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Remy wakes up.
It’s a strange thing. He’s thought he never would again.
But his lungs draw in air, his heart pumps blood and he wakes up with a start.
It’s hot. His eyes are unfocused and his skin burns and it’s hot.
He realises he’s wearing his uniform, and starts to claw at it, pull it away, sweat beading on his forehead, groans spilling from behind clenched teeth.
His head is pounding like there’s more inside his skull that there was ever meant to be. His powers flare up with liquid fire inside him, energy licking from beneath his skin and he pulls it back but it’s hard like keeping a damn horse on a leash.
Memories flicker in front of his eyes too.
Pictures and sounds - of his own voice, mostly - and things he’s done.
“Non… Non, non, non…” Remy starts whispering as he drags the cowl off and lets it fall to the floor. He doesn’t understand where he is. He just knows it burns and it hurts and the pressure inside him is pushing against a wall he didn’t know was there.
Someone catches his hand.
Remy startles, eyes wide and frantic, breathing fast, blood rushing in his ears, and looks up.
The world seems to pause.
Rogue is standing there, holding his hand in her gloved one. She searches his face, a concerned frown on her face, her beautiful green eyes marred with worry.
She isn’t how he remembers her. Her arms are bare, like they were in that red dress - in the ballroom? in the bayou? - and her hair is long and untamed, wild curls framing her face.
Her grip tightens around his hand briefly.
“Remy?”
Her voice wavers just a little. It’s fragile like it was in front of the fire, but Remy can’t place the rest of the memory. Someone talked then. Was it her? Was it him?
Were there cards burning in the flame or his father’s portrait above it?
His head is about to explode.
Remy winces and bares his teeth, head dropping with a pained groan, and Rogue’s hand flies up to his cheek. It hurts so much he barely notices.
“Remy, breathe.”
He tries to, teeth clenched, his hand curling in his hair, but it hurts. But then Rogue puts both her hands on his face and stares at him, and the pain abides.
He can breathe again, and it comes in pants.
He sees his brother and Bella Donna, eyes burning red and devoid of emotion. Terror shoots through him like a spear.
“De others… I… Death… Dey okay? M-my brother, are dey?..” he stumbles over his own words, so many horrified thoughts bouncing in his head and colliding with each other.
“Kurt’s fine so I guess they’re too. The Guilds scattered when we've got you back,” Rogue answers, trying to force him to look at her. “Remy, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
He can feel the lie in her words but his fear grips him tighter.
He feels the energy burning in his hands, darker and colder than it has ever been, pouring into the shape of a scythe that lay so natural in his hand. The slash through the air and the dark, poisonous triumph that engulfed him as he stole a relic from a god. Rogue’s face, scared and conflicted, in front of his eyes.
His hand shoving the crystal into her chest.
Remy feels sick.
“Non, non, non…” he whispers, words almost turning to whimpers as he grips his hair again, curling into himself.
“Remy-” Rogue tries again, but he pushes her hand away.
“Don’t touch me!”
He snarls, panting again, and the heart monitor on the side is driving him crazy. He searches for the sensors connected to him and rips them off, the monitor now shouting a single note as they fall away.
Rogue is frozen in place, watching him with eyes full of fear and pain, and Remy hates it even more.
He covers his mouth with his hand, looking up at her.
“What I done to you?..” he whispers, throat tight, hate for himself churning in his chest.
Rogue takes in a shaky breath, withdrawing her hands to her lap. It’s then when Remy realises he doesn’t know where he is. The sky behind the window glass is dark, and there are outlines of the buildings - no light in them - but his brain can’t compute where it is. If Rogue’s there, he’s probably somewhere X-men related. He just can’t remember a fucking skyscraper to be one of Xavier’s possessions.
His brows furrow as he blinks, trying to make sense out of everything and failing.
“Professor’s back?..” Remy whispers, confused. “What happened? Why am I?..”
Why am I alive?
The words die in his mouth.
Is he? Was he, when he lured his family, however stranded, into that church? When he kidnapped Rogue and Kurt? When he summoned the X-ternal, using his poisoned blood and Bella’s voice?
He was mad. Mad, obsessed, but his heart wasn’t beating then.
Remy looks up at Rogue again, eyes frantic and horrified and searching. As if knowing what he’s looking for, Rogue raises her hand mindlessly to her chest, her fingers grazing over the place where the gem sank into her chest.
