Title: Eyes Wide Shut

Author: Erika ([email protected])

Website

Rating: PG-13

Pairing / Main characters: Iceman/Gambit

Series/Sequel: Sequel to Through Open Doors

Summary:

Disclaimer: I'm stealing them, okay. Stealing them.

Date: Apr 2002

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Eyes Wide Shut

By Erika

 

Chapter One

A gentle caress over his cheek. A touch that lingered over his lips, and a continued murmuring whose words he could not distinguish. He wanted to move, needed to open his eyes, to answer that voice that called to him.

He grew scared as the darkness around him settled closer, forcing him further into this unmoving state.

'Where am I?' he thought. 'Who am I?'

He had no memory, no recollection, and as he drifted back into unconsciousness a name kept being repeated in his mind, 'Bobby.'

***

Remy buried his face in his hands trying to cover the tears that fell freely down his cheeks. The past twenty-four hours ... his body shook as he sobbed aloud. His beautiful Bobby was lying in a coma, hooked up to various instruments, looking deathly pale. Rogue had done this to him, and she would pay, he thought in anger as he glanced back at his injured lover.

The Cajun gently caressed Bobby's cheek, traced his lover's lips all the while calling Bobby's name. He thought he saw the younger man twitch, and he called out more urgently.

"Bobby. Cher. I need t' see t'ose baby blue eyes, please," he whispered, his voice hoarse. From the moment Logan had laid Bobby in his arms, Remy had not stopped talking to him, begging the X-man to return, to awaken from the deep sleep his body had fallen into. "I was scared de first time I kissed you," Remy confessed as he moved his chair closer to the bed and rested his head next to Bobby's. "C'est vrai. I didn' want t' mess t'ings up, afraid you'd realized how much I wanted ya." He smiled remembering his nervousness.

"Didn't know if ya were serious or jus' foolin' around, experimenting." Remy laid his hand on top of Bobby's chest, feeling his lover's heartbeat. "You have the softest lips, cher. Softer dan any femmes. Once ya let me kiss you, I knew I could not stop. I became addicted to de taste of you. Even t'en I didn' know what it would be like t' have you completely. Not'ing prepared me for dat. Not'ing." Remy's lips gently brushed along Bobby's ear, "Don't leave me."

Hearing someone cough behind him, Remy quickly stood up, whirling around, a deck of cards in his hands.

"I brought you some food," Warren informed him, putting the tray he was carrying down on the table at the foot of Bobby's bed.

"Not hungry."

Warren stared at him coldly. "You have two choices, eat and be allowed to stay or don't eat and leave me no choice but to force the food down your throat. If that happens Hank will throw us both out of this room, permanently. Which is it going to be?"

"Why are ya doin' t'is?" Remy asked wearily as he sat back down on the chair.

"He needs to hear your voice and for that I need you to be well," Warren told him as he sat on the chair opposite the bed. "Remy," Warren paused, "truce, okay? We need to get Bobby back, that's all that matters. Now eat the god damn food."

Warren stared at his injured friend. "Hey Bobbykins, you need to open those baby-blues. You're missing out on your favourite cartoon, 'Spiderman and His Amazing Friends.'" He shifted in his seat, stretching his metal wings slightly, creating a slight breeze. He sighed deeply. "Bobby ..."

Remy stood up and looked over at the food tray.

"Chicken soup, some crackers, and a club sandwich," Warren told him. "Don't worry, Jean prepared it."

Remy looked at him, a question in his gaze. "Why aren't dey here?" he asked. "Aside from Hank, why haven't they ..." he looked around him.

"Someone had to stay with Rogue."

"Don't."

"Jean is trying to figure out how much of his memories Rogue stole from him. We'll get him back, Remy."

Remy backed away from the food tray and made his way to the door. "Stay wit' him," he told Warren as he opened the door and made his way outside.

Warren quickly followed. "Where are you going? Remy, answer me damn you. Remy!" Warren took flight, tackling Remy from behind.

"Warren let go of me. Get de fuck off of me!" The Cajun struggled desperately, trying to get away from the body pinning him to the floor.

"No. Listen to me, you idiot. Bobby needs you."

"She did t'is to 'im. I can't lose him, Warren. I can't," he whispered as a sob overtook him.

"You won't. She'll pay. I promise you. She will pay, but now you need to just concentrate on getting him back. I swear this to you, when this is over I'll help you hunt her down. Let the other X-Men handle her for now, believe me the way they are feeling she won't have it easy. God ... for the first time ever Hank refused to treat a patient. He stood there, looked at her and wouldn't help her." Warren let Remy go and sat on the floor, his back against the wall, one hand covering his eyes.

