multiversallogs | not a victim of a victim's life

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not a victim of a victim's life

Who: Remy LeBeau and Laura Kinney.
What: ~reunion.
Where: Around town, ending on the east side.
When: Over the course of the last few days; presently.
Notes: all the feels
Warnings: TBA.

Remy doesn't sleep much.

It's not stress, not even his personal demons keeping him up; he just doesn't have the time. A couple of days a week he meets with various people to work on their abilities - he's not the best with magic, so with Ilde it's mostly sign language and shape shifting. He thinks Claire's going to kill him soon, but he did warn her she'd hate it. There's a twenty-something blue skinned guy out by the shoreline that can turn people into rock sculptures that's a little unnerving. He turned a frog back, though. Progress.

He keeps up with Billy and Tommy the best he can. He's not a parent, certainly not their parent, but he refuses to turn his relationship with them into a tactical one, so he remains patient and attentive and does the best he can. Usually that means more leaving well enough alone than anything, though Tommy's been warming up a little lately.

At night he moves black market product - illegal imports through the glass, and run of the mill stolen goods. He trades in information most of all, wearing a pair of enchanted eyeglasses and passing himself off as Robert Lord, organized crime transplant by way of London! He's congenial but unnerving, and the people he employs and works with have settled into doing what he says easily. It helps that he's just that good, and turning a profit is as easy as saying pick a card. Sometimes he turns out guys from gangs who don't like him, sending them off towards Hawkeye. Considering he's supporting a household of four people, paying informants, and looking after Kate and Claire on the side, the money alone would make it worth it, but anyone who could see all sides of the operation would be able to tell just how far he's playing.

He checks in on Erik and hates it. He checks in on Clarice and hasn't decided how he feels about it yet. He comes home to Wanda, every time, and sometimes he fucks off on any and all work entirely to go talk to her, sit with her, take her out to breakfast.

When he thinks he's alone he paces.

If he can, he walks home from meetings in the evenings. Even though the weather's getting colder outside, he likes it, particularly the stretch between Mog Hill and Abrogate Green. It's relaxing, it's old-town quiet with trees and dirt roads. He smokes, sometimes he burns out whole packs of cards one at a time, methodical. He really fucking hates being trapped.

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Being trapped made her panic -- Laura can't handle cages, and it enrages her to be trapped inside one again -- and it took her a few days to cool down, going nowhere, avoiding people. Not sleeping and not eating, either; those are two things high on her list of luxuries. Eventually it becomes easy to put emotion aside for cold logic: she knows where she is and she knows that she was trying to come here.

Baedal.

Once Laura gets herself under control, it doesn't take her long to find him; a cursory scan of their Network reveals that someone with his face is present in the city. She doesn't contact him there both because she doesn't trust the security of this Network, and because she won't just believe it's the same one -- she knows how these things work. It doesn't take much work to find him in the flesh; Laura's an excellent tracker. She's an even better hunter.

She's been following him. She stays far enough away so that he can't see her, but she knows eventually he'll figure it out. He'd be dead a long time by now if he weren't observant enough to notice he's being followed, even by someone as good as Laura.

He spends a lot of time alone. If she were really trying...

But she's not.

She watches him for a long time instead, hidden out of sight and not able to bring herself to say anything, not until she knows for sure that it's the right one. She won't open herself up to someone wearing his face but with the wrong mind -- friends are her weakness and even back home, shapeshifters exist. All she has to do is let her guard down for a second and she's back in someone's cage.

But it smells like him. She wants it to be him.

He notices; in spaces between when he's working, when everything falls quiet and he can't seem to egg out a response, sometimes when he's too busy to look over his shoulder. He wonders, then he forgets, then he wonders again - usually if someone is following him, he ends up jumped in short order. He's not the sort of person anyone tends to keep tabs on for extended periods of time.

Halfway home there's a park, and Remy sits down on a bench near the path that circles it. It's dark, and some whimsical part of him thinks places like this should have fireflies. They pop up closer to the house, and they're all over in Echomire; he likes it over there. He lights a cigarette and leans forward, elbows rested on his knees, watching out over the barely-illuminated grass, old iron lamp posts making shadow patterns through the trees.

Waiting.

She's thinking about this in tactical terms and knows that, if she wants the upper hand, she needs the element of surprise, but every second she left him alive would be an opportunity for him to use his powers, and she can't walk that off. If this is the right one, she knows he won't. If it's the wrong one, then his potential behaviour is a great big unknown.

