Remy Etienne LeBeau (_gumbo) wrote in marvel_prep, @ 2013-09-14 16:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | avalanche, gambit |
Log! Dom and Remy
Characters: Dominik and Remy
NPCs: COs
Location: MDC
Timeline: 9/13/13 [backdated]
Description: Remy relents under the pressure of needing someone to talk to who would understand and breaks his 'vow of silence', going to the MDC to see Dominik.
Rating: PG-13
It was Friday the Thirteenth, a bad day for anyone with any sense and yet, here he was, pulling up at the Mutant Detention Center to see someone he had made a point, a very conscious point, of not seeing for the last month. He was sure he'd catch some heat from Dominik for not coming sooner, but he had some words of his own, if it came down to it. And besides, the lines of communication went both ways. Last he heard, the inmates were allowed to write. Dominik should know, or maybe assume, that Remy didn't want to be inside of a prison. He was a thief, Dom knew this, and if he had enough sense he'd be as far away from a place that could hold him as he could. And yet...
Shaking his head at himself and his own folly, but going through the motions anyway, Remy left his bike in the parking lot, and walked inside. He knew this was a big mistake. He knew it. With each step into the MDC he counted off all the little mistakes he was making that added up to be one fucking giant error of judgement, moment of weakness, lapse of sanity. Whatever it was.
Having been to prison before, having broken out, Remy was half-way curious about how they situated things and paid close attention, knowing from his lifetime of experience what to look for. The blueprints he'd memorized were showing correct to the "T" as he was admitted inside. Part of his reason for coming was not just to see Dominik and talk to him, but to get his own lay of the actual prison before he and John, and whoever else they roped into it, broke in to steal away their friends. Every thief worth his own right hand knew to case a joint before making a bust.
He had brought his own bike that, if they ran the plates, would show up as stolen. He was walking inside without a disguise, not even a handy illusion from Quentin, and his mutant colored eyes stood out like livid sore thumbs that glowed in the dark. His fingerprints beneath the gloves would pull up warrants for his arrest for grand larceny and several other crimes. And his identification? Well, he didn't have any. He walked into the prison where they kept mutants as though he was turning himself in. Basically begging them to arrest him. No doubt his face had been on camera ever since coming close to the gates.
How far would they let him go? Did they let just any mutant off the street walk in here, fully powered, to visit with inmates without needing to show proof of registration or any ID whatsoever?
The answers were revealed when Remy found himself sitting on one side of a thick pane of glass, the stool fixed to the floor and the booth small and intimate enough to have a conversation, but a conversation which had to be done via phone. How old fashioned. The audio from these visits, if Remy didn't know better, had to be recorded. He had to assume they were, anyway. He waited patiently, leaning back to look down the row of booths and catching the eye of a guard. Smirking, Remy gave him a two fingered salute to which the guard only scowled.
---
Dominik really was getting the hang of this whole "you have a visitor" routine and as such when the guards came looking for him he just let them cuff him tight and unrelenting as always, but at least this time he wasn't a Picasso masterpiece for his visitor to gawk at. This time the only clue that he'd gotten on the wrong side of somebody or many fists was the cut on the right edge of his lower lip. The same cut that if left alone would heal, but Dominik had taken to playing with it, just like now as he walked through the prison.
Oral fixation, pesky habit, hard to break.
Now Dominik expected Emma, Meggan, Billy, Greer or even Rogue to a lesser or greater extent, but as he was pushed into the room and a glare was shot over his shoulder he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and he knew without looking that his normal visitors were not at that booth.
This visitor? This one was somebody new.
The guard had his hand on Avalanche's shoulder and was directing him in much the same way a person did with a misbehaving child or animal, the collar softly blinking as it repressed the mutant's ability to access his power and the cuffs a clear stark contrast against skin and the orange of the jumpsuit.
Like before Dominik hadn't really shaved and was cultivating some facial scruff and his hair was longer, shaggier than it had been in the past and it looked very much like somebody had had their hands in it. Which they had. Dominik to be exact, his fingers were always in it, an assessment if anything of his mood and temperament.
"Sit," the guard growled as he kicked the chair out and pushed Dominik into it before the chair was shunted forward and the broad shoulders of Avalanche knocked into the edges of the booth.