"Bobby's the reason we're still sane. We are all freaks compared to him. He's an accountant for pete's sakes. An accountant." His chest shook. "It is so easy sometimes ... so easy to forget why we keep doing this, fighting, when we meet resistance time and time again. Sometimes I wonder whether Magneto is right. We're mutants, we are stronger than they are, but then Bobby freezes your coffee, pulls a prank, dyes Hank's hair pink ... Remember when he did that? He keeps us grounded in the here and now. He makes us remember that what we want is to be normal, accepted, live an ordinary battle-free life." Warren looked directly at Remy. "We'll get him back, and if you tell him any of this ..."

They both stared at each other, a silent promise made and passed between them. They helped each other get up from the floor and made their way back to Bobby's recovery room.

***

For the first time in a long while Scott found himself unable to comprehend how someone, a team mate, could have done this. After the attack on Bobby they had moved Rogue down to the basement, in a recovery area where they had once held Sabretooth.

They had almost lost her, what with Hank refusing to treat her and Rogue experiencing difficulties in absorbing Bobby's mutant abilities. Her heart had stopped several times, unable to pump blood to the rest of her body. They had ended up treating her for hypothermia, and for the past twenty-four hours Jean had been keeping an eye on her, checking her vitals and more importantly, attempting to unearth how much damage Rogue had done to Bobby.

The contact between Bobby and Rogue had only lasted a few seconds, but maybe it had been a second too long. Jean hoped her interference, her probe on Rogue during the attack on Bobby was enough to have safeguarded the injured X-man but they were unsure. Bobby still lay in a coma and Rogue refused to speak to anyone, her eyes still remained frozen the only sign left of her absorption to Bobby's abilities.

And the question on everyone's mind was, 'what to do with Rogue?'

Warren was upstairs keeping an eye on Remy. Logan was standing guard in front of Rogue's room. Until they decided what to do with her it was best she be kept isolated from the rest of the X-men. Ororo was on video comm. informing Kurt of the situation. Jubilee was with Hank, keeping the good doctor busy and Jean was still trying to probe Rogue's mind. Meanwhile he sat here trying to find the words he needed to inform the Professor of these latest events.

//Dear Professor, I regret to inform you we have one less member on the team. We accidentally lost her in Antarctica.//

Rogue had never recovered from that trip, her decision to leave Remy behind and later her break-up with the Cajun had left her emotionally unstable. They had all been so busy with their own lives, the latest battle, the discovery of Joseph, their confrontation with Apocalypse, the imprisonment of the Professor and their battle with the doppelganger that somehow they had all failed to notice Rogue had fallen into the cracks. That along the way they had lost a valuable team mate.

//Dear Professor, an accident has occurred at the mansion resulting in Rogue's death.//

If Bobby didn't recover, soon, he would have no choice but to send that message to the Professor. At the moment emotions at the mansion were too high, too volatile and he feared what would happen, how the rest of the team would react. For many of them Bobby was more than just a friend, he was a brother, the youngest member of the original team, the prankster who had kept them grounded. He had been the second X-man to join, the school's youngest student.

Scott still remembered the first time he had meet Bobby, all of fourteen. God ... had Bobby ever been awkward at that age, all hands and legs, ruffled blond hair, and frightened blue eyes. Scared. Scared of his new powers, unable to control them, running from the crowd that had wanted to hurt him.

The X-Men had all watched Bobby grow up. They all had a hand in raising him. Hank had tutored him, making sure he kept his grades up. Jean was the mother figure. Cookies and a glass of milk always in hand; comforting Bobby after every disastrous date. And Warren taking Bobby on these mysterious trips, the grounds of a bird sanctuary, treating the X-man as a younger sibling.

//Dear Professor, Bobby has been critically injured.//

"Slim?"

Scott turned around. "Any news, Logan?"

"No." Logan moved next to Scott. "Writing to the professor? Told him anything yet?"

Scott shook his head.

"Then don't." Logan leaned against the computer terminal, ignoring Scott's concerned stare. "Been thinking, once Kurt gets here we'll need to move Rogue out of the mansion as quickly as possible. Let her be X-Force's problem, she's no longer our concern."

"Logan," Scott interrupted him.

"We'll keep Warren and Remy busy, Hank too. You know I'm right. The longer we keep her here the more we risk something bad happening. Let things cool down. We'll deal with Rogue later."

"It's that bad?" Scott asked wearily.

"Right now I'm guarding her door not to protect her but to make sure nobody does anything stupid. Hank refusing to treat her ... that opened my eyes."

Logan watched as Scott erased the email, an uneasy silence settling in the room.

***

Cold. It was so cold here. Couldn't move. Couldn't blink, just staring constantly at the ceiling. How many times had she counted the small holes? Twenty. A hundred times?

