Title: By Remote

Author: Viridian5 (Email)

Website

Rating: NC-17

Pairing/main characters: Gambit/Wolverine

Series/Sequel: complete

Summary: Slash.

Disclaimer: Marvel owns 'em. I'm just filling in between panels. No infringement intended. Suing me would be a waste of time; you'd have to get in line for what little money I have.

Archive/distribution: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.

Notes: It may be a variation on the nightmare theme, but this story has *nothing* to do with "Jump or Fall." Every time I ask why I'm writing more GambitAngst, my Muse says something to effect of: "You're not the boss of *me*." I guess it's just that we're still ticked off about "The Trial of Gambit." When I mentioned I was writing an X-Men story the first time, three different people immediately assumed/hoped I was writing Wolverine/Gambit. So this is for Amanda, Te and Orithain. Beta by the ever-amazing Amanda.

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By Remote

By Viridian5

 

Everything stank of blood. They were slaughtering everyone, and Remy couldn't move to stop it, run, or even turn away. He couldn't even close his eyes, which wouldn't have blocked out the screams but would have spared him the sights. He couldn't struggle against the body that held him.
One teenage girl's head came flying loose and hit the floor with a meaty thud before rolling to a stop at the toe of his right boot. Her eyelids still twitched. Rainbows sparkled, then died, in her multicolored hair.
"What's wrong, LeBeau?" Sinister purred into his ear. "Don't you want to see the wonderful job the contractors you picked are doing for me?"
"You never... never tol' me dis was what you wanted 'em for!" Remy gasped.
"Oh, come now. You knew what I wanted well enough to recruit Sabretooth, so you must have had some idea."
"I didn't. I didn't..."
"Your attitude insults me. Sabretooth!"
Sabretooth looked up from the child he was eviscerating. "I'm busy here!"
"Come over here. Now."
The dark tone of command intimidated even Sabretooth, who threw the corpse aside to come to them. "What can I do fer ya?"
"LeBeau isn't enjoying our little spectacle. I want you to rip out his heart."
Sabretooth grinned, revealing teeth designed to rend. "Dunno if he has one. Might have to dig a bit to see."
"Slice as much as you have to. I'm more concerned with results than neatness."
Remy knew it would hurt like hell, but death would be a way out. Maybe the only way, since Sinister seemed to be the type who never let go. //And I wouldn't 'ave to live knowing I delivered de killers, bloody deat', to dese people. I didn't know...//
Sinister shook him a little. "You're right; I don't let go. Ever. Sabretooth will rip you open, but you won't die. That would be far too easy. You'd be amazed how much damage a human body can take before my machines can't keep it alive any longer."
A large, bloody hand, tipped with long claws, rose up before slashing down...
Then Remy heard an explosion and flew until he hit a wall, rolling with the impact so it only bruised him. Otherwise, he would have snapped some bones. He was lying, panting, on the floor of his own darkened bedroom. He touched his chest lightly and felt only the faint scars from the real life wound Sabretooth had dealt him those years ago.
//Dream. Safe. I'm safe.//
Once his head stopped ringing, he turned on the light and inspected the damages. The best he could figure was that he'd charged up a pillow in his dream-inspired panic. The explosion had knocked him loose, in more ways than one, but also left a huge blast hole in his bed.
"What a revoltin' development dis is," Remy muttered. //'Aven't done somet'ing like dis since I was a pup.// Then he heard someone enter the house and picked up the other pillow to charge.
"You wanna pillow fight, Cajun?" Wolverine asked.
Remy put it down, then wasted a whole minute trying to banish the image of him and Wolverine going after one another with pillows. God knew how he'd react if Remy started to giggle.
"Dat was fast. Shit, you could 'ear de explosion from de house?"
"Probably, but I was walkin' the grounds."
"At 3:15?" Remy ran a hand through his wild mass of hair, pushing it away from his face. "Dunno if I could go back to sleep. Maybe I could 'it a bar for a few beers."
"Bars close here at 3."
"Never gonna get used to dat. We're livin' far from civilization."
"No kiddin'. 'Sides you need sleep. Lookin' ragged."
"You say de sweetest t'ings. Well, de entertainment's over. I'm going back to sleep den."
"Not there, yer not, unless you wanna wake up at the bottom of the rabbit hole."
"Dere's always de couch."
"Or the mansion."
Remy's survival sense clicked into high gear, suspicions engaged. "What do you wan'? Yer not de talkin' type; yer de only one 'ere wit' more secrets dan I 'ave."
"Guess it wouldn't do me much good to lecture ya about keeping secrets then."
"Nah, you don' do de Professor very well."
"Wouldn't want to. I don't wanna sound like a hypocrite. I know any secret's good long as it protects the ones you love."