It took a moment but eventually Dominik lifted his gaze which was by no means any less intense than it had been on the outside, but the grey was darker and held a warring set of emotions as he came face to face with one Remy LeBeau.
Well fuck him sideways.
---
Remy looked up when the door on the other side opened and the familiar form, now brightly adorned in the tasteless shade of orange that the penal system seemed to prefer in most places, of his friend and, up until about a month ago, his steady rock. Gambit felt his chest tighten at the sight, at the twisting of emotions that had finally spurred him to come visit, that had been boiling beneath the surface all this time. His resolve to leave Dominik to rot may have broken, but his anger was still livid.
It was an anger he couldn't express, not here and not fully. Not yet. Right now he could just watch as Avalanche was shown to the chair and shoved down, Remy's fingers closing tightly against his leg at the level of manhandling his friend was receiving. Was all of that really necessary? Surely a cuffed and de-powered mutant, however tall and broad, couldn't be that much trouble.
And then he noticed the cut on his lip and Remy's dark eyes narrowed, a flash of red in their depths that was in correlation with his emotions and subconscious for the Cajun. He waited, watching Dominik's face, and when he lifted those familiar gray eyes to meet his, one side of Remy's mouth turned in a half smile.
Gloved fingers reached out and snatched the phone off the hook on his side, putting it against his ear and holding it there with his shoulder as he made a small adjustment to his sleeve, almost casually and distracted.
"'Allo, Rarity."
---
It took Dominik a longer moment to reach for the phone, but he eventually did, bringing it to his ear. His eyes, however, never left Remy. Avalanche warred with himself over what to say, especially as it had been near to four weeks since he’d last clasped his eyes on his friend. But he couldn’t just sit there mute now could he?
“It’s been awhile,” he finally said, voice low and rumbled across the phoneline. He may have been locked up in prison, but Dominik’s voice was the same as it always was, warm and deep. He could see a multitude of emotion in Remy’s eyes and Dominik’s jaw tensed, part of him wanting to know and the other part just wanting to live in blissful ignorance, but whatever happened he’d give as good as he got, if it came to that. Hopefully not, Dominik wasn’t sure how the guards would react to a loud exchange, especially if Tabitha’s experience was anything to go on.
“You doing alright?” He asked because he didn’t know what it was except for maybe the tension in the Cajun’s shoulders but there was something off. Maybe it was the prison? Dominik wouldn’t blame him, it wasn’t the nicest of places and somehow he kind of got the feeling that places like this and Remy didn’t get along. Call it gut instinct or whatever you wanted to call it, it was there and Dominik like always was listening to it.
----
"Has it?" Gambit raised an eyebrow, shifting the phone receiver to his other ear and he tipped his head to the side, looking up at Dominik away from his sleeve. "Guess so." He had noticed, of course. It felt like much longer than a month that he'd been gone, no matter how busy the Cajun had been in that time. How many jobs had there been? Remy didn't pause to count, he just shook his head and let out a sigh, letting his hand rest on the desk, fingernails that were visible getting a faint pink glow, as though someone was shining a light through them. Then it went out.
Was he doing alright? Remy smirked the same way he always used to at Dominik, "Better den you, from dis angle." His observation was accompanied by a tracking of his dark eyes over the Greek, all of him he could see through the glass. "How's it getting t'ree square meals a day and a nice and comfy bed to sleep in, cher? Worth it?"
---
The Cajun played a good game of pretending he hadn't noticed the time which had passed and not for the first time Dominikos Petrakis felt an idiot. Soon his eyes narrowed in the corners and his jaw twitched as tension slowly but surely filled the line of it, especially when Remy asked the questions that he did.
"Depends on your definition," he responded as he shifted to better hold the phone, which was difficult considering the cuffs and how they did bit into skin. There was no need for them to be as tight as they were, but the guards always did it. It was one of the reasons he had marks on both wrists after all.
His teeth slipped out, catching on that open cut and took to toying with it. "Could've handled the situation better, not jumped in with both feet, but I don't think I'd change why I did what I did."
His fingers idly scratched at the scruff on his cheek before he exhaled a breath, the sigh evident in the movements of his shoulders. “But that’s me in a nutshell isn’t it? Hard headed and stubborn. Really fucking stubborn in fact.”
