FANDOM: X-MEN COMICS

TITLE: Moods – Autumn Leaves

AUTHORS: Mickn'Star

PAIRING: Logan/Storm, Remy/?

RATING. U

DISCLAIMER: characters are Marvel's, the story is ours. No money is being made by us.

NOTE: Ask before putting in other archives, thank you.

AUTUMN LEAVES
(A tribute to friendship)
by Mickn'Star

The X-Men Mansion's park was glorious in Autumn. The falling leaves caught the rays of the dying sun and transformed the rather pedestrian woods in a casket of jewels and semiprecious stones.

The falling leaves' swirling soundless flight made brilliant patterns from an ochre palette and hid effectively the brown coat and russet hair of the young man sitting despondently under a tree.

The couple walking in the wood was lost in the quiet beauty of the place and did not see the solitary thinker until they had almost tripped over him.

"What the… Gumbo! What the fuck are you doing here?" The Wolverine's initial irritation changed quickly into concern. Remy LeBeau was sitting hunched on himself, head bowed low over raised knees. He didn't even seem to hear the Canadian's rasp.

"Remy!" Ororo shook the Cajun's shoulder who finally raised his head. "What is it, dear brother?" She asked, her melodious voice tinged with worry. The thief shook his head but didn't answer.

"Yes, spit it out, Gumbo," Logan snarled, sounding just as worried and impatient with it.

"Nothing, mes amis." Seeing them together made the Cajun find a pale smile for his best friends. "One cannot always jump up and down, y'know. I was just thinking."

"You look so depressed, bro. Is it Rogue?"

"Non, mie, that is over and done with. She and I have made our peace. She came to die with me, she called me back from the dead... I have forgiven her all and she has forgiven me. `S not that."

"You look like something the cat dragged in because it hadn't the stomach to eat it. You still in love with her?"

Gambit-that-was shook his head "Non, maybe I never was. Maybe my pursuing the unattainable was only an obsession born of vanity. Doesn't matter. I told you it's finished, over, done with. Besides" he added "I was not thinking of her. Just reflecting on things."

Ororo was really worried now. Unconsciously she leaned towards her beloved and Logan smiled and put his arm around her waist. "You're worrying my puss, now. C'mon let it out of your system. Do you a world of good."

"Don't want to burden your happiness with my silly ramblings. Go!" the thief shooed them away flapping his hands "Go, be happy, enjoy each other! What are you doing talking to me? You have just found love in each other, you should be in bed celebrating, not here!"

Laughing in spite of herself, the Windrider grabbed an unresponsive Remy and hugged him tight. Quickly Wolverine hugged him too, closing a circle of love and brotherhood. The Cajun, overwhelmed, bent his head between the sister and brother of his heart, savouring the taste of total acceptance.

"You do not `burden' us, dear brother." Storm said gently in his hair "We have all the time in the world for ourselves and you are important to us. We want to see you happy."

"It's not possible anymore." the young thief murmured "Too many things have happened and I have lost too much."

Logan sighed and squeezed harder. "Be reasonable, Gumbo. I can't be in bed celebrating with you depressing my girl so. You're starting to depress my meat too, you know?" and he chuckled deeply and briefly, inviting his friend to share the joke.

Slowly the Cajun disengaged from his friends' arms. "I'm sorry to depress you. I told you, leave me be. I'll get over it. Don't I always get over things?"

"Do you?" the Weather Witch asked hard. Her voice was suddenly electrical and laced with acerbity. "I think you never `got over' anything, actually. You just hide things and carry on. You are not a nature person, yet you've been hiding in the woods for hours on end lately. You don't eat and I am sure you don't sleep well, if at all."

The Wolverine's feral grin widened. "Now you listen to us and listen good." He said "We were not looking for you, but we've been meaning to talk to you for some time. `Ro is right and I don't like to see you like this. There's something eating at you and we want to know what it is."

"I am not anything anymore, can't you see? I'm like a ghost!" Remy cried out, like a man under torture. Then brutally turned his back on his friends.

Ororo took a step towards her brother, but Logan's hand stopped her. He shook his head slightly and she needed nothing more to understand what he was thinking. The boy didn't like to be touched and clearly his problem was more serious than they had thought. She nodded and called softly: "Remy…!"

"I lost my power, why can't you understand? I lost myself! There's no more Gambit, no more Remy! No!" The Cajun turned again stopping every argument with a hand. "Please don't try and comfort me. There's no comfort." He stopped himself with a visible effort, his white face contorted in pain.

"How would you feel if you could not sense the wind and its patterns anymore, mie? How would you feel if the world had lost its smells and its sounds, bro? I saw the kinetic dance of life and death, I saw the atoms dance every single waking moment of my life!

"You have no idea of how glorious, rich and exciting the world was to me. The endless shifting patterns of randomness made into fleeting order, the rainbows of light and darkness that make up every single thing, people like stars and rocks like everflowing calm rivers.

"I could touch a thing and make its atoms' dance accelerate into wildness and drink and feel and *breathe* the energy of existence. I was drunk, I was high on that all the fucking time! I heard you all say 'that crazy Cajun' and laughed and danced my own lethal dance of action and reaction.

"I could dance on a razor's edge because I could see its atoms rush and sway. I could have danced on the head of a pin, the white devil dancing at an angels' venue!"

The Cajun stopped abruptly, transfixed by his own passion. He started to weep silently, tears overflowing his eyes, changing them to onyx and ruby in the red light of the Autumn sunset.

Ororo and Logan stood huddled together paralysed by the pain and the heartbreaking grief.

"And now there is nothing. Nothing. All is dead and dreary. All is still and colourless. The dull dead red-black of entropy. The atoms dance, but not for me. The pulsing star of life is dulled, I can' t see reality morphing like sand in a swirling wind anymore.

No excitement, no wonder, no drunkenness. I've been cured of craziness, of danger, of dancing. There's no wild music to dance to, no sparkling floor to land onto, no energy to go on anymore.

"I should have died. I knew I was dying, I ripped victory from death and was ready to cease. Why did she have to save me? Why… She condemned me to a lifetime of hell to assuage her guilt feeling…" A sigh that seems to shatter him and Remy can go on.

"I have forgiven her, how could I not when she came to die with me? But what she bought back from the dead is a ghost. An empty shell. Nothing. I am nothing. I have nothing."

Storm extended a hand towards her poor heart-brother. "You still have us, Remy." She said softly "You still have our love, you cannot lose that. We are with you always, you are always in our thoughts. You are part of us, dearest brother."

"We've caught you now, Gumbo. We have you and we won't let you go. Ever. Count on it." The Wolverine's voice was rough with emotion and his hand too shot out in silent prayer.

Try as he might, Remy LeBeau could not be deaf to the love he was offered, he took his friends' hands and held on them for dear life.

"That's better." Ororo grinned "Let's get you home, bro."

"Yes, bro," Logan chuckled "and once there we'll wrestle, huh? I'll give you a fall."

Going back to the mansion Ororo saw the eddies and gusts of the Autumn breeze like playful kittens batting at leaves, running away with them and, letting them fall to the ground, come and lap happily at her hair and face.

Logan smelled the tired trees getting ready for their long sleep, he heard the crackling last song of the leaves and perceived the humid, languid earth settle with a sated sigh like his beloved Goddess after sex.

Bracketed by their delighted smiles, Gambit-that-was took his first steps into his brave new dead black-red world.

THE END