//Mon Dieu, Wolverine's trying to bond wit' me. Dis doesn't bode well at all.// "An' if it does dat, and saves yer own ass, it's de best kind of all."
"They do more hurt when they get out anyway."
Even knowing it had to be a trap, Remy's curiosity wouldn't let him leave it alone. He had to know, and he figured he could wiggle out somehow if he had to. "De mansion, eh?"
"Yeah. Yer an X-Man, you have a right to be there."
"You sure yer Wolverine?"
Wolverine smiled, and Remy shuddered inwardly at the deja vu of revealed razor teeth. "Don't worry, kid, I'm not offerin' you anything for free."
Wolverine gave him the time to put boots and his duster on over the silk pajama bottoms before leaving without even a glance back. Come or don't. It reassured Remy a bit.
They left the beach house and walked under a dome of star-shot night, the kind of eternal sky that existed away from cities. Wolverine moved more quietly through the grass, since his stealth was more accustomed to the outdoors than Remy's. Give the thief a city or residence, and he made it his bitch. Grass, dried leaves, and rocks took a bit more effort. A bit.
That effortless stealth and Wolverine's scent suggested that this was the man and not a shapeshifter. Remy didn't have Logan's enhanced senses, but up close he was aware of a scent that was cigar smoke and leather mixed with something spicy and vaguely meaty.
Wolverine lit a cigar, making Remy crave a cigarette. Once he had it out and at his lips, his teammate had a light ready. He bent a bit to take it.
//Yer bein' too kind. I don' know what yer after, but it's sure to be an interesting ride.//
*****
Logan usually tended to be direct but couldn't in this case, when he didn't know what he was trying to do. He was flying completely on instinct. Fortunately, the Cajun seemed to see it as a game, and one he appeared to be enjoying.
Logan looked back at LeBeau, who'd shortened his long strides to keep even with the unhurried pace. He was so damned tall and lean, which made him seem even longer. Walking together, they looked spectacularly mismatched, like a bulldog accompanying a greyhound. LeBeau's hastily thrown together outfit of trench coat, silk pajama bottoms, and Timberland boots should have looked ridiculous, but he wore it with such nonchalance that it somehow only looked surreal.
Logan had been waiting for an inevitable opportunity to get involved, had been since the Cajun had returned. He didn't know what he thought he could do, but he had to do something.
Once LeBeau had gotten the young buck/old buck rivalry out of his system--quickly, since he wasn't a natural born killer with something to prove, like Marrow was--Logan had come to almost like him; at the very least they shared a wary respect. He had shown himself to be smart, competent and fast. Despite his shifty ways, he never left a teammate's back unprotected in a fight.
After all the preaching against Logan's killing tendencies, it had shocked him to find out that some of the X-Men had left Gambit to die. Rogue claimed that she'd been coerced by the power of the Cajun's own deathwish, exerted by the piece of him she'd absorbed. Yeah, maybe. It didn't explain why she'd rescued him, against his protests that she should save herself, from the crumbling citadel only to leave him outside in the snowy wastes of Antarctica to die a far slower death of exposure. Had he really been that picky?
Even if her story had held up, it didn't explain why none of the others had gone back when they found out. Sure, Worthington tended to be a self-righteous hothead even without the provocation of finding out that LeBeau had been connected to the people who'd destroyed his wings. Betsy had been erratic from the influence of the Crimson Dawn. Hank... Logan couldn't understand what the hell Hank could have been thinking. Joseph had been injured, not that Logan had put much faith in the man who could have been Magneto. But he could only really let Maggott--who had been a stranger then and couldn't affect their judgment--and Trish Tilby off the hook. The others had no excuse.
Logan had heard the story only in slanted bits until Storm, who had been disgusted and appalled at the abandonment, had given him a full, if third hand, account. Gambit had done serious wrong, but he'd just been a dumb, cocky kid, and he was far from the first person to be tricked by Sinister.
Logan probably would have been much angrier about it under other circumstances. There should have been some punishment, but not this. For the crime of being used by Sinister, as almost everyone else on the team had been used by *some* villain, LeBeau had been left to die.
Then the group had delayed telling anyone else about what had happened until it was too late for anyone to go get him. But that wasn't even the worst thing; the worst thing was that they seemed to think that they were innocent, that they were clean as long as their own hands didn't literally strike the killing blow. They didn't kill him; the Antarctic did. They thought it was better than Logan's way. Never mind that they'd passed a death sentence without even making the execution fast and clean.