---
"Playing de damn hero again, was dat it?" Remy's voice was edged with anger, and his eyebrows drew together for a moment before forcing himself to relax. He even leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest with the phone resting between his ear and shoulder.
A glare was passed through the glass, "What I tell you about dat, Dominik?"
---
“If by hero you mean looking out for a friend,” Dominik returned, voice bordering on cold. “Then yeah I guess I was.” He knew the hero card was a touchy subject with Remy, especially given what happened with Haroun, but Dominik couldn’t not be Dominik because of that. Hell, Remy had made friends with him knowing what he was getting himself into. Not that Dominik intended on flying anybody out over water and staying with them until they exploded.
Not even he was that selfless.
He brushed a thumb over his eyebrow, pulled a breath into his chest and ignored the sudden weight around his neck from the collar that up until this moment had been easy to ignore. “I know, I know,” he said with a shake of his head before his gaze finally circled back around to Remy. “Like I said I jumped in, both feet. An immediate gut reaction to a friend who was being sexually harassed. I wasn’t thinking.” And he hadn’t been, he’d seen red and come out swinging.
That temper of his it was going to be the death of him and he’d already been over this in his head already and had run all the different scenarios, trying to find one that didn’t end with him and Petra in jail. Truth was that night had been fucked up and if they’d just let Petra talk him down then he never would have caused the damage he did. Then the assholes tasered them, Dominik still had the marks on his chest.
“But every action has a consequence, right?” Dominik lifted his eyes and turned his head, looking at the guard who edged that much closer. “This is mine.”
---
Remy swallowed and looked away, fighting back the urge to say a dozen angry things that came to mind, but he'd have to wait and save until later. Until after he got Dominik out of there and there wasn't glass between them. Or a guard there to protect the inmate from an attack. Remy wasn't convinced of his own instinct to swing at the other boy, but it was an entertainign thought for the worry and the flat out lack of that calming presence that the thief had gotten used to since Haroun's death. That same presence that had claimed at one point that he'd never leave him alone when he needed him.
Well, words were meant to be broken, especially lately. Almost everyone he'd trusted had betrayed him in one way or another in a constant rain of bad luck since Dominik had been the first and was taken in. Actually, Remy preferred to put the greater portion of the blame on Scott's shoulders, but the Summers boy wasn't there for him to growl at. Instead, Gambit focused on Dominik again.
"Jono is back."
---
"What?" Dominik asked, genuinely shocked and altogether surprised. "He's back? But he died and he took Haroun with him. How the fuck is he back?" And his voice had lifted so much so the guard moved closer, a hand coming to rest on Dominik's shoulder at which point Avalanche settled for the most part.
He swallowed, grey eyes swirling with emotion and expression showing the obvious strain of trying to take in that piece of information.
"No wonder you look so goddamn edgy," he said with a shake of his head. "I knew something was off well more off than the fact you're obviously pissed at me. Fuck." Eloquent Dominik really fucking eloquent.
"Have you spoken to him?"
---
Remy nodded, looking down at his folded arms, and then back up, uncrossing them with a slow exhale as he picked the phone off his ear and switched sides again, holding it with a hand this time. "Oui. I talked to him. He..." pausing, meeting Dominik's eyes through the glass, Remy bit the inside of his lip and took a moment to quell another twisting rise of emotions. It felt good to talk to Dom about this. No one else had been around, Rogue hadn't been around. She still wasn't around. He couldn't fault someone for the way they grieved, and he had tried to be a comfort to her when the news of Jono's return came, but she had done what she did in the past and had made herself scarce. It left Remy with worry, but he was giving her the space she appeared in need of.
But now that he was here, talking to Dominik who he would have gone to originally, it felt right. The Greek would understand his pain because he'd seen him at the most raw edge of it. And he hadn't run away, even when Remy tried to force him to.
"He's whole again. Sometin wit de energy he got, it went haywire back when... back in July. Was able to gather it all back together after de explosion and come back. Dat boy, he's wracked wit pain right now for what he done. I can't... I won't blame him. Haroun told me dat..." Remy stopped again and looked up at the guard that had moved closer to Dominik and put a hand on him. He was invading a sacred thing and while, granted, they were in a prison and Dominik was their prisoner, Remy gave the man a gaze that the devil might give someone he wanted to go fuck off.
