Any Kinda Breath: Part 3B

by Kaylee

Bobby wasn't there for his chemo.

It wasn't a big deal.  Practically routine now, really.  He seated himself in that cushy fuchsia chair down in the medlab, opened his shirt or removed it entirely (and thanked Henri mentally for always remembering to keep the room a bit warmer than the norm on those days), and often enough grabbed an alcohol swab and sterilized the port himself to save the doctor the two seconds it would take.  Then Henri smiled an amiable greeting and said something casual and efficiently connected him to the softly beeping machine and the chemicals it regulated.  Remy sat back, flipped open a magazine or newspaper, and something like an hour passed during which time his blood was filled with things he didn't like to think about and his mind didn't quite absorb that the world was honestly still turning out there without him, altering day by day in inky black and white.  Then Henri came back, smiled amiably yet again, said something else casual and disconnected him from the noxious lifeline, Remy nodded at the cautionary "take things slowly," and that was that.  It was over.  All that remained was to get back to his room and wait for the lovely side effects.  There was no logical need for Bobby to be there.

But Bobby'd missed his chemo.  Logic didn't apply.  Bobby never missed his chemo.  Bobby claimed the couch in a tremendous sprawl, occupying more space than a man of his height and build technically could, digging through papers and textbooks, printouts and newsletters.  Every now and then he'd be convinced to take a break from the research and go with a humorous book or the funnies from the paper, but he was there.  Bored, tired, grumpy, sad, whatever -- he was there.  That was just the way it worked.

Remy rested unobtrusively against the wall beside the elevator, eyes fixed unseeingly on a scuff in the floor varnish in front of the metal doors.  It was so...quiet, down here.  Big and lonely and quiet.  He couldn't get used to the sudden emptiness.  Routine wasn't supposed to be broken when it was all a person had.

The doors opened.  Empty.  Bobby would have probably taken the stairs, anyway, and he wasn't looking for Bobby.  The chemo was already over.  Bobby wasn't there.

It took forever to get to the room's level.  A general discomfort was already setting in by the time he started the wearisome walk down the hall.  Worked faster now, the chemo.  Faster than it had all those months ago, faster than it had earlier this week.  Stronger shit.  Last chance shit.  Pinch-hitter-called-to-bat-'cause-we're-gonna-lose-otherwise shit.

Air tickled over his scalp mockingly.  He couldn't remember feeling air directly on his scalp ever in his entire lifetime. 

He wasn't yet thirty.  His 'entire lifetime' really wasn't all that long, he supposed.  It just felt that way when he had ten more feet to go before he could open the door and shuffle inside and close the door and let his face and body show everything he felt. 

A body moved in a room to his left.  He willed it not to open the door.  Relief had come to the overworked and understaffed X-Men a couple of months ago in the form of old teammates, but all he cared about with regards to them was that they saw him as little as possible.  Never, if feasible.  So for a moment he indulged himself in wishing fervently that whoever it was stayed safely behind that door, just for a moment, just for a heartbeat, just long enough to let him ease by...

His hand -- swollen, goddamnit, swollen and distorted and wrong -- closed over the doorknob.  The mystery teammate didn't look into the hall.  He twisted the knob, then squeezed harder and did it again, sweat making his grip slip.  A curse beneath his breath, relief when the latch finally gave, two unsteadily hurried steps inside, and then -- he looked.  Inside.  And he forgot about teammates and slick doorknobs and puffy appendages.

Bobby's Journal:
            It feels funny.  A tickly kind of funny, not a bad kind.

"Hi," Bobby said.  "I'm sorry I missed your chemo."

Remy blinked.  And stared.  And blinked.

            Kitty helped me do it.  She said I'd mess it up and cut myself, and it'd be better anyway if she checked me out for embarrassing birthmarks or weird skull lumps while she worked so I'd hear it first from a friend.  Personally, I think she just wanted to feel like she could contribute something.
            Cuz, y'know, I kinda know that feeling. 

Bobby shifted like a barefoot beachgoer on hot sand, hands clasping before him, then behind him, then before him.  He smiled tightly and his throat bobbed in a swallow.  "Did it go okay?  The chemo?" 