They hadn't cared.
It left Logan torn between principles. He had his loyalty to the people who were the closest thing he had to family; against that, the Cajun was only a recent arrival. But he also believed in honor, and there was none in the cruel, *cowardly* way they'd dealt with Gambit.
The Cajun had somehow survived, completely without their help, and Logan couldn't help wondering how. While he checked out to Logan's senses as the same person, he'd changed in other ways. He looked haunted and twitchy now in a way that had nothing to do with his blank face and everything with his hooded eyes. His casual arrogance was now only a shaky veneer where once it had gone bone deep. His scent suggested a trapped animal in its anxiety and lost hope. Plus, sometimes he smelled of something else, something *wrong*.
Heat and poison...
Logan watched LeBeau in the hopes of protecting the X-Men from him and him from the X-Men. Everyone else could ignore the situation and the man himself hoping it would all go away, but it wasn't Logan's way to let something wrong fester into something worse. He would put right everything he could.
*****
Remy didn't know whether he should be surprised or smug when he saw where Wolverine led him. "You said a bed. I'm using yours?"
"Yeah. Do you mind?"
"'Ell, no."
The bed was about the only furniture in the room. The other was a simple table that had two samurai blades and a picture of Mariko--years dead, brought down by treachery against Wolverine--displayed on it. The almost empty room and the few things that filled it suggested much about Logan's personality, bespeaking loyalty and discipline. Remy knew his own cluttered living area showed a jackdaw's love for shiny or interesting objects, even if he kept the *good* stuff hidden and moved around too often //willingly or otherwise// to hold on to anything for long.
When Remy took off his coat and boots and set them neatly down, they obviously took up space, a foreign invasion. //I don' belong 'ere.//
Wolverine's hand settled on Remy's arm. "Yer not gonna rabbit now, are ya?"
The rough, callused fingers brushing his skin distracted Remy from his flash of discomfort. "Non. I'm fine." He let the calculated shot to his ego pass without a word, to Wolverine's obvious amusement.
Remy settled into the bed and burrowed under the plain but soft cotton sheets. It wasn't at all what he'd expected; while he certainly hadn't anticipated filth, the strong, comforting scent of laundry detergent, fresh air, and sunshine surprised him. The sheets must have been line-dried. It made him think of the kind of home he hadn't found until the LeBeau clan took him in.
Still, the thought of Wolverine doing laundry induced brain-lock as much as the earlier pillow fight image did.
Tucked in, Remy felt warm and safe, like a child who would be protected from the monsters under the bed as long as he stayed beneath the covers. He started to drift into sleep.
Half-conscious, he heard a rustling sound for a few minutes. Then the mattress dipped in a way that almost rolled Remy to the center as Wolverine tucked himself into bed.
Remy smiled, knowing that his teammate only saw his back. "Didn' know you'd be keepin' me company. Not dat I mind. Just t'ought you were gonna keep on walking de eart'."
"Nope. All good boys are in bed now."
"Den what am I doing 'ere?"
Stupid as it was, Remy started to shake a little and fought it, disgusted. After the dreams, fear, and loneliness, a simple show of companionship could reduce him to this. But Logan didn't berate him for it and just started to stroke his back. The touches weren't gentle, but they weren't rough either, just deep and thorough. Comfort, with a strong overtone of sex. He leaned back into them and let his body wake up.
Part of Remy wanted to surrender, but a newer, warier part said, "Don' t'ink I'm complaining, but dis ain't yer usual style."
"There's a lot you don't know about me. You want this?" Wolverine asked. Remy flinched a little as a callused finger hit a new bruise along his spine. "Guess not."
"Non, not dat. Just 'urt my damned fool self bouncing off de wall. My explosions can injure me, ya know." Besides, it was so *real*. Life occasionally felt like an odd, disconnected dream to him lately. He leaned back further into the touches and moaned softly as Wolverine stroked his ass through the silk of his pajamas. It felt like being petted by both his teammate and the slick fabric. "What does dis say to you?"
"Keep going."
Wolverine molded himself to Remy's back and started to nip at the Cajun's long neck. Enclosed by broad arms against that strong compact body, the Cajun felt a moment's pleasurable terror. Gentle could be very good, but sometimes sex needed strength and power. Remy realized that Wolverine was already naked and remembered hearing that he tended to sleep that way even if he didn't have company.
Wolverine's hands started to drift under the pajama bottoms' waistband. Silk rubbed down over Remy's hard cock as he pulled it down, pausing occasionally to stroke. Soon Wolverine had Remy lying on his back and a tube of slick in hand without him being quite sure how he'd gotten that way.
