Log: Ode to the fallen

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Backdated to January 22nd 2015

X-force says goodbye to those they have lost.




Jubilee had found the boathouse a little different from the home it had become when lived in by Moira and Nathan, this boathouse had never been a home. Empty rooms above a small place to dock boats overlooking the lake and that was about it.

She'd managed to clean up the dust and cobwebs and position a table and fold-out chairs for the game, three of which she'd set up even though they would not have people actively sitting in them. She'd set plates before each of them, and glasses but left everything else, the living could do for themselves as far as she was concerned.

The last touches were a set of cards that she'd managed to take from Remy one time during a training session, two bottles of wine, one a favourite of Ororo's and the other of Wanda's, and a packet of cigarettes.

She sat now, flipping the cards through her hands, shuffling them back and forth as she waited for the others to arrive.

North was the first to arrive, slipping in quietly on booted feet and mapping out the place with a sweeping gaze. He rounded the table, depositing a generous plate of nacho chips with salsa in front of her before settling into the seat to her left -- one which had its back conveniently to the wall with a clear path to the door. Yet despite all ingrained habits, the spy was worn enough to stick his feet out under the table so that he could slouch into his chosen seat, tired gaze examining the tight expression on his younger colleague.

Death was not supposed to be a surprise to any of them, but no one could have quite anticipated the particular set of circumstances leading up to this game of cards. And for that, the German was regretful. So he patted Jubilee on the shoulder in a silent gesture of comfort and understanding. He may not have been the closest friend to their fallen comrades, but the mutual respect they had shared on the field had not been easy to come by at all.

Wade followed David into the boathouse and paused for a moment before walking over to the chair next to the German. He snagged a nacho as he passed behind Jubilee's chair and then settled next to North. "Yo," he said, nodding to both of them. It was weird, this thing they were going to do with the unspoken memorial, but it was better than the nothing they were allowed to do for everyone else who'd died. Eyeing the wine bottles, he considered them both for a long moment before reaching for one and pouring himself a glass.

Again the door opened, this time admitting Amanda. The witch still looked tired and pale, but she carried a brown paper bag with several more bottles peeking out of the top. "I brought some more booze," she told Jubilee after nodding a greeting at North and - a little more constrained - at Wade. "Two bottles for eight won't go far, even with Cammie's special blend."

"I brought nothing." Marie-Ange said, coming in just behind Amanda. "But food that is not nachos should arrive shortly. Even if everyone hates us, we are still on the good list for a few delivery places, and grubhub is still a thing that exists." She settled down next to Wade, and kicked a foot up on the next empty chair over. "So I bought things but I did not bring things, and we should certainly tip whatever delivery people have to carry nineteen orders of dirty rice."

Cammie followed, nodding silently at the rest of the group before taking a seat.

Doug set a bottle of excellent red wine on the table, and a bottle of expensive bourbon that had conspicuously already been opened and drunk from.

"...have you been pregaming?" Marie-Ange asked him with an arched eyebrow.

"You never use contractions, but you know what pregaming is?" Doug asked, somewhat incredulously. The over-fluid, slightly precise way he walked and sat down at the table answered the question that had been put to him. "Somebody deal the cards," he said, scowling very slightly.

"Guess we should, I'll just deal Emma and Artie in when they get here," Jubilee replied, pushing the cards toward Marie-Ange to cut before dealing two cards to each of them face down, and then five in a line in the centre of the table face up, leaving the last two of the five face down. She placed the remaining cards by her side and handed out two chips, one for big blind and one for small blind, plus a third chip that sat before her as the dealer. "Cost to play is $5."

As the person seated to her left, North -- the small blind -- wordlessly dropped two money chips onto the the table to call it without picking up his cards. He swiftly divided the rest of the chips up and handed them out as Wade made his bet. $500.00 buy-in per player.

"I am here," announced Emma from the door. "And a certain person never allowed me to play, so I never learned the rules and I don't intend to learn them now. I am," her smile had an edge of grimness, but was nonetheless dazzling, "almost guaranteed to cheat, after all." She came forward and sat down at the table. "Consider me an interested spectator. And," she reached into the large bag she had carried in, pulled out a number of bottles, "feel free to partake of some extremely expensive alcohol." She shrugged at Jubilee's look. "It turns out that Frost Enterprises remains in an extremely healthy financial state, which was... pleasing to discover."