---
Thankfully the guard backed off after Remy levelled a glare on him and Dominik was left alone once more, eyes focused on the Cajun as he spoke and Dominik listened.
More often than not pain wasn't as visible as people liked to think it was, it came out in the small nuances, the shifts in tone of voice or the adjustment of how you were sitting. Remy was in pain whether he wanted to admit it or not, but then he had every right to be. The guy who had killed the guy he loved had come back to life, walking around and being present when really he should at least have the decency to stay dead.
Jono was lucky that Avalanche was behind bars, really, he was.
"You're a better man than me," Dominik admitted ruefully. "But you did have that out of body experience where you spoke to Haroun so I'm guessing that had something to do with your outlook on Jono?"
---
Remy nodded and shut his eyes, trying not to, but remembering the way Haroun had looked in that place. So happy and beautiful. The same way he had looked on the beach on his birthday in that storm. It was with difficulty that Gambit pulled himself back to the present, and he ran a hand across his face as much to remind himself that he was in a prison, not the privacy of his room back at Xavier's, as to mask the appearance of tears. Even the devil could shed tears.
It would always hurt, just like heights would always be scary. That had become Remy's montage for the past two months since Haroun's death. Dealing through it was a process just like getting used to heights again after a traumatic event was. The Cajun thought he was doing well, all things considered. But here he was with Dominik, finally being able to talk about it, and he couldn't keep it together.
So he settled for giving Avalanche an accusing look, "When de hell you planning on getting outta here, Rarity? Ain't like you ken sit on your lazy ass forever in here while de world spins outta control outside dese walls." But his look he'd fixed on Dom had an edge of fondness to it. He wouldn't be Gambit if he didn't give his friend a hard time for being locked up.
And he had missed him.
---
Dominik's brow knitted together as he watched Remy come apart visibly in front of him. Fuck. Well at least he knew now what Remy had been dealing with, the return of Jono and everything associated with it. Dominik was pretty sure he'd be a wreck especially as he tended to throw all of himself into relationships, be them friendships or otherwise.
His hands flexed and the cuffs dug in, reminding Dominik of his limitations. "It's alright, man." And his voice was warm, reassuring and everything it was normally when he was comforting somebody he was close to. "I know, I know." And he did because he'd weathered the fallout with Remy and danced the Cajun's raw jagged edges after Haroun's death. He knew all too well how much Jono's return was getting to the other teen, like having a knife in your heart and having it twisted inch by painful inch.
He blew out a breath and affected a smirk. "I dunno. Soon as the school works its magic or I tunnel my way out of here." The latter comment was a joke but the guard tensed and Dominik rolled his eyes, turning his head. "I'm not tunnelling out of here, relax."
Dominik had been all revved up, ready for a full blown screaming match, but the talk of Jono and Haroun had sort of tempered that, put things in perspective. He did however pause and drop his gaze, searching the space in front of him before he finally lifted those eyes of his and fixed them on Remy.
"Is this why you never came to visit earlier or was it the whole being pissed at me thing?"
---
"Hell," Remy let out a low chuckle, shaking his head with a small smile, "Jono being back is de reason I finally showed my face here. Wasn't planning on it. Planned on letting you serve your time in peace and cool your hot headed heels." There was a fire of anger that bellied his words, but he couldn't sustain the flame after talking about Haroun, saying his name.
"So, you ever get outta here, you ken thank dat boy. Lazarus. Or curse him, whatever you like. I just..." Remy sighed and leveled Dominik a look, the honesty in his expression a rare insight with how teasing and sarcastic he normally was. "I was upset wit you, Dom. For leavin', for acting de hero, for..." shaking his head again, Gambit switched shoulders with the phone again and dug his fingers into his hair, "Where Remy was raised, you accepted consequences for your actions and it was tough shit if you wanted a break." He didn't know how else to express it. Dominik had left him so he had left Dominik. They were both equally stubborn, but for different reasons.
"Why, you miss me, cher?" He was back to teasing, or mostly teasing, and smiled at Dominik, wishing that the glass didn't separate them so that he could reach out and touch the other boy. The thief used touch like he used words, to relate and to communicate. It was natural. So natural that Dom's own tactile nature hadn't seemed forward or strange. It was just what they did. Except in here.