Remy's right hand half-rose toward him, fingers open.  "Bobby, you..."

            What if he thinks I'm making fun of him?  What if I hurt his feelings?  I just want him to know he's got someone here, right?  For as long as - I can't write it.
            Yes I can.  For as long as it takes.

Bobby's eyes fixed on that not-quite-reaching hand.  "I planned to head down there, but I ran out of time.  It's Kitty's fault, really.  Perfectionist."

The hand fell.  Bobby's jaw tightened.  Remy stepped back, nudging the door shut, leaning against it as it clicked.

"Y' shaved off your hair."

Blue eyes rose to red and black.  "Yeah."

          Maybe he'll just get it.  I'm no good at putting words to these things, so I HOPE he gets it.

A sheen of moisture across dark mutant eyes.  Remy's lips parted, then stretched into a smile too large for his face.  "It's terrible."

"It is?"

"Y're beautiful."

"I am?"

The smile got bigger.  The eyes got shinier.  "Oh yeah, cher," he said hoarsely.  "Oh yeah."

            His chemo's probably over by now.  I should have been there with him.  I'm always there with him.  But I had to do this.
            I still don't have words.
            I want him to know that I'll do anything to keep him here.  Anything.  I want him to KNOW that when things get bad and he thinks about how tired he is or how much he hurts.
            I don't want him to ever think there's less reason to stay than to go. 

*** 

"Bobby?"

"Hmrrm mrrmph?"

"Bobby."

"Mph?"

"What are you doing back there?"

"Speak up, Scotty.  You're muffled."

"Why are you wedged behind the couch, Bobby?"

"Oh."

"...yes...?"

"Phone cord."

"I'm sorry?"

"I thought it might've come loose."

"The phone cord?"

"Uh huh."

"The jack's over here.  And look, it's plugged in.  Which you could've seen just fine without turning into a contortionist."

"I saw, but I thought something was wrong with the line."

"Why's that?"

"I haven't heard it ring."

"This phone?"

"Any phone.  I'm checking all of 'em."

"So it's a slow day for calls.  I don't get it."

"I'm just making sure, Scott, geez.  You lecture me about paying attention to details--"

"Not in months, I haven't."

"--and then you complain when I...huh."

"Look, Bobby, I think--"

"You haven't, have you?  Lectured me?"

"--you're more than capable of managing yourself as an adult."

"Why?"

"You've demonstrated a -- would you get out from behind there, please? -- a definite grasp of maturity since...since things became more complicated for you and Remy."

"I like it back here."

"Do you even have room to breathe?"

"Why do you always say things like 'complicated'?  Why word around it?  It's cancer.  Saying it won't give you it."

"Hey now, I wasn't--"

"Was that the phone?"

"I wasn't saying--"

"In the other room?  I thought I heard..."

"... No, I don't think so.  I didn't hear it."

"You sure?  I coulda sworn."

"No, it wasn't the phone."

"Right.  I'll go check."

"Don't you--"

"Trust you?  Sure."

"It wasn't the phone.  All the ringers are working.  No one's called today."

"I know."

"... Bobby, what's going on?  You know you can talk to me."

"Uh huh, I know.  Issall good.  Thanks, though."

"Yeah."

"Really.  It's nice of you."

"Hm."

"'scuse me.  I've got a couple of things to do before Remy wakes up."

"Is he--"

"Yeah, he's fine.  Chemo, y'know.  It's just kinda...  But he's okay.  Tired."

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"What about--"

"I'm not having chemo."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Umph!  Gimme a hand here?  I'm stuck."

"I knew it.  Slide your knee back a bit...yeah, there, okay.  Bobby?"

"Scott, I'm short on time..."

"...well.  Later then, I guess.  We can talk when you have time."

"You bet.  Thanks."

"Yeah.  Right."

"... Hey."

"Yeah?"

"I, um.  I meant that.  Thanks."

"... You're welcome.  And I meant what I said."

"Just.  Yeah.  Just not now, okay?"

"All right."

"If the phone rings, let me answer it?  Or.  Wait.  Let the machine pick up.  Or..."

"So you are expecting a call?"

"... Not really."

"Then..."

