xp_logs | Remy and Adrienne

x-adrienne.livejournal.com posting in

((ooc: I definitely didn't plan for this to go up today, but the irony of the fact it is 'Remembrance Day' sort of amuses me in a very, very twisted way. Oh, and I should slap this with a 'Disturbing Images Below' Disclaimer!))

Adrienne takes a tour of Remy's apartment and accidentally reads something that makes her doubt his character and has her threatening to get him arrested.

Trooping up the stairs in the Brownstone, Adrienne gave a sudden start when she spotted Remy approaching down a hallway. "Mister LeBeau," she greeted, tone surprised. "Just visiting, or do you live here?" The thought had never occurred to her before. "I have to admit, I pictured you living in a cave with a lot of gadgets, a pole, and a shiny black car. With bats."

Remy quirked an eyebrow at the sudden and strange woman. "Remy don't know what dat means."

"Batman?" Adrienne offered, quirking an eyebrow back at the strange man.

"Oh, right. Remy seen dat one." He said, the model of loquiciousness as he fished out his keys and unlocked his apartment door, pretty much ending any further illusions of a secret lair filled with trophies from bizarre supervillains and high tech gadgets. Truth be told, even LeBeau's coffee maker was a low tech model.

"Damn, I really wanted there to be a pole," Adrienne muttered jokingly as she glanced inside LeBeau's apartment from where she was standing in the hallway. "Or, you know, bad guy trophies like fingers or eyes or something."

"Used to work wit' a man that liked collecting trophies. Teeth. Bash dem out wit' de butt of his gun, and den keep dem in jars wit' labels on of de time and place of de kill. After a little while, his handler was in his room one day, and noticed dat some of de jars had much smaller teeth in dem den de others." Remy turned, his weird red on black eyes skewering her with a look. "Dat's de kind of people dat keep trophies."

"Ick. That's messed up." Adrienne made a mental note to get rid of the finger Amanda had brought her and replace it with a novelty or something like that, suddenly uncomfortable with being that kind of person.

"I bet you must have some pretty cool spy stuff though, don't you? I mean, no one else in this building does- except maybe Doug but I can never tell if the stuff he has is just because he's a computer nerd- and there must be a place you Trenchcoats keep all the Trenchcoaty stuff, right?"

"See for youself." Remy said, holding open his door and stepping back. He knew who Adrienne was, although had no idea what to make of her. Her obvious belief that their job involved some kind of technowizardry like a Hollywood movie was entertaining enough, and LeBeau didn't mind giving the odd life lesson.

Adrienne couldn't hide the surprise on her face when she was ushered into LeBeau's apartment and found it was bright, clean, and rather spartan. Definitely not what she'd expected. The coffee table was covered in stacks of newspapers and files, which she navigated past carefully on her way towards some framed photographs on the walls. "Are these all New Orleans?" she inquired casually, eyes roaming the shots.

"Pretty much. One of de old members of de Forgers Guild turned respectable 'bout fifteen years ago, became a photographer. Dere's his work." Remy said, pointing to the images. Some were of people; mostly black, all from the lower wards, and yet, in all of them, in some state of lively existance, contrasting their relative poverty. The shots of the scenery were homes against the backdrop of Lake Portchartrain and the looming levees.

"They're lovely," Adrienne commented with a smile, turning and leaning against the back of his couch, where a knit throw blanket resided. "As is this," she praised, stroking the fabric. "This is gorgeous. Did you buy this or was it a gift?"

"Gift. Clarice made it for me, oh, 'bout four years ago. Not dat long after Remy turned up at Xavier's for de second time." Remy said, with a half shrug. For a secret agent, he seemed remarkably open about his life, and his apartment could have belonged to an average person, albeit one with a fairly minimalistic bent.

Adrienne shook her head with a rueful smile. "I really need to hire that woman," she murmured, still moving around the room. "You really don't mind that I'm here?" Morgan wouldn't mind her being a little late, she was sure, but she wasn't sure how the spy felt about her picking apart his private domain, considering she was now perusing his cd collection. "Ooo, this is interesting," she grinned, holding a cd case out to him.

"Easier den you trying to sneak looks 'round me when I'm opening de door." Remy said. "Didn't figure you de type for Zydeco."

"You could have told me to take a hike," she pointed out with a smirk, inspecting the cd more closely. "I'm really not the type, I have no idea what it is," she confessed, "which is why I think it's interesting. Too bad my powers only go so far as to tell me the past of the cd, not the history of the music genre, huh?"

"De history is easy. Dis is how poor people in New Orleans made music wit' whatever was at hand." LeBeau crossed over to his old coffee maker and flipped it on. "Old field songs, slave spirituals, folk songs from Africa, France, bit of hymns half heard. Put it all together wit' an old accordian, drum made out of a barrel hoop, maybe a washboard, and voila, zydeco."