She still hesitates. He must know she's there. She could stay here all night, she has the patience for it, but what is she going to do, just continue following him around, waiting for incontrovertible evidence of his identity that he just happens to slip into normal conversation? It's not going to happen. The time for observation and waiting is over, so she moves.

Snikt.

It's a distinct noise, similar but different from a switchblade opening -- different enough that someone who's heard it enough can tell the difference.

A moment later, she steps out from behind the trees, close enough to be visible but far enough away to not be immediately threatening. Her face is only half-illuminated by the shaky, dim light of the lamps, but with her uniform and those eyes, not to mention those claws, who else could it be? His reaction is important; she'll sense any dissembling right away. Laura might not be good with people, but she knows enough about body language.

Hers is tense. More than usual.

That noise is a familiar one - he's heard it over half his life; first time up in the frozen wastes of Canada, stealing files he'd eventually burn before ever turning over. His attention is drawn to it in an instant, expression alert but puzzled - he's caught off guard. Of all the things he expected to hear, that wasn't it, and for a heartbeat he's not sure what to think.

Ideas are congealing in his head, the starts of a hundred different ones (Logan wouldn't hide, and Remy wouldn't fight back very hard if it was him anyway, they both know it) but it's cut off, whatever train was starting is chased away into the night and he's left staring.

It isn't his familiarity with shapeshifters that lets him know it's really her. It isn't even over-emotional blindness. He knows, with the innate certainty of a parent dragging their own child out of a crowd of masked children, and he's on his feet and several paces closer to her before he even really thinks about it. (It's awful in its own way, because neither of them have this, not really - she should, but god, not from him.)

"Laura."

Remy stops, his expression a complete fiasco of conflicting emotions - shock, relief, worry, damn near fear, a bittersweet, vicious joy and something immediate and pulling. Protective. One hand is outstretched, like he much reach to hug her, touch her face (like he had will have will eventually do when he gets back and has to drag her out of that subway by her heart), and he holds back not out of fear of being stabbed (he doesn't care) but because he doesn't want to scare her. (As if he could.)

"Petite." A harsh whisper, he dropped his cigarette; hasn't noticed. "I told you to stay put."

She wants to stay still. She doesn't. She thought she'd learned how to handle difficult emotions like this, but she hasn't. The easier ones, everyday ones, those are the ones she's been practicing -- a smile (albeit in a slightly forced Wednesday Addams kind of way), a frown, the mild pleasure one gets out of simple things like food and a bed. Nothing like what's stabbing her in the gut, dragging her under its swell.

Something in her expression breaks and immediately reforms sharper-edged. She's hard to read on a good day, and this sudden vulnerability (caring about people) is frightening, maybe the only thing that frightens her. She feels, like always, an irrational anger, directed not at him but at nothing; she keeps it gently simmering, but not overwhelming. Anger is one of her weapons.

"You did not." ... technically. He told her not to worry and that he would come back, but it's been months for her, and waiting around for other people to do something isn't good enough. She's not a sit-back-and-wait kind of person. Stay put might have been implied, but Laura breezed right past that implication -- all she saw was the word trap.

She has to know. It's so close, she can smell it, all her instincts are screaming at her to listen -- but she has to know.

Her claws are still out. She could probably gut him from here. "Tell me something the real Remy would know."

Of course he hadn't - he doesn't do direct orders, not unless he has to, he doesn't want to order Laura around, even if sometimes he wishes he could just take her and say things and find a magic way for her to believe. (Love yourself, go easy on the world, stop hurting yourself-)

As happy as he is to see her, he's so sad, too, that she's trapped now.

He laughs a little, because it's so her, even though he can see the alien emotions on her face. Oh, petite. His hands up are submissive, now, a habit; it's a good thing he's used to navigating people who can kill him. (She can definitely gut him from where she is. He wouldn't stop her, even if technically he could - he could charge her and sent her flying, but he never would, wouldn't even think about it. He'd let her do it and hold her wrists and try to talk her out of it until he couldn't.)

"The last time I saw you alone," he begins, and there's a sort of fragile hope in it, "Before everybody else showed, I was readin' to you. I think.. you fell asleep somewhere in chapter six. The Little Prince. Peter Pan wasn't long enough - you coulda been fakin' it, I nodded off. You left your blanket with me."