"But you never know, right?"

"No.  You don't."

"Yeah."

"... I'll check the phone in the kitchen, if you want."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  No problem."

"... That'd be great."

"Did you get the foyer?"

"Heading there next."

"Lounge?"

"Oh!  Forgot that one!"

"I can--"

"Can you?"

"Sure, if it'll save you time."

"It will.  God, really, thanks..."

"I only wish there was more I could do."

"... Yeah.  ... But this helps."

***

to: jllb361t@simplexity.com
from: castaway@the-isle.net

Sorry it's been so long.  Under the weather.  Wouldn't mind a phone call if you get some time free.  Could stand to hear a voice from home.

***

Midnight.

His pillow hugged him, snuggled him, whispering that he should keep his eyes closed, keep his mind closed, wander back into dreamland and ignore whatever had stirred him...

Something a little more convincing than his pillow spoke louder, however, and he blinked his eyes open in the dark room while his body stayed limp, his breathing as steady as it ever was these days.  Ears filtered noise carefully: deep, healthy respiration from the sleeping body curled against him; soft hum of electricity, an undercurrent to mansion life that few others seemed to notice; whimper of a branch against the window, whine-whine, nudged on by a crying, damp wind; far above on the roof, lower on the overhang, the tears themselves battering sadly, ineffectively.

Breathing that wasn't his, and wasn't Bobby's.

Softly, softly, water dripping to splash almost inaudibly against thick carpet, soaking in, dispersing.

Sighing with a sleeping man's ease, he turned restlessly beneath the arm Bobby'd unconsciously flopped over him, letting his hand drop down toward the floor.  One inch, maybe two, just underneath the bed...the chess board, dense marble figurines, perfect to charge, required less precision than the cards...

"Doucement, mon fils..."

It was less than a murmur and barely disturbed the air, but to his disbelieving ears it was thunderous.

"Tu vas reveiller ton ami."

"Non," Remy said softly.  "'s tired...sleeps like a log..."  But even logs had their limits, and it wouldn't do at all to test them here.  In a poor echo of his old grace he slipped out from beneath that claiming arm, bare feet finding the carpet as he curled Bobby's arm back against him.  Only a sleepy murmur and a face crushing into the pillow answered the motion.  The bed barely shifted when he stood, mocking his diminished weight.

Only then, standing, did he let himself look.  Shadowed eyes as unreadable as his own.  A proud face, intense and inscrutable.  Arms loosely crossed, legs comfortably braced, body displaying health and vigor at odds with the age of the mind behind it all.  Confident.  Invulnerable.  He looked every inch the ageless, unbreakable patriarch.

"Allo, Remy," Jean-Luc said quietly.

Remy only nodded, not trusting his voice to obey him, and bobbed his head for the other to follow.  Jean-Luc fell into step silently.  His eyes were probably tracing every line of visible flesh, cataloguing sharp bones, judging lack of color.  Jean-Luc had taught him.  Jean-Luc didn't miss anything.

Remy led him down the hall wordlessly, holding his breath a bit as they passed Logan's room, hoping this was one of those nights the man was actually asleep instead of catnapping as was his hyper-alert wont.  Jean-Luc moved as soundlessly as he himself had once upon a better time; it was only his own unreliable body he needed to worry about now.

They took the empty east wing and chose the farthest room.  Remy held the door, nominally scanning the hall behind as Jean-Luc entered but in truth taking the moment to catch his breath and slow his heartbeat.  The emotional cacophony inside his head made it hard to focus, annoyingly so.  He spent far longer scanning that hall than he could even pretend to explain.

When he finally stepped inside, eyes carefully lingering on the doorknob beneath his hand, Jean-Luc was suddenly there.  And Remy was the recipient of his first non-Bobby hug since this whole long, wearying thing started.

