Xanadu

By Alara

Chapter 34: “His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,”

After they finished cleaning up after dinner, Remy caught up Roisin’s hand and led her back to the car, ignoring the hoots and catcalls their hand-in-hand stance prompted. “Hey, careful—we only want to buy a present for one bebe dis year, Remy,” one of the visiting Thieves from Italy advised them, with a wink. “’Sides. Wait ‘til next year—you always have available babysitters when you need them.” Remy merely smiled, a little tightly, and kept moving toward the vehicle. Roisin was perplexed: his physical stance seemed amorous, but he wasn’t saying anything to indicate he was feeling so, and her borrowed empathy told her he was feeling contented—but nothing more, ah, exciting than that. They sat in companionable silence during the short trip around the swamp, and once in their house, he pulled her close. “Love you, chere,” he told her. She smiled, and began to reply, but stopped when he rested his hand across her lips. “I love you,” he repeated, “but—an’ don’t laugh at me—” his shoulders sagged “’m exhausted. Can we go t’ bed an’ just sleep?”

She bit back a laugh with difficulty as she took his meaning. “Sure, sugar.” She replied casually.

His head dropped to her shoulder. “T’ank y’,” he said gratefully.

He was halfway up the stairs when she mused, “So what do I tell ‘Donna, when she asks, then? That you’re only up for seventeen days of nearly constant sex? She thought you were at least good for twenty this early in the marriage.” He spun, indignant, and realized she was teasing.

“Well, chere,” he said, leaning against the wall, “most men don’t have wives driven to near-nymphomania by taking on the lust of men seeking out hookers,” he pointed out. “But if someone else wants t’ try de experiment, dey’re welcome to try an’ beat my record.”

She snorted. “Oh, so it’s a record, now?”

“Yeah,” he informed her. “It is. An’ we can try t’ beat it later. But right now, ma cherie,” he took her hand in his again and led her up the steps. “Right now, I’d be obliged if I could spend one night sleeping with you, and only you in your head, all right?”

She laughed and agreed, that sounded pretty nice, at that.

They spent the next two days mostly alone. Remy taught Roisin how to cheat at poker, Roisin taught him some lock-picking tricks she’d learned while in India. They didn’t talk about his family or hers; they didn’t talk about the Whores’ Union or Trask. They simply spent time together, as they rarely had done since coming to New Orleans.

The third day, Sunday, they met the rest of the LeBeaus (and Kurt) at church, then returned to the Guild Seat to have brunch. When they turned the car on, the radio flared to life with a news report. “Increasing anti-mutant demonstr—“ Roisin let out an irritated sound and shut the radio off. “Can’t just leave us alone, can they,” she said to no one in particular. Remy, who was on his cell phone, reached over and patted her thigh. The call ended, and he shut the phone with a click.

“Don’t let ‘em get you down, chere. Y’ got ot’er t’ings t’ worry ‘bout.”

Her head swiveled in his direction. “What other things?”

“Apparently Tante took t’ings into her own hands, and invited de X-men t’ brunch.” At her look he hastily explained, “I didn’t have not’ing to do with it, Mercy thought she’d warn us.”

She sighed and looked out the window. “Remind me to buy her something nice as a thank-you,” she commented.

“No problemme.”

The brunch was, unsurprisingly, somewhat strained, but it was obvious that everyone was trying to get along and make the day pleasant. Hot-button topics, like Roisin leaving, were given a wide margin; instead, Tante kidnapped Kitty away to the kitchen, informing the girl that if her cooking were that disgraceful, she simply hadn’t had the right teacher. Henri challenged Professor X to a game of chess, and Belladonna abducted Logan to run him through the Assassins’ obstacle/training course and get technical advice on its already overdue update. Etienne and Theo emerged from wherever they’d been plotting, and once she saw Kurt join them, Roisin vowed to stay far away from any part of the city they were in. She and Scott were playing double solitaire, tentatively feeling out the remnants of their former friendship. To her amusement, it was actually going fairly well; perhaps the fact that Remy dropped by to check on her every twenty minutes or so was reminding her to keep hold of her temper. The reminders were welcome; Scott was definitely better than he had been but every so often the old tone of I-know-better-than-you crept in, and she had to struggle to keep from smacking him across the head.

A bang came from the kitchen. Suddenly the living room was bristling with weapons, much to Scott’s startlement as every Thief and visiting Assassin drew at least one of their guns, knives, or other injury-making device. Remy cautiously moved toward the swinging kitchen door, waving others out of the way as he approached. Before he reached the threshold, though, the door swung open to reveal a sheepish, white-faced Kitty. Actually, she was white all over; a fine coating of white powder covered her. “Um, like, did you all know that flour, like, explodes if it’s heated?”