Remy spread his legs but asked, "'Ow long you been planning dis?"
"I'm always prepared. But I wanted to take you aside since you came back lookin' like--"
"Shit?"
"--like you'd seen hell and hadn't come all the way back yet. I've seen you after you got laid--"
"When?"
"When you first joined us, you weren't always quiet comin' back at night, 'specially if you were loaded. Don't interrupt."
"No, sir." Remy said with a salute that got him a slap on the ass. "'Ey!"
"Getting' laid seemed to make huge improvements to your mood."
"So dis is all selfless altruism?"
"Nope." One thick, slick finger pushed in and hit the sweet spot, making Remy writhe. "If you don't know what this is after all yer experience, yer not as bright as I thought."
"Yer funny," Remy gasped as the another finger joined in and started to thrust, making pleasure razor its way through his body. He pushed down on the fingers to make them go deeper.
"Put the condom on me."
"Where?"
"Table."
Remy reached for it and ripped open the package with shaking hands. Wolverine's cock was huge and thick; the very sight made Remy's mouth and cock salivate. He tried to tease a bit as he sheathed its length, but a low growl told him to get on with it.
He did so but said, "Spoilin' my fun. Yer fun too."
"Yer fun's coming, Cajun."
Remy saw no need to answer such a self-evident statement. He did take advantage of a moment to stroke Wolverine's thighs. All his hair actually felt silky, instead of coarse as Remy had expected.
Then Wolverine removed his fingers and thrust in. It felt like being split in two, and Remy saw exploding stars as pressure, liquid fire, and pleasure/pain became his focus. Wolverine remained still for a moment, perhaps to make sure he appreciated how full he was, before starting to move, hard and fast, exactly as he needed it. He could swear he felt each stroke to the back of his teeth. Lost in a frenzy of sensation, he clawed at the back flexing above him and bit at Wolverine's corded neck.
But the weight on him and positioning started to bother him. On the bottom, pinned by greater strength and bulk. He needed more control.
"You t'ink you know what's going on?" Remy panted. "You don' 'ave a clue."
Remy took advantage of a moment when Wolverine had pulled out to flip the older man on his back while still remaining impaled. The new angle and the blinding lights that accompanied it nearly shorted out Remy's mind. He screwed himself up and down to match the frenzied thrusts and bucking hips beneath him. It surprised him that his head never hit the ceiling. The rough hand stroking his aching cock brought him closer to the drop.
Wolverine started to gasp, a look of either ecstasy or agony on his face. Maybe both. Remy sucked on his finger before stroking it down Wolverine's balls, over his perineum, and thrusting it in. Wolverine shrieked and exploded upward, bringing Remy to a hard orgasm with him.
They collapsed in a sweaty heap together, panting. Remy wanted to sleep, but he could feel them sticking together and realized that he had come all over Wolverine's chest. He licked the older man clean and disposed of the condom before settling alongside him.
Wolverine took him by the chin and gave him a searching, if weary, look. "What?" Remy asked.
Wolverine let his chin go with a caress. "Nothin'." His voice sounded rustier than usual.
"Dat was..."
"Yeah."
"Merci."
After a slight hesitation that Remy only barely registered, Wolverine said, "Anytime. And I mean it."
Remy wondered whether he really wanted to ask about it, but sleep claimed him before he could make a decision.
*****
Logan looked down at the Cajun sleeping so blissfully next to him. //What the hell did you get yourself into, kid?// LeBeau--so damned talented, completely unselfconscious in his pleasure, wild hair flying--had been riding his cock for a moment when Wolverine had felt something thick and hot inside his throat, choking him. He couldn't breathe, and it made the pleasure spiral higher even as it ticked him off. Then it eased. Then it came back.
He didn't know what was wrong. He couldn't talk through the hot obstruction in his throat, and he couldn't push the Cajun away for fear of overdoing it and hurting him.
Then he saw an acid green corona of energy around LeBeau and smelled that heat and poison scent he'd noticed before. The Cajun seemed to be entirely unaware of it.
The choking hit its pinnacle when LeBeau had unexpectedly fingerfucked him. Light-headed, unable to breathe, Wolverine had exploded into the most intense orgasm he'd had in a very long time. He still felt echoes of it. Then the choking had stopped.
Afterwards, LeBeau had looked like his usual self, with no green aura or awareness of what had just happened. Wolverine remembered the Cajun saying, "You t'ink you know what's going on? You don' 'ave a clue." He knew he had no idea what was going on. He didn't think the Cajun knew either.
But he intended to find out.

 

END