Chapter Text
Remy LeBeau gets cold very easily. It’s really a curse, and whenever Autumn starts to sneak its cold fingers through the New York streets again, Remy starts dreaming of going right back to N’awlins. Louisiana is where he belongs, right? Also where he’s no doubt got trouble waiting for him the likes of which would signify he’d be getting from the cold into boiling water, which is why he’s decided to hunker down and get through winter. It’s gonna be fine, he reasoned, back in the summer. He has heating, and three cats (cats hate moving, and he’s very invested in his furry babies), and he’s invested in several snuggly blankets.
He’s regretting that decision as soon as he has to step outside, however. The cold season just ruins everything. Even fun things like pick-pocketing become a hassle, because he has to put his fingers out into the cold air. Who’s gonna kiss it all better once he gets frostbite, huh?
Because that’s also a thing: Remy is very, very single right now. More single than he should be, given his charms and good looks. But that’s just half of what he thinks, because beneath that, Remy Etienne LeBeau is actually really bad at thinking highly of himself. What can he say, right? He’s a thief. That’s kind of useless an occupation, because per definition, you just take from others. Even if you decide to be Robin Hood about it, it’s still not really a job to be proud of (especially since Remy actually likes shiny things and being filthy rich in secret a little too much to go fully Robin Hood, give to the poor, etc). Add to that the fact he’s incredibly bad at relationships, some sort of a ticking time bomb, if you will. So far he’s no idea what kind of person would complement his explosive, self-destructive tendencies well, and he does not really think that person even exists.
Look at the data he has: gotten married, killed someone. Since that someone was the bride’s brother, that put a real damper on the mood right there. Was in a very long-term on and off relationship, got her to dump his ass without any equipment in an ice desert. And Remy hated the cold before that , so let’s just say that was not much of a good time right there. Anything else he had going on in his life was usually short-lived and not very serious on either party involved, and usually? That’s because Remy approached it that way. It was just easier. Sex is pretty straight-forward (ha, ha, straight! Funny, because Remy definitely does not consider himself anywhere near straight. No, he’s pretty dang queer, thank you), and is something that Remy is good at.
The whole ‘communicate your feelings and needs’ thing, however? Let’s just say, if there was a scale of suck about that, Remy would be a solid 69 out of 10.
Pun fully intended.
You can probably see the problem. So, yeah, all that to say: Remy is single, and staying that way for the foreseeable future. Whenever he feels he needs to jump into bed with someone real quick to fix him up with a short of intimacy, however short-lived, he has a few numbers in his books, and he can always sell his ass on the street. As long as he wears contacts, seducing literally anyone crossing his path is easy, and sometimes even easy money.
It’s also, however, typical that his best friend went ahead and gone up North for the cold season. Up North! Logan is insane. Probably clinically, at this point. Remy would judge, but he will admit, grumbling, that he does not have a leg to stand on there. If anyone is even crazier than the Wolverine, it would probably be Gambit.
Ugh, god, he needs to invest in a warmer coat, Remy thinks darkly to himself, as another cold breeze messes not only with his hair, but seems to seep through all his layers and straight to his bones. At least he’ll be home soon. Remy would have just put his head down and powered through walking the last block, if he was not so damn curious, and felt his eyes were going to fall out of his skull as he spotted the youngster at the bus station.
Because he was wearing a t-shirt . A t-shirt! Remy’s first reaction is to feel outraged, because how dare this stranger. Literally, Remy feels colder just looking at him. Besides, in order to stay outside, like this, in those temperatures, the other must be on something. These are New York streets, people being fucked up is not exactly anything outside of the ordinary. Quite the opposite, even. And Remy is not particularly interested in junkies, but somehow he decides to walk at least past the other weirdo this time. His cat babies will be impatient to get fed, but they’ll forgive him for arriving a little late. His own, frozen limbs might be less forgiving in that aspect, actually.
It’s actually irresponsible of Logan to leave him alone in this season, Remy reasons, because if he needs a leg amputated, it stands to reason that Logan should be around. An easier way to lose a limb than have the Wolverine cut it off probably does not exist.
But he’s getting closer to the stranger, and the young man - if not boy, for he seems young - has Remy’s brows wrinkle themselves into a frown as he gets closer. The boy has messy, dark blond hair, and his head bowed forward a little, so the long strands hide his eyes, but he does not look like a junkie. He looks rather healthy, built like someone who works out with passion, and as he happens to look up and meet Remy’s gaze, his blue eyes are clear and his cheeks only a little pink.