“Yes,” everybody except Scott, Kurt, and Mercy said. At Kurt’s look Mercy explained, “I told you the other day—I don’t do the hands-on stuff.”

“Um. Oh.” Kitty said. “Well, Tante Mattie wants to know could someone please go to the grocery store and get more flour? I kinda… blew up…what was there. Sorta.”

Roisin rose from her chair, chuckling. “Sure, I’ll run down. Remy, mon coeur, could you take over this game while I’m gone?”

“Sure, belle.”

Roisin saw Scott’s face light up at the chance to closely question Remy, and groaned inwardly: she might regret this. Then again, a break from Scott—and the general tension in the house—would probably be good for her.

Plus she wanted to see what Remy’s reaction to Scott was.

She got her answer as she was leaving the grocery store and was walking the ten or so blocks home. “Roisin Dubh, I hope dis Scott isn’t in charge o’ questioning people. He’s terrible.”

“Where is he?”

“Bathroom.”
”Oh. No, he generally isn’t. Jean usually does the questioning—or she did,” she amended, remembering the reference to the redhead’s fragile emotional state.

“Why her?”
”She’s a leggy, busty, tall, bubbly redhead with telepathic powers.”

“Oh. You coming home soon? ‘Cos dis attempt at getting information from me has got to be hilarious. When yo’ not de one bein’ questioned.”

“What’s he trying to find out?”

“What I do fo’ a living, I t’ink. O’ what you do fo’ a living. O’ what you an’ I do together—besides what’s already obvious to him,” he added humorously. “Jus’ now he was asking do you go armed around de house normally. He noticed your gun when de flour exploded.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Dat you usually do have a weapon on you, but only when you’ve got clothes on.”

“Remy,” she sighed. “Leave me some sort of good name, would y—hold on a sec.” She noticed a commotion up ahead; a group of people were by the open door of a SUV that was halfway up on the curb. The bystanders were clustered around something on the ground.

“What? What is it?” Remy’s tone sharpened.

“I’m not sure… I’m by that bakery with the cookies ‘Donna likes so much. There’s a Tahoe half on the curb. I think someone’s sick, or hurt, or something. Hold on.” She tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder as she drew closer to the crowd, all of whom, she noticed, were dressed similarly, in shades of brown. She mentally shrugged; perhaps they all belonged to the same church, or something.

“What’s going on?” She asked, craning her neck to try to see over the people.

“I don’t know,” one man replied, and moved aside so she could move closer, but then stepped right back where he had been. Didn’t want to lose his second-row seat to the action, she thought sardonically. Some people were like that, though—they didn’t want to get close enough to get involved, oh no, but they did want to be close enough that if it turned out to be a big event, they could say, “I was there,” like that meant anything.

“Roisin?” she heard from the phone.

“Just a minute, Rem,” she said briefly and tucked the phone against her shoulder again. She broke through the circle of people. One woman, looking shocked, was pointing frantically inside the open car door. Since she was approaching from the front, Roisin couldn’t see inside.

She could, however, see a limp hand dangling, visible beneath the doorframe.

“Merde,” she muttered, and cursed the average Joe-on-the-street’s squeamishness when encountering bodies. She swung around the edge of the door, preparing to see someone unconscious, or perhaps glazed, staring, dead eyes looking into her own. She stopped, confused; aware, live eyes were pinned to her face, a split second before she felt a shove between her shoulder blades. The owner of the eyes reached grasping hands out to her as the crowd closed in, pushing her inside. “Remy!” She screamed once, before the phone was snatched and thrown violently down.

“Get the mutie bitch!”

Hands—hands were all over her, smothering her, taking her right back to the cell in the laboratory, those memories fresh and renewed because of the previous weekend’s events. For a moment, she froze, consumed by panic. Then animal instinct took over, and she began fighting and clawing at the people who surrounded her. It was hopeless from the start, though; short of killing them, she couldn’t really do anything to even the odds against her, which were about thirty to one. She ran an electrical charge over her skin; one man who had the misfortune to be gripping her bare neck, cursed and let go, but two took his place, trading his sticky grip for kidney punches; she doubled over in pain, the charge dissipating into nothingness. Nine of them finally ended up more-or-less lying on top of her, with no skin-to-skin contact to give her an avenue of escape. She felt a sharp sting in her leg, and twisted her head around to see a horror.

Dr. Myers—Trask’s pet physician—was withdrawing a syringe from her leg. “Hello, Subject Thirteen,” was all she heard, and then everything went black.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Yes. Yes I am going to leave it there! …For now. Muahaha.

As always, reviews are welcomed, beckoned, demanded, begged…