Edited 2011-11-06 00:56 (UTC)

She holds very still -- and when Laura's still, she's still -- as she takes this in. Confused, because that was years ago for her, but she remembers it. She remembers everything, but especially moments like that. There's still the possibility that he's an alternate whose timeline diverged at some point after that, but it's such a remote one that she's able to put it aside. Occam's razor.

Anyway, she just kind of knows. Some instincts are harder than others to suppress.

Her claws retract and her face changes again, loses some of the hard-edged anger, but still so hard to read. She can't even think of names for what she's feeling right now because she's feeling too much to have anything left for self-examination. She just knows that this is what she's been looking for and finally, she's not alone again. Not anymore.

She creeps forward like a kicked dog.

Timelines can be sorted out. They're used to shit like that - it doesn't matter, people matter. Remy watches her and waits (it feels like an eternity) and fears somewhere deep inside that he really has left her alone and now in doing so, has hurt her anyway.

But then she moves, and that's his cue that things are okay - she's got so much power over him, in that respect; he'll never suspect manipulation from her. Even if he should.

Slowly but not tentatively, showing her he doesn't mean any harm, Remy puts his arms around her and pulls her in close. "Laura."

She seems so much smaller like this.

"I've missed you, petite."

Simple gestures like this continue to puzzle her, she never quite knows what to do -- when she was younger, she used to just stand there stiffly while people put their arms around her and feel vaguely confused by it. Now she understands the value of a hug, and if her movement is slightly stiff as she puts her arms around him, it's only because she so rarely practices the gesture. Especially as of late.

"I came to get you out," Laura says, which, of course she did. Whether the city chose her out of pure coincidence or it sensed her need to be here and pulled her in, she'll never know, and frankly she doesn't care. If there's a way in, there's a way out, and being in makes it easier to find that way out.

If it takes a while, well, that's fine. She can be patient.

"I didn't want you to get stuck too," he says, shaky laughter in his voice, and he runs one hand over her hair, comforting. "But I'm real glad to see you."

Remy can't imagine being mad at her for showing up - he understands, and maybe he's not really surprised, after all. No, it's a different sort of surprise; not that Laura is so determined, but that she bothered for him. It's not about his self esteem, it's about her attachments. Had he really made such an impact on this kid? Was he really doing okay? And, god, how badly must everyone else have been treating her that his efforts made this much of a difference?

... All right, so that's not exactly a surprise, either.

"Are you okay? How long have you been here?" Worry evident in his voice. He knows she can take care of herself on a functional level, but... who cares. He still wants to know.

"Five days." ... on no food, very little sleep, it would be a miracle she's still on her feet except for whose genes she has. She's gone longer in the past, could keep going. It's not necessary anymore and anyway, she's starting to get tired.

She pulls back far enough to scrutinize him -- there are no injuries that she can see and nothing smells off, no blood. That doesn't mean anything. There are more ways people can be hurt than with their bodies.

"You have been gone for four months." She's not sure if time here passes the same as it does outside, but it's been four months for her. She pauses. "Paris was two years ago."

Two years.

Two years.

For a long moment Remy just stares at her, processing that. It's not disbelief, and the shock of timelines isn't so great as the apparent reality that they stayed together - or close enough - to warrant this level of determination to follow him once she got that letter. (Really, local god of fucking communication, you couldn't deliver the damn thing on time?)

That settles it, anyway. She's supposed to be here.

"Shit, Laura. I'm sorry it got screwed over. Means I probably got back an' kept quiet about it."

She blinks placidly at him. "It does not matter." The timeline thing is weird and confusing, but honestly, Laura doesn't care terribly much. It'll probably get straightened out once they're in the proper universe -- that's how these things tend to work. It does mean she probably knows things about the future that he doesn't, but she can keep all that to herself unless he asks.

She feels steadier, now, it's better -- she's not so overwhelmed by emotion. She can think again. "No one has ever left?"

He backs off enough so that he's not smothering her, though he sticks close - there's an impulse in him to just make sure she's okay that feels a little alien, because he doesn't really know what to do with it. Remy is not Laura's parent, and even though it's his first instinct to treat her like a child, working with her these past months has forced him to learn how to adjust his reactions and approaches based on the moods she's in; she's a child, yes - okay, maybe not anymore, but - and sometimes she's a professional killer. It's a bit of a tightrope walk. He doesn't mind it, really.

