
“Exactly.”
“An’ de less everyone knows…”
“The better.”
He glanced up at her, a smile of his own playing across his face.
“An’ Gambit is leavin’ de mansion anyway. Essex can believe I’m done wit’ de X-Men for good.”
“I suppose he can.”
“Fonty,” Remy grinned. “You’re a woman after my own heart.”
*
(Saturday, 1:30 a.m.)
Later Remy awoke in bed, and he wasn’t sure whether he was really awake or still dreaming.
Rogue stood silently by his bedside, dressed in white, so that she seemed spectral, fey; almost divine. She was looking down on him intently, eyes bluer than blue and crystal clear. He should have known then. He should have known that he should never have decided to leave, that he should have listened to his suspicions and stayed. But she was so beautiful, so tranquil and beautiful that he thought it was all just a dream.
“Are you a dream?” he asked on a breath.
She leant forward, and her face was pale and innocent, but her eyes were piercing.
“I have to touch you,” she whispered, almost apologetically.
He was dreaming. None of this could be real. It was too good to be true. Please, touch me, he thought. I don’t care what happens anymore.
She stooped, and he felt the white strands of her hair brush against his face. That was real. Suddenly he was confused and perhaps he might have drawn back. But she was already kissing him, lightly, uncertainly, as though it was the first time she had ever kissed him. Through shreds of sleepiness he felt the contact spread through him and drag him outward and towards her. And then he was out of himself and lingering inside that quiet space where all he that was would become her as she drained the life out of him. All joy, all love, all pain and sorrow became hers just as it was his; for one moment he thought he would cry out with pure ecstasy at the wonder of it all. But the cry had died before he felt himself tumble down into the depths of her leech-like skin, and fall into the place where a part of him would forever become a part of the woman he loved.
Dis is a dream, he thought, and it’s de most wonderful dream I’ve ever had. But it’s all just a dream.
That last thought stripped from him, Remy quietly slipped back into unconsciousness, lost inside the softness of their chaste and gentle kiss.
But Rogue stood up, and smoothed back his hair; and her blue eyes were now red on black.
“…It’s all just a dream…” she muttered wistfully as she left the room, knowing full well that it was not.
*