Adrienne opened the cd case to skim the liner notes. "Very interesting," she murmured, though she doubted in this case if 'interesting' translated into something she would enjoy listening to. Still, just because it wasn't her personal taste didn't mean it wasn't worth learning about. "Is it a very popular form of music down there still, or more of a lost art, historical-reconstruction-type specialized genre?"

"Dey still poor so zydeco is still popular. Get de family around for a backyard dinner or a block party, someone always got a guitar or an old squeeze-box." Remy's mouth quirked slightly, obviously a few good memories tied up in those words.

"Sounds like a good time," Adrienne commented, putting the liner notes back and reshelving the cd. "Must be, since you nearly smiled there. I guess you really are human huh? Here I thought you were this scary killer spy-man who didn't have fun or laugh or smile or need to eat," she said with a gesture at the coffeemaker, "and now I learn you've got a big gooey centre; you're so much more than your job. I like it when men surprise me. So few do." She was moving again, this time towards a staff propped up in a corner.

"If dat was supposed to be a compliment, you not very good at it, chere." Remy reached for a pair of cups while the coffee machine percolated. "Most people in my line of work tend to live as ordinary lives as we can when not on de job. Helps you focus on what's important, keeps you grounded, stops you from crossing de line. Now, what were you powers again?"

"Psychometry," she answered, staring at the staff curiously. "And yes, I'm not good at complimenting people, sorry," she added in a distracted, though sincere, tone. "Compliments are a new thing I'm trying out."

"Psychometry. Dat's de..." Remy pondered for a moment, searching for what the definition was, not noticing Adrienne reach out to touch the staff. "-de power to read obj-- DON'T!"

Adrienne had no intention of actually reading Remy's staff, however, she'd forgotten that before leaving the mansion she'd left one hand clean as a practice in keeping her powers turned off (hoping that the annoyance of reading every little thing she touched would intice her to have more control) and picked it up in both hands. She felt the cold of the steel on her hands and opened her mouth to tell Remy not to worry, because she could control her powers, but before she could utter the words a reading hit her like a truck.

***

It wasn't so much the blood. It was everywhere, in splashes up the shattered brick wall, sticking in a gluey fashion to the rendered body parts that had been scattered around what had once been quite a nice country home. But the blood was so ubiquitous that it hardly registered. It was more the smell. The sickly, almost sweet copper tone of blood, mixed with the corpse rot stench of voided bowels, ruptured guts, and burst intestines. In the corner a man suddenly shrieked awake, trying to remake his shattered torso, stuffing the ropey intestines back in a frenzied fashion before collapsing again, weeping and laughing all at once.

The girl in the middle of the room was pristine; untouched by the violence save for one small bruise on her left cheek, and a few scattered drops of blood on her pale shoes. She was carefully secured to a chair, her legs trembling, and her jaw unconsciously straining against the gag that held her mouth silent. She had already broken several fingernails straining against the restraints, and her wrists were starting to show the gull marks of confinement.

Across from her, leaning casually against the table with his staff now telescoped to a shorter length was LeBeau. He looked much younger, maybe seventeen or so, but the attractiveness of his youth was scored with the thin, sharp cruel lines of his face, and the sick amusement that suffused the red on black eyes.

"You know, your father really should have just told me where the documents were. I know there's a hidden safe in the house. I can take it apart brick by brick if I have to." He said, in a bored, slightly singsong tone. "But that takes time and energy. Gutting him and letting him die slowly, less so. Now you, Iyrina, have a unique opportunity in front of you. You'll tell me where the safe is, I'll get what I want, and I'll leave quietly. Or, you won't tell me where the safe is. I will rape and torture you until I get bored, take the house apart brick by brick until I find the safe, I'll get what I want, and I'll leave what's left of you to die slowly beside your father."

He got up, walking over to the girl who flinched away, her whole body now shaking. A pool of urine soaked the seat of the chair and dripped into the fluids on the floor. With a deft twist, he pulled away the gag.

"The basement." She wept. "One of the wine casks is fake. The front opens to the safe."

"See, wasn't that easy?" He said kindly, patting her cheek to her sobs. He straightened and turned, picking up the staff. He moved to the door but then stopped, and shrugged. "Who am I kidding? I have to be honest, Iyrina. I'm going to rape and torture you anyways. I've got time, after all."

He turned back to the now whitefaced girl. "And I think-" He hefted the shortened staff, and pointed it at her. "-I'm going to start by using this."

***

Overloaded with emotions, the circuit breaker in Adrienne's head kicked in and the scene faded mercifully to black, and Adrienne into unconsciousness over the immense weight of the thoughts and feelings that overwhelmed her.