"It's mostly just in case any of the noobs come lookin' Figured a game of poker was a better excuse then what really happened. I was at this thing once, not like this, somethin' else, anyway that's not really the point. The point was that people die, Remy used to tell me that all the time, said I'd die in this job and he wasn't wrong. But that doesn't mean I don't miss him, or that I can't mourn him. So I figured, let's have a drink, and talk about them and maybe at the end it won't feel so much like we were robbed."

Jubilee poured herself some wine from one of the expensive bottles Emma had brought and raised her glass.

"Here's to the ones that aren't here, let's hope there's somewhere nice for them to wait for the rest of us."

Artie raised a hand in greeting, placing the takeout bags on the table and pouring himself a drink - scotch and coke and it was mostly scotch and set that on the table, too. "Here's to them. We'll miss them," he signed.

Wade raised his wine glass in agreement, then actually took a sip - and grimaced. He was not a fan of wine.

"Oh goodness, could we please skip over the maudlin lines from terrible novels about funerals and wakes?" Marie-Ange said, but raised her wine glass - and then plucked Wade's out of his hand. "Drink Doug's bourbon instead, it will not make you make the face."

She picked up her cards, glanced at them and then shrugged. "Fold. or out. or whatever word I am supposed to use to indicate these are terrible. Can we just drink and eat and not have to play the card game only half of us know and half of those cheat at?"

"I think the point of the cards is to have something to distract us from getting blackout drunk?" Of course, Doug was a goodly way toward that goal even as he jokingly answered Marie-Ange.

"I never thought I'd have survivor guilt about Remy," he said in a bit of a non sequitur, his drunkenness loosening his tongue.

The somber mood was broken abruptly by a chuckle from Amanda. "Sorry," she said as all eyes turned to her. "I was just thinking of that fucking ridiculous moustache Remy made Doug wear for undercover. And his awful Beatles-related fake names for me."

“Monsieur LeBeau did have a taste for the tasteless,” said Emma, pouring herself a glass of very fine wine and downing a decent amount in one mouthful. “And creative accountancy. Some of the items on the Frost Enterprise balance sheets were very hard to explain. Did any of you ever find out why he purchased 42 pineapples and a stuffed elk? I certainly didn’t. But they were on the balance sheet, nonetheless.”

"Did that happen to coincide with when Pete was still about? Cause dude, I wouldn't have put anything past those two." Jubilee replied, downing the last of the wine in her glass and pouring herself another. "I'm gonna miss his unique way of gettin' me to focus though. Other people throwing me off a roof just wouldn't be the same."

"I know why the pineapples." Marie-Ange said, not even trying to hide her smile. "But he swore me to secrecy. But not the elk. Did you know he once got answers out of someone with a bottle of brown sauce?"

North snorted and dropped another two chips in front of him before dropping two chips into his mouth. As the person who had taken over signing off on the creative accounting at some point, he had taken one look at Remy's ledgers and decided that an audit would no doubt have killed his will to live all over again. He nudged Wade with a foot and motioned for him to hand over the packet of cigarettes -- Remy's usual brand, no doubt.

Passing over the pack, Wade placed his own bet and then nodded to Marie-Ange as he sipped the whiskey Doug had brought. He didn't really want to talk. Talking implied an emotional connection and sense of loss. Wade worked very, very hard to pretend he had no feelings beyond the superficial and acknowledging that there was more, that he was actually mourning the people they'd lost - it made him clench his jaw. Still, he stared at his cards and asked, "Anybody else have to basically drag Wanda out of the office? I did it a couple times - luring her with beer usually worked best."

Amanda snorted. "Dragging her out, making her eat, bringing her booze - an assistant's work was never done." It was said with affection, however. She made a face. "I'm out," she said, throwing her cards down. "Hey, do you guys remember the time Wanda zapped Strange into the middle of Canada? When we all thought we were teenagers? I found a blog about it online a few weeks later. There were pictures." She giggled. "He actually had pretty good legs, for a stuffed shirt."