Right now she seems so very young.

"There's theories that some people have," he tells her. "But there's a whole lot of creative ways for folks to die out here, so nobody knows for sure." He gives her a look, considering. "But you got my letter?"

Her expression softens a fraction of an inch, which is what Laura usually does instead of smiling. "Yes." Her body language begins to change when he does, becoming less needy and vulnerable and more sharply aware. Dominant, but protective. Julian couldn't handle that, it really freaked him out, which may well have had less to do with Laura being Laura and more to do with her being a girl.

Laura very briefly wonders if death is the way out -- then decides that's too difficult to test for various reasons. And not, you know, that it's just a terrible idea because it's insane. There's a lot of stuff she needs to learn before she goes about looking for an escape route anyway, but it's something she'll keep in the back of her mind.

"Then there's definitely a way out."

Because if his letter got out, then there's at least one exit - and there's never just one of anything. If a letter can get shipped, even with some time fuckery, anything can get out. They just need to find a way.

"So a god delivered my letter - that's two paths out, no? The gods, an' whatever's controlling the arrival rooms. Not a bad start."

He tilts his head. "First though, you need dinner."

Edited 2011-11-07 06:39 (UTC)

'A god'. Laura cocks her head to the side. She's not sure she really believes in the concept of gods or God -- Sooraya had tried, so many times and with infinite patience, to explain it to her and Laura had never quite understood, but there had at least been an understanding between them in that Laura didn't judge her for her not understanding -- but what's strange to her is not that they exist, but how proactive they seem to be. Then again, she's been to Limbo.

She's been to Hell.

Oh, right. Food exists. "Okay." She should probably shower (she's got leaves and shit in her hair, she's been sleeping outside) and change her clothes while she's at it, although... what the hell, superhero outfits, they're magic and never get dirty, apparently. You don't dry clean unstable molecules.

Leaves, yes, Remy is going to pick a few of those out, absently - the way he does it is more unintentionally humorous than fussing; some people might freak out over the child they're mentoring showing up in that state, but to the X-Men it's a little 'Oh, sweetheart.'

(On the subject of gods, Remy is far too jaded to think twice about it. The term has become one alongside 'mutants' and 'fae'; just another breed of life-form. Powerful ones, sure, but he's gotten hot dogs with half of Asgard before, so...)

"I'm livin' with Wanda and her boys," which Laura surely already knows, if she's been here for five days, but he's just going to talk anyway because that's sort of what he does, "I bet they'll be out, at this hour, do you wanna go back there first?"

She puts up with this in the same way she lets people drag her around and draw all over her face with makeup (Noriko), etc. Leaves are much less alarming than, say, viscera, and it's certain she's shown up before covered in that, so, really. It's just one of those things Laura tends to do -- sleeping outside -- not unlike, say, following people around without telling them and immediately looking for any potential exits out of a room.

She pauses to consider this. "Okay," she says again, then heads in that direction, which. Of course she knows where it is, that's another X-Men thing. "I was stalking you because I care." "Oh, that makes sense then."

Of course she knows, and Remy doesn't even think to be surprised, falling in step beside her as they go. He wonders if she'll tolerate staying with them - he hopes so; he knows the boys can be overwhelming, and it's much closer quarters than the mansion or Utopia, but maybe it'll be good for her. And all of them. (Two years! What the hell has happened in two years? Does she seem the same? Jesus Christ...)

"Anything goin' on that I need to know about?"

He'll let her field that as she sees fit. Social graces aside, Laura is a tactician he's comfortable putting trust in.

Edited 2011-11-08 21:57 (UTC)

Laura glances around at their surroundings. She knows they're not being physically followed (and she'd know), but that doesn't mean they're not being overhead, especially given Baedal's tech and magic levels and what she's observed about what Remy does for a living, and she'd rather not speak somewhere publicly in light of that. "I will tell you," she says, and she will, although she's sure he knows whatever she's going to report to him, even about the city in general.

For now, it's enough to be here. She can't quite relax -- she will never relax, she will always be looking for that gun to her head, the knife in her back -- but there's an almost pleasant feeling to this that's a little like that. Having done what she set out to do -- the feeling is familiar and one that she will never outgrow. Mission accomplished.

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