“What the ‘ell ?” Remy blurts out, and the boy blinks at him, shifts his weight slightly. But since he’s holding a cardboard box in both his hands, that doesn’t allow him to do much.
“Uh, what?” he asks, and Remy points at the blond boy’s feet.
“Where are your shoes, homme ? Have you noticed there’s snow?”
“It’s more sludge,” the boy mumbles in response, ducking his head again.
Remy can’t believe this. This is not acceptable. “I’m wearin’ three pairs of socks,” he tells the other, “an’ my feet are still freezin’!”
The blond looks at Remy’s boots, then gives a little shrug as he looks up again. “Maybe you’re the one who needs proper winter shoes, then.” There’s a hint of defiance there that is very, well, teenager not liking being in a conversation with a stranger. It is strangely comforting to Remy. The untold please just go away and leave me in peace is, if nothing else, at least very familiar. Still, neither his curiosity nor his confusion has been sufficiently fed by the exchange so far, so he shakes his head, blinking his brown eyes at the other - contacts, of course, that he’s wearing when he does not feel like parading the ‘hey everyone, I’m a mutant’ around on the street.
“But aren’t you cold?”
“It’s fine,” the boy replies, “I don’t get cold easily.”
That seems to be true, at least. Even in just a shirt and jeans, no shoes, the boy does not seem super uncomfortable with the temperature. He does actually seem more embarrassed by this whole conversation. Remy has no idea why, but somehow that is… cute? The blond kid reminds him of a puppy. A golden retriever puppy, looking a little lost at a bus station, and then he has to think about puppies being abandoned .
Oh, no.
The kid is holding a cardboard box.
Oh, crap .
“You been kicked out?” Remy asks, as casually as he can with the picture of an abandoned golden puppy still on his mind, which, to be real, is not super casual. The kid just throws him a quick glance, then shrugs. Shrugging seems to be a common theme, with the other.
As no response seems to be forthcoming, Remy feels his heart melt for this strange pup-- uh, kid. Human young adult. Sacre bleu, Remy, get your shit together, will ya?
“Parents?” he asks, pushing more, aware he’s making the kid uncomfortable but, at this point, also convinced that that is just a necessary evil at this point, I mean, come on . Again, the kid shrugs.
“Landlady,” he finally says, “changed her mind about letting me stay in the room without money. I’m kinda broke, so you don’t gotta try selling me anything. Kinda pointless.”
Landlady. Right.
“Uh, how old are you?”
Here, the kid huffs. “I’m not helpless , okay?” Which is kind of not what Remy is seeing, here, but sure, whatever the other says, “I can take care of myself. Seventeen.”
“And where are you goin’?” Remy asks, even as he very strongly feels that he’s getting himself in trouble, here. Asking questions is the first step to caring about someone else having a real shit time, or something like that. “You got any plans?”
In response, the blond boy pulls his lower lip between his teeth. A moment of silence stretches between them, and Remy is going to cry because he still has the abandoned puppy in his mind. “I’ll figure something out,” the kid says, and as Remy sort of sniffles in response to that, the kid’s head comes up, giving Remy a wide-eyed stare. “Are you okay?”
“ Am I okay? You’re all alone! In this big city!”
The kid is still staring at him, opening and then closing his mouth again without saying anything between those two actions, while Remy tries to get the sniffling under control, mostly because it’s too cold to be crying outside. Wet things on your face make your face colder, so bad.
Remy sniffles again. Fight against tears, officially lost. "Can I help you?" The blond kid asks, concerned, when Remy is crying for his sake in the first place, putain de la merde, but Remy nods, then, vigorously.
"Yes. Yes, you can. Sleep on my couch tonight."
The kid stares at him as if suspecting Remy to have lost his last marbles. Apparently he judges Remy to be one of the harmless crazy people, however, because the next thing he says is "Okay?"
It sounds more like a question than an answer. Remy will take it. It's fine, he reasons, it's just like being a temporary foster home for that lost puppy he keeps comparing this kid to, right? Permanent solution incoming or whatever. Tomorrow the kid will remember he's got like, an uncle in New Jersey or something, and then everyone will go their separate ways happily.