At first he was stiff -- "Papa..." -- trying to hold himself aloof, maintain whatever solitary strength was still his, but the arms didn't loosen, clasping him tight -- "Papa, stop, I jus'--" -- and there was such insistence there, such paternal demand, so much that he couldn't, just couldn't, just -- "P-Papa..." -- just couldn't believe he was really here, had left the Guild and all the complex duties of leadership, even for a night.  Not for this.  People depended on him, he took that obligation seriously, so Remy'd known he wouldn't appear, had accepted it as inalterable, hadn't - hoped - otherwise.  Not...too much.  Only...just perhaps, a very little bit, on very dark nights when he felt so trapped in this cage of a body and couldn't tell anyone how afraid he was because the only one who would listen and care was every bit as frightened...

"Je suis la, Remy.  I'm here."

The stiffness bled out through arms and legs that were suddenly weak and useless.  Rusty motioned, he folded into the embrace.

He'd forgotten...he'd forgotten how strong Jean-Luc's shoulders were, and how very much they could carry...

"I'm here."

It was false dawn when he slid back beneath sheets and blankets, trying to move unobtrusively enough not to disturb the man already parked there.  He needn't have worried; the only response when Bobby's sleeping brain noticed him was for an arm to flump over him, followed straightaway by a leg.  Remy eased his forearm around and caressed close-cropped hair.  His name was sighed out on a long breath as Bobby wriggled in and nuzzled unconsciously at his ear.

"Y'wake, cher?" he whispered.  No response beyond the warmth of regular breaths against his skin.  He exhaled slowly, pulled Bobby closer and stared at the unremarkable white of the ceiling.

It was good to see his father again.

Explaining the lack of contact, the complete communications silence for so long, had been less pleasant.

"Why?" Jean-Luc had asked simply, but Remy's tongue had tangled around the complexities of all the possible answers and he'd finally just shaken his head, silently bemoaning the death of his eloquence, and told the man who'd raised him that he didn't know why.  That maybe telling Jean-Luc made it too real.  That perhaps he'd halfway thought he'd retell the tale a year or so down the road over a bottle of the good stuff, laughing at one more close call that wasn't close enough to skin this Cajun, oh no, because people like him didn't succumb to cancer.  Cancer was for middle-aged WASPs, Republicans with mortgages, women on commercials about mammograms, bankers and lawyers and all varieties of Other People.  Not a man like him.

But it wasn't supposed to be for fourteen-year-old kids either, was it?

Bobby burrowed in until his lightly fuzzed head tickled Remy's chin.  Wandering fingertips, hardly callused at all anymore, grazed over that shorn hair thoughtfully.  It meant a lot, this gesture Bobby'd given unasked, and Remy wouldn't have changed it for the world, but he missed the comfortably disordered silk against his skin and between his fingers.  He missed the way his lover had sometimes ducked his head until the lengthening forelock obscured his face, freeing that delightfully mischievous streak.  He missed how it felt when they'd worked so deliciously hard to make it sweat-darkened, clinging to his face, wet and cool and salty.

He hated that when he considered missing these things, it sometimes occurred to him that he might never see that hair disheveled, blown irritably from blue eyes by an upward huff of breath, ever again.  It took time for hair to grow.

At least he'd see those eyes.

He hadn't expected Jean-Luc to ask him back, of course.  Once a man was exiled from the Guild there was no bargaining, no negotiating, and certainly no rescinding of the command that barred him from home and family.  It was enough of a surprise that one single day after he'd sent four short, stilted sentences en route to his father via cyberspace he'd woken to find they'd been answered more directly than he'd dared to wish.  It meant a lot.  It meant the world.

He'd wanted more.

He'd wanted to hear, "C'est plein temp de revenir."

It's time to come back.

His arm tightened a little and Bobby settled in closer, still deep in dreams, moving on instinct.  Outside the window the soaked night was giving ground to a soaked day.  Jean-Luc by now was hitting the highway headed for the airport, thoughts already turning back to the concerns of a man who legislated for many.  He wouldn't be coming here again.  It hadn't been said, but it hadn't needed to be.  They'd said too much else tonight to pretend that this visit wouldn't suffice as a goodbye.

"Travel safe, Papa," he whispered.

***

Bobby's Journal:
            I saw that same guy again.  The loud guy.  He was outside the same department store waving the same bible and shouting the same words.  He was being ignored the same way.
            I didn't talk to him today.  He saw me and yelled that God is watching and God is wrathful and I'd better repent if I knew what was good for me.  I tried to convince myself that was enough of a threat to act on.
            God needs better PR-reps, I swear.