She touched him. God, she had touched him. Can't breathe. So hard.

Bobby.

Images flickered in her mind. Sounds of laughter. She was ticklish ... no, he was. A touch. A fingertip tracing her collarbone, working its way down her chest, a thumb gently rubbing a nipple, hands tracing her ribcage, shivering, moaning aloud. She breathed deeply. These weren't her memories; they were his.

Never thought it would be like this ...

Something else pushed along her mind, pain. Extreme pain. No.

His last thoughts he had shared with her, he had been so angry. He had let her see what it had been like when Emma Frost had taken over his body. He had instilled the fear he had felt then into the very fiber of her being, to the point she now did not know what it was like to live without that fear.

During their contact she had caught small glimpses of his life with Remy but mostly she had been left with a feeling of emptiness, sadness, profound pain and the now constant dread.

She wanted this to end. She wanted for things to go back the way they used to be. When Bobby was her friend. Before Antarctica.

She tried to move but found herself unable to. Another image flickered across her mind. Fire coming at her, burning her, couldn't put it out. Can't move. NO!

***

(Forty-eight hours later.)

His lips felt dry. He licked them briefly as he opened his eyes. He was in his bedroom. No. He was in the recovery room, someone was sitting by the bed, their head resting on their arms on the bed. Dark hair.

Someone else was sitting on the other chair, leaning slightly against the wall. From here he could make out something shining, metal, and a hint of blond hair. Warren.

He opened his mouth but nothing could come out. He gasped aloud and lights were instantly turned on.

"Bobby," Warren was standing before him, his hand reaching for one of the buttons on the comm. link.

"Hank get over here, Bobby's awake."

There was movement from Bobby's right side. The guy with the dark hair stared at him. Red eyes. Who was he? Bobby thought.

"Bobby," the stranger said, moving toward him, a hand reaching out to gently trace his cheekbone, head leaning toward him, lips about to meet ...

"No!" Bobby shouted, his voice still hoarse but there was no mistaking the panic. He tried to move away from the other man. The stranger backed away from him, pain-filled eyes stared back.

"It's okay Bobby. It's just Remy. You remember Remy, right?" Warren asked, trying to calm an agitated Bobby.

No. He didn't know who the stranger was and before more questions could be asked of him, Hank appeared in the doorway, ushering everyone out of the room.

***

(Twenty-four hours later.)

A day had passed and his world had ended.

Remy moved to his bedroom window and stared outside. Bobby had awoken but with no memory of him, of them. From what Hank had been able to gather the rest of Bobby's memories were intact. He remembered everything; except, he had no recollection of Remy in
those events.

He angrily punched the wall. A sob overtook him. Resting his forehead against the wall, with one hand outstretched, he then collapsed on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as the events of the past few days finally caught up with him.

He had lost everything. Everything.

Remy could still feel Hank's sorrowful gaze on him when he told him the news, Bobby had no recollection of the attack, had no memories of Remy or Rogue for that matter. Physically, Bobby was fine. He was alive, Remy kept telling himself, but the boy... the man that lay in that recovery room was no longer his lover. His friend.

"Remy, may I come in?" Jean gently called to him from behind the closed bedroom door.

He ignored her.

Silently the door opened and Jean walked inside. She knelt down on the floor next to him, opened her arms and hugged him. "He will remember you. I honestly believe that." She laughed gently, reassuringly. "For the past four months you two have been keeping me busy. Bobby's emotions were all over the place." Remy looked up at her. "It's true. There were so many times I wanted to whack you both. It was actually Hank who held me back from locking you in a room with Bobby, naked. There is only so much angst my life could take and anybody could see you were made for each other. Except you two idiots. He was scared you know, just like you, scared to admit that he was different. Another cross he would have to bear."

"I can't lose 'im Jean."

"You won't."

"How can ya be so sure?" he asked desperately, needing to believe.

"I had to put up with four months of you two lusting after each other, scared out of your minds the other would reject you, and you were right," she told him with a hint of laughter in her eyes, "he does moan beautifully."

"Jean!" Remy blushed, slightly scandalized.

She got up, chuckling all the while. "Come on loverboy, you need to take a shower and get something to eat. You'll need your energy. After all seducing someone, I have been told, takes a lot out of you." She winked at him, but not before she kissed him on the forehead, got him up from the floor and shoved him towards the direction of the bathroom. "Get."

"Yes, ma'am."

Just as Jean was about to close the door behind her Remy called to her. "Jean?" She glanced back at him. "T'ank you."

"Just remember I get front row seats when you two make up." She laughed when Remy half-heartedly threw a book at her. She was still chucking when the door closed.

 

To be continued in Part 2

Go back to Through Open Doors