Remy carried her over to the couch, and put the waste bucket near her head. He had a feeling what was going to happen when she came to. He methodically wet a cloth with cool water, placed it on her forehead, and deposited a cup of coffee on the end table near the couch. When he was finished, he sat in the chair furthest from her, and sipped his own mug, watching.

The images, sounds, and smells returned just as vividly to Adrienne's mind as when she'd originally read them. Losing consciousness didn't fade or numb anything she'd experienced in a reading, which really seemed like a shame, because she might not have retched if the scene's effect had dissipated a little between seeing it and waking up. But her powers didn't allow for that, so she was choking up the contents of her stomach (which, since she was heading out for a meal with Morgan, was mercifully empty) before she could fully process that she'd been moved.

When she'd finished retching, the panic set in, and she stared at Remy with wide, terrified eyes. "You're a rapist," she spat out, voice wavering. Okay, she hadn't actually seen him rape the girl, but natural pessimism didn't do Remy any favours in her assumption about what had happened. "You're a rapist and... and..." and he'd carried her over to the couch... "and you touched me..." Her hands rubbed at her upper arms as if chilled. "I-I'm calling the police. I'm running away and calling the police and the X-Men and you're going to jail." She staggered to her feet shakily, stomach lurching, eyes welling up as she stubbornly tried to will the images out of her head.

"They called me Gambit. And for a decade in Europe, a rapist was one of de least of de things dat I was. Monster is de best term." Remy said, his eyes never wavering, even as he sat, sipping coffee with a level tone in his voice. "You won't call de police, because dat would hurt all of us, including you sister and 'manda. But go talk to de X-Men, de Professor. If you want to call de police after dat, Remy will go somewhere where dey can't connect me to de others, and you can send dem dere. Pretty sure dat I'm still on Interpol's most wanted list."
His words pushed everything else out of her head, the shock of what he was saying acting as the agent she'd so desperately wanted to push the images out of the forefront of her thoughts. "What?" Feeeling queasy again, she perched on an arm of the couch. "You... you're offering to... what, give yourself up? Why would you do that?" Was he trying to bluff her, assuming that she wouldn't weigh the consequences of what would happen to Amanda, Emma, Morgan, and the other people she knew who worked with him against putting a rapist in jail?

"Simple. Once you talk to de Professor, you won't call de police." Remy shook his head. "My history is complicated. For almost twenty years, I worked as an operative-assassin for de CIA. I was dere best, which is why de sadism, cruelty and collatoral damage was accepted. 'bout six, seven years ago, dey decided I was a liability. Wiped my mind from everything from de point de CIA grabbed me, and dumped me on de streets to die. Few years ago, after de Professor found me for de second time, dey tried to activate me - undo de wipe and let my old personality return - in order to neutralize de mansion. Fortunately for everyone, it didn't work like dey thought. I got all de memories, but de monster itself couldn't take control."

"Couldn't take control?" Adrienne sunk back down into the couch to have something solid against her back, not feeling well at all. "So it was like, dissociative identity disorder, or something? Created by the CIA? And you're different now?"

"When de CIA psychicly lobotomized me, it put everything from de age of twelve on behind a wall. I had a few years to develop, well, again from dat point. I don't really know de psychology, but de old personality needed to replace de new one in order to be dominant, and it failed. 'magine dat you got a chance to grow up again, wit' a totally different set of principles and experiences, and den had a whole life of someone dat is you, but went an entirely different route. Dat's what happened to me."

Breathing steadier now, Adrienne focused on Remy's face for the first time since she'd gotten up. She knew that the fact Remy said he'd taken and entirely different route with his second chance at development didn't erase the pain he'd caused people, but Adrienne had always believed that the purpose of the past was that it shaped who people were now, but because it could never be changed, there wasn't a lot of stock to be put in dwelling on it. People had to survive their pasts to make themselves better, and keep moving forward. It was what she'd tried to do, and what she'd trusted Manuel had done, so if Remy really had changed then it was only fair she give him the same chance she'd given Manuel in proving that things were different now.

"The old personality, the monster one, failed to be dominant because you'd changed, because you didn't really want to be that person, the monster, any more? Is that what you're saying?" she asked tentatively, clearly wanting to believe him, to believe that he really wasn't the sort of person who collected baby teeth in jars with kill dates on them.

"Non, it failed to be dominant because it failed. Why? Remy have no idea. All dat I know is dat I have all of Gambit's memories, all of his life in my head. Whatever you saw when you touched de staff I've seen, and Remy assure you, it's not even a drop in de bucket of what had been done. Dat, I get to live wit'." Remy got up, although slowly and making no moves towards her, instead moving to the door. "And now I'm tired. Go talk to de Professor. You won't end up believing me, really, until you do." He opened it, stepped back, and then turned and walked out of the room, heading for what was presumably his bedroom.