***

The knock on the door was soft, intentionally unobtrusive, but it sounded too loud regardless.

"'s open," Remy muttered.  Then louder when it sounded again.  "It's open."

The door didn't creak, thank the god of oiled hinges.  It did, however, rudely spill forth a living, breathing, speaking human, which was one of the last things Remy wanted to see at that particular moment in time.  And a human with a brogue.  A lilting voice wreaked havoc on a spinning head and queasy stomach.

"Gam--Remy?  How you feelin', lad?"

He was sitting up, propped by pillows, breathing hard from the effort it had taken him minutes ago to get into this position.  On days when he'd received chemo, that was about as much exercise as he felt up to getting.  And beyond the fact that he was still short of breath, he felt like shit.  Worse than shit.  Like shit after a bender. 

"Peachy."  Like shit after a bender with a weak and raspy voice.  Marvelous.

Sean Cassidy's face was ruddy and sunburned, his hair bleached to a cheerful orange-tinted blond, his body as square and blocky and healthy as ever.  He was clearly unsettled, hands working slowly around the rim of a worn sunhat, eyes not quite managing his typical direct gaze.  "Afternoon."

"Afternoon," Remy echoed.  Looked out the window.  He'd watched Sean arrive earlier with Jubilee and one or two of the other kids through that glass.  "Nice day."

"Yeah, I'd say 'tis that..." 

His endurance for small talk had faded pretty dramatically over the past months.  "Somet'in' y' wanted, Sean?"

"I...well, yes, actually, there is somethin' I could really use your help on..."

That drew his attention.  He turned his head, raised an eyebrow, and waited.

Sean, if anything, looked more awkward.  He glanced at the chair beside the bed, then away.  Not going to sit, then.  Not here for a long visit.  Good.  "This may be a bit of a touchy issue here, what I'm about to bring up, an' if I'm bein' too presumptuous don't hesitate to tell me so..."

"What."

"It's about Angelo.  The boy, Skin?  Remember him at all...?"

"I got cancer, Sean.  Not Alzheimer's."

"Right, I'm sorry, lad, I didn't mean any offense.  It's just that Scott said you'd had a treatment today an' I was thinkin' maybe that'd have you a bit too muddled to remember..."  He cut the tangent off before it really became one, taking a breath and visibly redirecting himself.  "Look, I'll get right to the point, then.  Angelo's a good lad, but he's a stubborn one.  Real proud of his tough guy image, you follow?  He's not changin' for me or for Emma or...anyone, really, an' it's worryin' me.  I'm runnin' out of ideas."

Remy swallowed, chasing down a vaguely nauseous feeling that had come from nowhere during that brief speech.  His mouth started filling with saliva again too quickly, warm and metallic tasting, and he reached for the basin on the bedside stand, holding it ready in a hand.  Sean trailed off, watching him, but Remy just silently nodded for the man to continue.

"So...the problem is his smokin', y'see.  He's just a boy.  He gets started on that now, and no tellin' if he'll ever be able t' kick the habit, or if...  That is, he's so young, and..."

Remy spat into the basin to clear that taste from his mouth and stave off nausea that much longer.  "Yeah," he said roughly, slanting another look at Sean.  "I know.  What y' want from me?"

"... I'd like you to talk to the lad.  An' let him see..."  One callused hand made a vague gesture toward the wasted body on the bed, the pale skin that had replaced the Bayou-boy tan, the trembling hand holding the basin in preparation.  "I just think it might...open his eyes a little.  I hope."

So this was what it came to.  He was being used to scare a dumb kid.

The mighty, they done fallen.

"Send 'im up," he told Sean briefly.  His stomach heaved, muscles spasming painfully.  He fought it.  "In...in jus' a few minutes...gimme a few..."

