Remy & North : Wednesday morning (backdated)

[x-maverick.livejournal.com]

Remy drops in on a sleeping North. It seems that for his birthday this year, North gets to keep his job and possibly find a solution to his drug problem.



Unless you were a tall, white haired black woman with an African name, walking up to LeBeau sitting beside your bed was usually a bad thing. More than a few men (and the odd woman) had gone to bed sure whatever scheme they had recently pulled off was successful, and instead, woke up to a man with a queer red on black stare watching them as they slept. For many, it would be the last sights not saturated in pain and fear that they would have. Still, in this case, the threat was muted slightly by the regular crunch of the apple he was eating, and the flip of pages in the copy of 'The Economist' he had in his lap, with his feet propped up. As North stirred, Remy looked up from his magazine.

"If you need to throw up, aim de other way, would you? 'ro bought me dese shoes."

Eyes snapped open as North transitioned from sleeping to wakefulness in a short second, hand visibly twitching towards a gun that was not there. He briefly considered hauling his ass out of the room and away from his colleague, but then relaxed back against his pillow, briefly closing his eyes as he watched the vision playing in his head. Who needed uppers to trigger powers when Remy LeBeau was around?

“I’ll be careful not to aim for the shoes,” was the spy’s blithe response when he finally sat up, shifting so that his back was against the headboard and freeing his legs from the blanket to allow for unhindered leaps off the bed. It was nothing personal – nearly being killed the day before tended to do things to a person’s psyche.

"Homme, if I came down here to slap you 'round, dere's nothing dat you'd be able to do 'bout it. So relax. Drink de orange juice dey left. Hear dat it has minerals and stuff in it." He said mildly, turning the page. Hmm, more on Symkeria's rejection of EU banking protocols. He made a mental note.

The shrug Remy received in response was one part agreement, one part dismissive – The Cajun was stating a fact, but it had no material bearing on David’s instinctive and habitual actions. Besides of which, he was as relaxed as he could be after being sneaked up on.

“I’m told I should brush my teeth before breakfast,” he commented, but obligingly swallowed a mouthful of juice to rid his mouth of the stale taste of sleep. A Blackberry was slipped from under his pillow, and the numbers in the corner cheerfully informed him that it was just minutes shy of eight in the morning. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure, Sonnenschein?”

`Really? You sure dat you suited as an intelligence operative if you need to ask me dat?" Remy said, finally putting away the magazine. "Talked to some of de others. Pretty clear dat you were in acute withdrawel symptoms in Genosha. And now de overdose when you get back? Alarms are ringing, as dey say."

“Oversight and carelessness,” David replied with faux casualness, replacing the glass on the side table, gaze never leaving the other man’s. He was more than tired of explaining himself, but owed enough to his colleagues to do it just once more. His lack of control could have gotten a lot of people killed in Genosha, after all.

“I use certain types of drugs to trigger my precognition. Isoprenaline, methylphenidate… My latest run was amphetamine. Got addicted. Went through withdrawal. Came home. Got drunk. Don’t remember much after that.” A guarded blue gaze challenged the other man to question his last statement.

"North, I've known 'bout de drugs from day one. Dat doesn't concern me. If you need an edge for you powers, dat's up you. You got as much experience in dis world as I do. But," Remy paused, "de responsibility is yours dat if we end up in de field and you don't have a supply, it isn't going to put people in danger."

“Do you think I don’t know that?” The other man asked evenly. People dying as a result of him being a liability had been at the forefront of his mind throughout the entire time they were on foreign soil. Had he actually put anyone in danger? No, he did not think so. But the marksman may have been of better use if he had complete control over his faculties. “Nein, LeBeau. It won’t happen again.”

"What's dat going to cost? Dat mean I'm getting half an operative in de field from now on?"

North laughed, somehow sounding amused yet not.

“I wouldn’t subject either of us to that, no. Triggering my powers at will is out of the picture until I find less hazardous alternatives. But that’s hardly the only reason I’ve survived this long in the field.”

"Dis is exactly de time I can't afford to be short-handed, North. Find an alternative or find a way to manage taking what you need." He reached into his pocket and tossed a business card on the bed. "If you run out of ideas, give dis number a call. Ron Kissick returned a few years ago, after a well hidden long career wit' de CIA. He's responsible for my bloodwork, which means dat he owes me."

Remy stood up to leave. "Remy serious, North. I can't have you in de field as a liability, but I also need you as close to your potential as possible. If you can't figure it out on your own, we need to find someone who can."

Picking up the card and examining it, the German nodded, glanced up and raised his hand in a mocking salute of thanks. “Expect no less.” The business card disappeared quickly into the case of his Blackberry as David leaned back against his pillows to watch his colleague leave. Just one more thing to sort through on top of a couple thousand other things. Nothing new there.