"He showed me how to fly, when I had to burn off the rest of that magical energy we used getting home from Asgard." Doug would always remember Stephen Strange as he was then - a teacher who still had a sense of wonder. "Wanda..." He trailed off, unable to articulate anything.

Once upon a time, Artie would have said that he'd kill Remy - for the Morlocks. For his family. He'd been offered a chance to try, hadn't. Still. He wasn't entirely reconciled to him yet. Likely wouldn't be. He took a long swallow of whiskey, made a face at the taste and slid some chips across the table. As a poker player, he cheated. Tonight, playing straight, he was losing. He showed an image - Wanda, eleven years ago, debating a point with a teenaged Amanda, all terrible dyed hair and piercings, while Strange looked on. A second image, the Remy who had first arrived at the school.

Cammie snorted at the images, but kept silent.

"Anyone ever spend time up in Storm's garden on the Brownstone roof?" Jubilee asked, polishing off the wine in her glass before she poured herself another and threw some chips onto the table. "North, I am totally callin' you, dude. Anyway, like, most peaceful place in the city, dude. I used to go up there when I was having a shitty day and she'd be standing on the roof enjoying the sunset. She was always kind, you know? Never made me feel like I wasn't welcome, or didn't belong."

She got up at the knock and smiled at the delivery boy, gesturing him in to place the various foodstuffs contained in boxes both small and large, it appeared that Marie-Ange had thought of everything, not exactly surprising. After paying, she distributed the food, stopping a moment to flick a small firework at the end of North's cigarette before sitting back down.

"Ororo used to just leave me tea." Marie-Ange said, blinking rapidly and then rubbing at unusually mascara-free eyes. "She would just ghost by and it would be on my desk. I never knew what blend, I am half convinced she grew it in that greenhouse." Oh, the greenhouse. With the brownstone gone, it wouldn't even be there. She pinched a samosa from one of the plates and nibbled at the end, turning it over and over in her hands. "Ugh. Doug, give me the horrible bourbon. The last time I had it, I stole it from Wanda."

“ I shall miss our coffee dates,” said Emma, quite softly. “There weren’t enough of them, of course, but that was hardly surprising.” Emma took another sip of wine, letting it slide over her tongue in a silent benediction, a recognition that joy and beauty and truly excellent alcohol could still exist in this universe, even though there were now... spaces. A jigsaw puzzle universe where not all of the pieces would quite fit in the way you recalled. No matter – it was still better than no universe at all. Without intention, Emma’s feeling, soft wonder and deep loss intertwined, stole out and touched those around the table, eloquently mourning without words those they had lost.

That softness and wonder did much to blunt the edge of Doug's fit of maudlin. "Someone's going to have to pour me into bed," he noted as he pushed his tumbler aside. That someone would almost certainly be Wade. "I miss that sly sense of humor Ororo had," he continued on with the hint of a smile. "Where she'd say something, and then a minute or two later the penny would drop."

"I never did find out if they liked spoons and forks like other newlywed people," Wade said, his tone somewhat philosophical. "Wonder what happened to all the spoons and forks I gave them." He snagged Doug's tumbler and stacked it with his own.

"Knowing Remy, he probably used them as ammo," was Amanda's reply. Her own voice had softened, however, the slightly aggressive edge disappearing from her humour. "Remy and Wanda... they were family to me. Remy never failed to kick me in the arse when I needed it, and Wanda was the big sister I never knew I needed. And 'Ro... fuck, I thought she was all that and a slice of bread when I was at school, never thought I'd wind up giving her a mohawk as a Halloween thing." She smiled, softly. "And Strange... I don't know how he put up with me as a bratty teen-witch with a chip on her shoulder the size of the mansion, but he did. I was so glad when he and the Boss Lady got back together - they completed each other. Same as Remy and 'Ro." Her eyes brimmed a little, but she blinked the tears away. "Any way. They're gone, but they're not forgotten. Not by us."