It's funny how he is only vaguely convinced of that, himself, after knowing the kid for two minutes, tops. Little does he know that he's kind of sealed his fate with this little meeting alone. "Great," Remy says, still somewhat sniffling but at a lesser rate at least, which means the kid is still giving him this really earnest, concerned stare, "my place is not far from here, a block in this direction."
“Uh.”
“Oh, I forgot! Are you going to be alright walking that far without shoes?”
“Yes, that’s not what I…”
“Perfect. I’m way too cold and need a tissue now, so we have no time for more talking. C’mon.”
“Wait a minute, I don’t even know your name?”
“That’s true.” Remy pauses. “Remy LeBeau. And you are?”
“Jimmy Hudson.”
“Nice to meet you, Jimmy.”
“Uh, thank you. I… guess it’s nice to meet you too?” Even though Jimmy seems more confused by these happenings than anything else, he still grabs his cardboard box more firmly and falls into step next to Remy without further protest.
“Oh, dieu,” Remy sighs, “you’re still not wearing shoes.”
“Yes.”
“I feel freezing cold just looking at you.”
“Honestly, dude,” Jimmy tells him, not unkindly, but with the assurance of a teenager that knows exactly that they know everything, “stop looking.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Remy agrees.
Jimmy looks around very curiously as Remy opens the door to his apartment, and Remy remembers that he hasn’t even asked the other whether he’s allergic to cats, when Oliver is already barrelling towards them like a speeding bullet, and Jimmy almost jumps three feet into the air. “Woah!” he exclaims, and Remy catches his black, furry son, while he closes the door behind him with his foot, and picks him up to hold him like one would an actual human baby.
Oliver, the black kitten, mreows happily, and flops in Remy’s hold, making his belly long, turning into more snake than cat as he kneads his paws into the air. “This is Oliver,” Remy says to Jimmy, who strangely seems to have gotten into an attack stance, cardboard box still in hand.
“Oh,” the blond says then, exhaling. “Cool.”
“There’s three of them,” Remy adds, “it’s possible that one of them is gonna bother you on the couch tonight. ‘Cause, you know. Cats.”
“Yes,” Jimmy agrees, nodding. “I, uh. I’m sure we’ll be fine?”
Remy laughs at his very apparent insecurity. “They’re friendly! But you might get bitten.”
“Are you sure,” Jimmy begins, and then hesitates. Finally he puts his cardboard box down. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here tonight?”
“Jimmy, you were gonna just stay on the street tonight, weren’t you?”
“I mean, yeah,” Jimmy says, now seeming a little embarrassed, “I don’t know if… I mean, maybe? It would have been fine. I’m sure.”
“Jimmy.”
“Really!”
“You’re a little blond kid, all alone on the street, without shoes .”
“I appreciate that you thought the shoes are so dramatic you had to offer me your couch over it,” Jimmy says, “but I’m serious. It would have been fine.”
“Sure,” Remy agrees, finally, “okay, you would have been fine. But that doesn’t mean you have to, alright?”
“I just don’t know if. I just don’t want you to regret this in the morning, when you remember you got a stinking stranger on your couch and the shoes were not such a big deal after all.”
Remy throws the other a long look, at Jimmy’s messy hair and his earnest blue eyes, the determined set to his jaw, and finally looks down at the kid’s wet socks, from when he trudged through cold slush. He might not know a lot about teenagers, but he knows enough to be fairly certain that if he speaks out his first thought, which would have been you are adorable , and the same probably goes for the second thought, which would have been to explain to Jimmy how he reminds Remy of a little, abandoned golden retriever puppy, Jimmy would not have been super impressed.
“Shoes are a giant deal,” he protests, “and you know nothing about fashion or putting together an outfit if you don’t agree with that.”
Jimmy opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“Are you tired yet?”
“Yeah?”
“Let me show you the couch and introduce you to my babies. The red one is Lucifer, and the white one is Figaro. Usually Lucifer takes the couch at night. Oliver is always with me, and Figaro usually as well.”
“Sounds good,” Jimmy says, and smiles. Smiling looks better on him, Remy thinks to himself, even than the slightly confused frown. Happy little blond kid. The way it should be. Oh, god. Where did that thought come from? Without knowing why exactly, Remy feels like he’s just gotten himself in trouble. And he doesn’t mean the cute kind. Nope, the hip deep into shit and probably never getting that smell off his favorite pants again kind.
“Where should I put my box?” Jimmy asks, and Remy uses that opportunity to come closer and give the, by now a little soggy-looking, cardboard box a long look, as if he could determine its contents that way.