---
"Jury's still out on that," Dominik admitted in regards to Jono. He hadn't been as close to Haroun as others and nowhere near as close as Remy, but still he'd died and Dominik had felt that. "I just reacted," he admitted. "And I wasn't thinking. I should've listened to Petra when she told me to walk away then we wouldn't be here and you wouldn't have been upset with me." He wet his lip, caught a hold of that cut then rubbed the area of neck accessible to him above the collar. "Story of my life, jumping in with both feet and dealing with consequence later. Some my own and some belonging to others." Dominik's gaze lifted, resting squarely on Remy at which point he inhaled a breath and pushed it out.
He flexed his hands from around the phone before he leaned forward, hunkering down and pushing his fingers into his hair. Soon Dominik eyed the marks on his wrists before his gaze lifted, regarding Remy through his scattered lashes.
"Miss you?" He repeated, lips tugging ever so slightly until he soon bared his teeth, sharp at the edges and lethal at the same time depending on their application. "I dunno, maybe. Hell, was starting to think you'd gone and forgotten all about me." The glass had been a problem since day one especially for Dominik who thrived on physical contact, especially when his friends had visited him in jail. He had wanted nothing more to hug them, touch them, reassure both them and himself that despite everything things were how they'd been left all those weeks ago.
Dominik's fingers slipped over his cheeks, thumb running over thick scruff. "Could ask you the same question, Remy.”
---
“Maybe.” Remy countered back, but his eyes followed the movement of the Greek’s hand over his cheek, then met his gaze again. “Just wait till you get out, maybe I’ll figure it out den. Hell, maybe de fates are already at work on you seeing daylight.” His smile turned more to a smirk, a dark one, and he sat up straighter, resting both hands down on the table space in between them.
Head tipped to the side to hold the phone against his shoulder, Remy sighed softly and glanced at the collar, then the time, “I should get goin’.” It was said with reluctance, but he knew if he stayed any longer, his resolve would falter and staying wouldn’t do Dominik any good. Not when he had things to do to prepare for the next time he saw him.
“Keep your chin up, Rarity. Last ting a stubborn mule like you should be doin is losin’ hope. Figure dat’ll happen de day hell freezes over.” He smirked and pointed at Dominik, one finger on the glass behind a black glove.
---
"You do that," Dominik said with a nod of his head. "Figuring stuff out is important. I know better than most." All the things he could have said which he hadn't said because he'd thought he had all the time in the world. "Never know when it's going to be too late." And then Remy mentioned the fates and curiosity filled Dominik's gaze, brow furrowing as he attempted to seek meaning in the words, but the smirk seemingly answered his unspoken questions.
Did he mean-? Was something happening?
But then he was leaving and Dominik gave a slow nod, trying not to feel too disappointed by the flying visit. Sometimes you didn't need a lot of time other times you needed an eternity.
He snorted a little and caught the cut on his lower lip before his tongue escaped, running over his teeth and pressing against the sharpened edge of his canine.
"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha."
---
“By de way,” Remy paused before standing, snapping his fingers and giving Dominik a sidelong look, “Found your wallet at de scene. And your phone.” He made a small shrug, studying Avalanche a moment.
“See you later, maybe,” he winked.
---
Dominik was fine up until the point Remy mentioned his phone and panic unlike any other the Cajun would have seen soon filled his expression and it was obvious he felt caught out by something, a secret he'd been holding pretty fucking close to his chest, the same secret which was present in text messages in that phone.
Fuck.
Well there went any chance he had at dignity over this whole thing, of keeping the secret a secret and his to be precise. Dominik was the master of keeping a lid on things, but now Remy had his phone so he knew everything.
He swallowed, the tension returning to his jaw and his neck flushing red with colour, embarrassed and feeling horrifically exposed. He had hoped to keep that from ever getting out because much like Jimmy he knew how horrible it was when the person you'd developed feelings for wasn't into you, but unlike Jimmy he'd had the benefit of being able to lie about it.
But then those sorts of feelings didn't need to ruin a perfectly good friendship, especially if you were both mature enough to move past it, which Dominik thought they were. Besides, life was complicated now, there was a bigger picture to think about and time spent behind bars had taught Dominik that right along with the need for more fun.
"Yeah," he said a moment later. "See you later, maybe."
And as it was clear that Remy was looking to leave the guard came forward, approaching with the intent of putting a hand on Dominik, to guide him back to his cell.