"Lad, are you all right?  Can I get--"

"Non, jus' go, jus' go..."  And then the basin, cheap plastic, an ugly color of pink, and his stomach emptying green bile and nothing else because there was nothing else in it and it burned his throat and made him choke and he was always scared that he'd aspirate it, breathe it into his single lung, and 

Hands.  Blocky Irish hands.  Rhythmic brogue and reassuring, paternal words that had him longing for Jean-Luc.  His body was quaking, and this man he really barely knew was trying to soothe him, and it was so invasive, so uninvited, and he wasn't sure if he'd refuse it if he could because those calming hands on his back didn't ask anything of him, emotionally or otherwise, and that was such a relief right now...

When he was through he sat back, not very steady, reaching a fumbling hand to set the basin on the bedside stand.  Sean reached for it instead, took it to the adjoining bathroom and rinsed it, then returned with a warmly damp cloth and handed it to him.

He wiped his face shakily, looked out the window again, and managed, "...merci..."

The sound of shifting cloth, shifting feet.  "Moira, every now an' then...when it gets real bad, sometimes she's like this."

"She mus' be...glad t' have you..."

"You need anythin' right now, lad?"

The bare head shook a little, though Remy didn't even try to meet his eyes.  Easier to look out the window.  No pity there.  "Non.  Jus'...send up the boy."

"All right then.  ... I'm sorry to be askin' this from you.  It's not exactly fair, is it?"

Remy closed his eyes.  "The boy.  Sean."

Whispering fabric.  Oiled hinges not-squeaking open.  "Thank you." 

The door clicked shut.

Remy waited.  A cloud broke loose from briefly shadowing the sun and let light diffuse down, speckled with a thousand, a million tiny dustmotes.  It really was a beautiful day.  An Ororo-worthy day.  He could imagine her out there, sauntering with that stride that never seemed hurried, never rushed, as if she could well wait for the world to turn beneath her feet and still get where she was going in time.  Oh, he'd seen her stressed.  He'd seen her harried and angry and tense and scared.  Those moments never made the impression that the fleeting times of peaceful revelry did, however; it was when things were calmest that he saw the goddess, not when she was wrathful. 

He missed her.  There were so few genuinely friendly faces here...faces that knew him and had a basis for the warmth they offered...

A knock on the door.  Loud and cocky as the kid behind it.

"C'm'in."

The arrogant stride of a teenager: invulnerable, aggressive.  Even toned down for the environment, it was there.  The gait of immortality. 

Perceived immortality.

Angelo was a gray boy.  Rich Latino skin had faded, washed out once he'd hit puberty.  That skin used to be loose, sagging like an oldster's around his face, marking him so decidedly as different that he hadn't stood much hope of passing as an ordinary human before Sean and Emma started working with him.  That much at least had changed.  His up-thrust chin had no particular sag to it, and the skin around his eyes was facelift-tight.  But he was still gray.  Still forced to stand on the outside.

And Remy knew well that when a man stood on the outside by necessity, the most natural defense was to rewrite circumstances until the position was a choice -- the outsider no freak, but a rebel instead.

Patterns of a lifetime, LeBeau.  Get y' mind back on business.

Angelo was trying with monumental lack of success to hide his shock at Remy's appearance.  Last time they'd been in contact Remy was at least a fair imitation of the heartthrob he'd been for most of his life.  The GenX kids hadn't been privy to his 'condition' until recently when the inevitable leak had sprung and someone spilled the general details to the X-family at large.  Remy had managed for the most part to make it clear that he didn't want to hear the expressions of sympathy or horror or worse, and Bobby had run interference for him with the skill of an NFL blocker, but now...

"Yeah," Remy said blandly, having no trouble guessing at the thoughts behind the young face.  "It wasn' gon' happen t' me either."

Angelo stared.  Worked his mouth.  "I..."

With a macabre twist on his natural showmanship, Remy spread his arms and indicated his skinny chest, torso.  His eyes were unsettling enough on their own even now, he knew, so he merely fixed them on the youngster's own and didn't try to hide what was behind them.  Exhaustion.  Pain.  Sickness.  Anger.  Fear. 

Humiliation at being used like this.

"Y' smoke?" he asked sparingly, not wanting to get out of breath enough to have to pause.

"I..."

"Yes or no."

"I...si."

Remy made his gaze bite.  "Quit."

Angelo backed a step toward the door, another.  Swallowed and reached for the knob.  "I just did, hombre."

[next part]

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