For a long, suffocating moment, they sit in silence.
The weight of his misdeeds crushes Remy’s shoulders.
“Ah think…” she says slowly, tentatively, as if searching for words. “You just tried to protect me.”
Remy’s teeth clench so hard they could break.
“I cursed you.”
When she looks at him, there’s pain and softness in her eyes and he can’t bear it.
She’s been isolating herself ever since her powers awoke, trying to keep people safe, trying to keep her heart safe. He’s been trying to break this cycle for years, show her that human connection didn’t mean pain, that she could be herself and still be loved.
Now, he doomed her to immortality. To watching everyone she’s ever loved die.
So long trying to pull her out of isolation just to give her its ultimate version.
“Remy, no…” Rogue tries to reach for his hand again. “Apocalypse played with your mind. You can’t blame yourself for that. We’re not sure why, but he wanted the X-ternal out of the picture, and he used your wants…”
“Whatever dis boogeyman did ain’t as hell what I want!” Remy bites back and Rogue flinches like he hit her, freezing in place. He hears her breath catch, feels the way her hand trembles.
“Oh.”
She pulls back a little, and the pain in Remy’s chest slices him up. He runs his hand over his eyes, draws in a shaky breath.
“Chère.”
“It’s okay.”
She answers too quick, too clipped, withdrawing again, and he curses under his breath. His hand shoots out, grabbing her gloved fingers. She doesn’t move.
“You really think…” Remy starts, voice low and pained. “I’d want to be with you like dat?”
She purses her lips and Remy grips her hand tighter, feeling how close she is to bolting.
“Rogue, it ain’t been me. I’d never…” he closes his eyes, brows knitting in pain, the pounding in his head shoving at him again. Rogue looks up, concern and alarm burning through a thin veil of tears in her eyes, but Remy swallows the pain down and continues to talk. “I’d never force you to it.”
“You asked.”
It’s his turn to snap his eyes up, confused.
Rogue looks at him, certainty in her gaze even if her jaw is set tensely and her breath is still a little shaky.
“You asked,” she repeats, “to give us a second chance. To believe in us. And Ah did.”
For a long second he just looks at her, trying to decipher what she means, and she holds his gaze stoically.
“You didn’t force me to anythin’.”
“I put dat thin’ into your chest.”
“And it helped me bring you back.”
Remy blinks, taken aback, but Rogue doesn’t relent. She shifts her hand, grasping his, squeezing hard.
“Ain’t gonna lie, it been scary. And so strange. And you ain’t been yourself, not fully. But Ah lost you once, sugah, and it killed me.”
Remy’s eyes widen as his chest tightens.
Rogue looks at him again, and the smile on her lips is wistful, almost sad.
“Ah’d take any part of you Ah could. Even those that scared me.”
Remy’s lips press into a thin line as he swallows, his eyes dropping down to their clasped hands.
“Don’t make me any less of a monster.”
Rogue huffs a sound that is almost a laugh, but there’s no humor in it.
“Sugah, you don’t know what Ah did when you been gone. If you’re a monster for trying to marry me when you’ve been under an ancient madman’s control, then Ah’m a whole lot worse.”
She closes her eyes, pain flickering over her face and Remy squeezes her hand on instinct, trying to comfort her without thinking.
They stay in the quiet for some time.
Remy holds onto her hand like a lifeline, and the pounding in his head abates. He’s sure it’ll come back. He just remembered what it was.
“We’ll figure it out,” Rogue promises eventually, softly, looking up at him with hope that should be foolish, but it still feels like it’s making the world a lighter place. “If you’ll have me.”
Remy stares at her in silence for a moment.
That woman.
He’s died thinking of her. He’s been reborn, thinking of her still. He’s been obsessed, foul, terrifying in his desire to bind them together because he couldn’t bear a world in which she wasn’t by his side, when he was reduced to his core and given the power.
How can she ever think he’d not want her?
With a sigh, Remy slumps against her, his head falling to her chest because her shoulder is bare and he doesn’t want any part of him to contaminate her even more. Rogue freezes for a moment, and then wraps her arm around him carefully, not to touch his exposed skin, even as she starts to pet his hair.
“Ah’ve got you, Sugah. Promise.”