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“I don’t appreciate unscheduled visits.”
“Leavin’ the window open is as good as invitin’ me in.”
Bobby lifts his head, sitting in his seat properly. He’s fiddling with his drink, but hasn’t taken a sip from it since the very first, and crystalline blue eyes are studying the logo on the can intently. Anything that allows him to pretend Remy’s words aren’t so significant, if only for a few moments. Anything to give him a little space to breathe.
“I don’t know what that means.” He doesn’t, not really. Surely Remy hasn’t guessed what’s going on in Bobby’s head. Bobby raises one hand, scratching a non-existent itch at his cheek absently.
It’s in those desires, the temptations. It’s in the fact that he can’t get Raven out of his dreams. And when it’s not her, it’s oblivion. The end of the world. His jaw tightens as he drops his hand to the counter again, frowning gently. How could Remy possibly know that? He can’t. This has to just be about the mission.
Still…
He slumps, back in his seat this time, fighting internally with his words. A few dismissive quips come to mind, but something is wrong. Really wrong. It feels like more than just being down about a mission, even if the mission was a grisly one. The argument that this is all normal is holding less weight every day.
“I’m just feeling off lately. Can’t sleep. Not without having these weird dreams, anyway, and I’ve never exactly had normal dreams, you know?” He’s keeping his gaze carefully away from Gambit. Talking about anything in any way real is hard enough, without the touchy-feely eye contact jazz.
He starts turning one hand in a spiral pattern above the counter, creating a swirling sculpture of ice as he speaks. “It’s like… I’m alone, there’s nothing around me. Nothing but ice and snow. And I really want something…” Bobby looks completely away, hand hovering over the spiral before it explodes in a maelstrom of frost and snow. “Or someone. And it’s just a dream. But it feels like more than that.”
Yeah. This sounds dumb. “I’m probably thinking too much about it.” Bobby smirks faintly, chancing a look at Remy.
Remy’s red on black eyes narrow and he’s ready to call bullshit, but Bobby slumps and he knows more is to come.
To observe people’s body language is like a second nature to him. It’s the mark of a talented con-artist, to identify someone’s inner thoughts thanks to how their body reacted to stimuli.
He has gotten to the younger man. His eyes wander over the man sometimes made of ice. It could… unsettle people, how his glowing red eyes could stay on a person and observe them for the smallest hint of what he wanted to see.
Cypher could tell anyone that there is a world to learn from a person just by reading their body reactions, and Remy would agree whole-heartedly with Doug. There is nothing touchy-feely about it on Gambit’s part. It’s part of who he is, of what he does, and of how he survives even in hostile environments.
“You crave things ya can’t have… things ya shouldn’t wanna have…” the deep, accented voice breaks his self-imposed silence. “And you still crave it come mornin’. Things ya never wanted before, things that scare even you. And ya fight those urges with all you got, but sometimes… ya feel yourself slippin’.”
There is a card in his hand now, flicking between his fingers. It starts to glow magenta, with the soft sizzling sound that always came with the charge. It flips to show the other side, and Gambit’s fingers darken, his eyes changing with the light, the magenta glow replaced by a darker fume, the sizzling replaced by a hissing noise.
The toxic fumes of Death.
He takes a deep breath and flips the card again, returning it to the regular, magenta glow of his normal charges, his eyes taking on their normal color again, his skin now a healthy pink, bottling up Death again, tucking him away, far away in the darker recess of his being.
A gambit. Taking a risk to gain something later.
Now Bobby knows. Let the game begin.
“You dance?”
“I can’t imagine you dancing.”
“Believe it or not, I dance.”
“I started when I took lessons before my… wedding, when I was 18.” He cleared his throat. “Ya dunno my ex. She was adamant on havin’ the whole white wedding with dances. And what BellaDonna wanted, BellaDonna had.” Until the exile, but this was a bit of story for another day.
“I never said I- wait… you dance?”
“You wound me, petite. Always underestimatin’ this Cajun.”
“I wonder what Minette’s up to.”
“This Cajun can teach ya to dance, petite.”
Most people wouldn’t see it. Most people hadn’t. Bobby’s emotions are so transparent that when he does keep something hidden, no one notices. His humour is so constant that when it’s a true deflection, everyone is fooled. And on the surface, glacial or otherwise, he’s been the same.
It’s the nights when he allows this— whatever it is— to haunt him.
For all his youthful exuberance, Bobby is dragging his feet lately. He dreams of hunger, he dreams of destruction. He dreams of losing himself and he wonders if that would be so bad. Bobby’s been fractured into pieces before. It used to frighten him. A lot of things used to frighten him.
Bobby’s walking through the hallway, hands shoved into the pockets of a leather coat with red Xs on the elbows, looking alert despite his disturbed rest. He comes to a staggered stop a few feet from the door to the kitchen, though, lifting a hand to his forehead and squinting his eyes shut. There’s a hunger, a need to prove himself, Bobby wants to get a drink, but he’s in there and he should be tested and then the moment’s gone. Like fine sand through his fingers, the thoughts slip from his grasp, forgotten, leaving only a thirst behind.
When Bobby opens his eyes and lowers his hand, he’s looking through his crystalline palm to the floor. He frowns gently, turning it back to flesh. He doesn’t remember changing— but that’s not so uncommon. Right? These fragile memories and lost moments, he must be imagining them. He’s down since they’d returned from the Age of Apocal— from the other dimension, but he’s not crazy.
Yeah. He’s not.
Bobby steps into the kitchen and the ambient temperature of the room seems to drop significantly, almost instantly. His powers have been growing at an alarming rate, even more so in the past few weeks than in the past year, and he hardly notices the temperature differences anymore. After rummaging in the fridge for a can, and chilling it enough to frost up the outside, he opens it and turns his attention to Remy.
“Heeey, Gambit.” His thoughts are static, white noise. There’s something scratching just below the surface. Compelling. As his fingers trace the rim of the soda can, it leaves behind a collection of ice crystals. “What are you doing up so late? Besides, ah, shuffling cards.” Bobby takes a seat near Remy, slouching forward until the side of his face is pressed to the counter. “Is that a dumb question? It’s a dumb question.”
Gambit’s shuffling comes to a stop when the very person he is thinking about waltzes in the kitchen. Yeah, he can feel it alright, the darkness looming under the surface. It calls to him. It gives him the urge to give into his baser instinct and let the other one take over.
To serve…
It’s not right. Remy is stronger than the appeal of the darkness and the easy way. He sits up, and the cards vanish with a flick of his hand, tucked away in some pocket or other.
Now he isn’t focused on Death, he can sense that the temperature dropped, and he conceals a shiver. And people wonder why this Cajun wears his trench coat inside, he thinks humorlessly. “Iceman,” he replies in kind, with a nod.
He idly wonders if Bobby can feel how Death is still inside him, now. If he understands how hard it is, or is he as oblivious as Remy was before the whole ordeal in Limbo?
“I don’t sleep much, got plenty energy without it,” comes the easy answer. It’s true. He generates energy… he generates energy to such a degree that he could have destroyed the world, if he hadn’t had his powers diminished. Like New Son in his own world. “It ain’t a dumb question, but this Cajun think it ain’t the question you wanted to really ask.” He is trying to hint that Bobby can tell him… if he wants to. It helped Remy to talk to Shiro, he thinks maybe it could help Bobby to talk to him.
He doesn’t know what’s wrong with Bobby, not exactly. He just has an inkling, and he only follows his instinct. Espère le meilleur et prépare-toi au pire. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. It’s going to be a long night.