“What do you got in there?” he asks back, curiously, and then remembers the question he was asked. “Ah. Yeah, put it wherever. If it’s not between my bedroom and the bathroom I probably won’t stumble over it in the dark and break something, so you got nothing to worry about.” Remy has also excellent night vision, but he can’t very well explain that without running the risk of giving his mutant eyes away.
Jimmy frowns at that. “Okay?” he keeps saying that word like it’s fully sufficient as a one-word question. Remy finds his lips quirking into a smirk at it. It’s a really cute habit. “And, uh, not much. Some clothes, a cactus, my phone.”
“Aw, a cactus? Mignon . What’s her name? Introduce me.”
“Um,” for some reason, Jimmy seems a little embarrassed, now, missing the fact that Remy fully approves, hello, putting his cardboard box down again and opening it. He wasn’t lying, there’s mostly some clothes in there, even a pair of shoes, which has Remy’s eyes twitch a little in irritation. Why did he not just put them on? Been chased out in a hurry with a broom?
“ Attends, mon petit, ” he says, a little impatiently, pointing at the shoes, “what are those?”
“My boots,” Jimmy replies, very simply, apparently not immediately catching on to what Remy is saying. Only when Remy gives him an unimpressed stare in response does the blond, after some confused blinking, have a light go up above his skull. Remy can almost see the cartoon-bulb. “Ohhhh, yeah. Uh, they’re… not supposed to get water in them, and I had nothing to waterproof them with, so. That’s why I didn’t wear them.”
“Are you telling me you own one pair of shoes?”
“It’s enough, isn’t it?”
“If you’d be wearing them, maybe.”
Jimmy laughs, then. “Listen, Remy, you’re not my dad, right? I’m just crashing here for a night. Out by morning, really.”
“Oh, sure. That’s good.” Remy’s not actually convinced of that being good, but at this point, Jimmy is switching the topic back to the cactus again, that he’s now showing - almost offering - to Remy, and that is definitely a sufficient distraction.
“It, um. It was a gift.”
What he’s showing to Remy is the fattest cactus Remy has ever seen. It’s a little ball, almost, with exaggerated, long yellow thorns. The pot and the plant are super small, and Remy is immediately enamored. “ Quel beauté, ” he coos, “she’s really beautiful.”
“Uh, why she?”
“It’s a cactus, Jimmy. You can give her any pronouns you want. Does she have a name?”
“Ah. I don’t think so? You can, uh, give her one, if you’d like.”
Gosh. “Great, so this is Mrs Teapot, and she’s going to spend the night in a place just for her, at the windowsill.”
"Sounds good," Jimmy agrees, half laughing.
Remy sets the kid up with a blanket on the couch and repeated questions of "but are you sure " when Jimmy claims thank you, this is enough, no further blanketing needed.
That done, Remy is quick to say good night, indicate his bedroom door ("in case you need anything") while sending off a quick prayer that Jimmy won't need anything (how awkward of a "hey I'm a mutant, by the way" reveal would that be, right?), and tells the other to feel absolutely free to use whatever he can find in the apartment, but especially in the bathroom and the kitchen.
Jimmy nods, politely giving thanks and nodding, and Remy has half a mind to ask the other who's raised him, because most seventeen year-olds would not be expected to be so well-mannered, but he bites his tongue on it. He's no idea what Jimmy's background is, where he's from, where his parents even are, if they're still around, and it's too late and been too long a day to start such a conversation up.
Once his bedroom door closes behind Remy, Figaro and Oliver already lounging on the bed and after exchanging a quick "good night" with Jimmy, he exhales in a deep sigh. His eyes have been itching at him for the last hour, and so it's with a sigh of relief that he takes the contacts out, rubbing at his eyes, restored to their natural red-on-black state.
"Natural" is putting it nicely, he thinks to himself with some sense of wry irony, as he checks himself in the little mirror hanging on the wardrobe beside his bed, considering that these eyes have gotten him the White Devil nickname. It hasn't been something that weighed on him in any way for a while, as by now he's embraced the nickname, the inherent creepiness of his eyes included. After all, he knows he wears it well, he'll always have the box "exotic beauty" checked with it, and so he doesn't spend any longer thinking about it as he turns around and slips under the covers, Oliver meowing at him in greeting and Figaro making a displeased little sound for Remy having slightly dislodged him in the process of getting in bed.