exsiliumlogs | falling down can feel strange no one remembers your name;

Date & Time: tonight, late-ish.
Location: outside one of the training rooms in the hold.
Characters: gambit & cable.
Summary: being a mutant is suffering.
Warnings: n/a

He’ll admit it, and readily—he’s angry. He’s worked very hard to make connections in this place, to keep his head down, to not be bogged down by his past or his guilt or any number of other things. And then Nathan arrives and it all comes crashing down. Asking about him, publicly, on the Network? Did he really have no better methods?

Of course he did, and Remy should be glad he didn’t use them. But the last thing he wants is for people to worry about him, and Cable calling attention to him is going to do just that. It had been Nill, first, but what if Collette or Ygritte—or Kate—decides to come checking up next? There’s only so many situations he can talk his way out of. And he doesn’t want to give them answers.

(Like that’d go over well, anyway.

“Why does Cable hate you, Remy?”

“Well, y’see, I was kinda workin’ for the devil and I stole his baby. Don’t worry, I did it for the sake a’ true love.”

“I see. That makes it all better.”)

He’s waiting outside the training room, the one he knows Nathan entered a little while ago. He’s leaning against the wall across from the doorway, biding his time. For Remy, that always means shuffling cards, so that’s what he does. Over and over, under and back, shuffle shuffle shuffle, until—

Ah. There’s Cable.

“Hello, homme. We need ta talk.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nate snorts. "Like that's enough to do any more than just annoy you." Part and parcel of being an X-Man - get hit and keep coming back for more.

He can feel the muscles in his bad arm start to tighten up now that he's not working them, and he starts going through the range-of-motion exercises McCoy's drilled into him, even as the wry smile fades from his face.

"I shouldn't have taken my temper out on you like that, though."

"Apologize ta my face, not ta me," Remy retorts. He doesn't like be apologized to, first of all. And he likes being hit in the face even less. It's practically a crime. It should be a crime.

But then he pauses a moment, lets out a breath. "I don't really care one way o' the other about your temper. Or if you want ta take it out on me." The fight probably did more to keep him in shape than all the training he's done, here. "I just don't need them hearin' about it."

"The sordid tales of life as an X-Man? Or trying to avoid that title, as the case may be."

But Nate knows what Remy means - some things are better left unsaid. Like anything that involves Apocalypse.

"And I'm Askani. We usually go for amends, not apologies - but I can make an exception in this case."

He manages to look perfectly serious as he says, "I'm sorry, Remy's face. I'd promise to leave you alone, but given your owner..."

...Okay, there's a hint of a smile there now.

"Not the title. Not even being a mutant. I don't care about that. Just..." He trails off, there. He can't define it without getting into it, and even if he isn't mad at Nathan anymore that's something he's never going to broach with the other man. He's barely talked about it to those closest to him, pushed it as far away from himself as he can. But he's constantly aware of that knot of cells at the base of his brain stem, how they're dormant now but might not always be...

But those thoughts fade quickly enough as Cable keeps talking, and now Remy wants to punch him for entirely different reasons.

"Very smooth, homme. Almost acceptable."

Nate shrugs. "Best I've got." Gallows humor is more his style, anyway - two decades of mercenary work, and even more as a soldier does that.

The traces of humor fade from his face, though. "I do have one question I want a real answer to - I don't care what your part in it was, but what did Sinister want with Hope?"

He can think of a number of possibilities, none of them pleasant - but knowing which one it was makes it easier to safeguard her when he gets home.

"Quoi d'autre? Her DNA," Remy says, and it's hard to keep the sardonic slant from his voice. Amazingly, of everything he's done, that's one thing he doesn't regret. He had to save Anna, and even if he disagreed with Mystique (would have killed her if Hope came to harm, really), he can't be unhappy about the way it worked out.

"For what it's worth," and he knows that's not much, "I would never have let him have 'er. We had a plan, from the start. He never touched her." He's not sure how many other X-men ever knew that part. Xavier did, but maybe no one else. He didn't exactly advertise that he and Mystique had planned it, together.

He pauses, for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is very low. "I don't expect you ta understand, Cable. But I couldn't let her die." Not talking about Hope, anymore.

The barest mind-touch is enough to show Nate that Remy means every word he says - which surprises him, because if he's being brutally honest, his expectations for Remy's selflessness are set pretty low. But the fleeting image he picks up on the tail end of that - a comatose Rogue - catches him off-guard even more. The surprise shows on his face, replaced quickly by a certain degree of clamped down self-hatred, because he knows he's partially to blame that she ended up like that.

"...Damnit, LeBeau, I can't even be angry at you for that any more." He tries to make it sound light, conversational, but he knows that if their positions had been switched, he'd probably have done the exact same thing.

He blinks, at that. He expects people to blame him, despite his reasoning. Things between him and Logan had been tense for months, after he'd gone back to Utopia. It'd only really been Laura who brought them together, again. And as for everyone else... well, things hadn't even gotten that much better. But he's used to it.

"You can't be mad that I stole your kid?" He asks, incredulous. Of course, that was before Hope was really Cable's kid, per say, but the principle is there. "You might want ta think about your priorities, there."

Nate shakes his head a little in exasperation. "Given how strongly you're projecting why you did it? No, I can't, really - because it was my fault Rogue ended up that way. I can wish you had gone about it differently, but..." He spreads his hands in a gesture of acceptance. "What is, is. Hell, if we hadn't had the Purifiers on our tail too, you probably could have just asked."

He lifts a hand, absently, to his temple for a moment. Damn psychics. But, really, he has no reason to be mad. Would he have even said what he had if he didn't want Nathan to understand?

"Non. I really couldn't have." He laughs, with that. If he'd never left the X-men, how would things have worked out? Would Rogue still have gotten into that state? The Destiny Diaries seemed to think it was inevitable, and now that's a mute point.

"But like I said when y'first got here: that's in the past. I don't want ta think about it, ever again." This conversation is getting to honest, for his taste.

Nate shrugs. "Fair enough - I know how that goes. And it worked out in the end." Unlike so much else in his past, and going to desperate lengths to save a life brings up memories he'd rather keep buried in his past. Not that Remy knows this, and not that he'd ever tell him. For now, all he can do is let it go, and respect Remy's wishes for the same. As far as he can tell, the other mutant has made a fresh start for himself here.

"For now... pax?"

This... is going better than expected. Remy really hadn't thought, arriving here, that he wouldn't be walking away with another shiner. But he can appreciate a good opportunity when he's offering one. He lifts a hand, fingers spread, nothing hidden.

"Paix." Not to put too fine a point on it.

falling down can feel strange no one remembers your name;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject