Fractals

Fractals Chapter Twenty Nine (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… The cats won’t go in the suitcase… InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are wondermous for archiving/hosting. :) ProPhile: Smut will come around again… Morgan: *GLOMP * Readers/Reviewers: Thank you thank you thank you for reading/reviewing and aside to Dr Nightfall… the shower shoes bit is coming by the end. ;)


“I think I’m going to break up with Remy.”
Scott sprayed a fine mist of ice tea before he could stop himself, sputtering and choking on an ice cube. “What?” he finally croaked, waving off Jubilee’s patting. “Why?”
“There’s a lot involved,” she replied quietly, studying her fingers. It was almost time for dinner and they were supposed to be setting out the silverware, but she could not bring herself to do much else aside from think things she wished that she would not. “I just… I feel like maybe I’m not right for him.”
Scott set the tea glass down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Jubilee, you know I don’t go in for this whole fate thing and whatever but you two… I don’t think anyone else could stand to be with Remy and no one else could stand to be with you. You’re meant for each other.”
She shot him a look that seemed to ask if he was drunk or just weird. “It’s not as simple as that. You and Jean are meant for each other but look at how you ended up… bitter, separated and on the verge of divorce with Jean snooping through your locker in the garage.”
“I’m not… what?”
“Oh, she and St John were out there earlier. She asked me first but I had trig homework.” Jubilee picked up one of the silver forks and turned it over and over in her hands. “I wouldn’t worry about it. She probably thinks you’re screwing around and is just too proud to read minds.”
Scott narrowed his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he demanded, taking the fork from her. “And why would she think I’m fucking around? I love her!”
“You don’t have to love someone to fuck ‘em,” Jubilee pointed out, picking up a spoon. “You just have to be attracted to them. Or at least attracted to what they offer.”
Scott did not know whether to throw a fit or try to help Jubilee with her own problems. It was giving him a migraine. “I’m not cheating on Jean!” he said loudly, taking the spoon. “And stop playwithwith the cutlery!”
Jubilee sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes, smearing her thick eyeliner—an experiment in femininity she decided was just not for her—and looking suddenly very tired. “Scott, I don’t know what to do. It’s like everything is falling apart and I can’t stop it. Remy’s…” she paused mid-sentence. She was not sure if Remy would mind people know where he had gone, much less why. “Remy’s off on some trip, you and Jean are fighting, Kitty’s moved out, Amara’s going crazy and I think I saw Jamie hiding condoms in the downstairs coat closet earlier. And on top of everything,” her voice rose to a distinctly irritated pitch, “some jack-off has decided we’re headline news and there’s nothing we can do to stop it! The Professor and Emma just can’t erase every single mind on earth who might have seen those pictures!”
Scott groaned under his breath. “You know, I was having a perfectly good time living in denial about that until you reminded me. Look, we have that meeting tonight after dinner to discuss what to do next and we’re already being so careful that not even the most rabid conspiracy theorists could pin anything on us. What did Jean take from my locker?”
Jubilee closed her eyes and counted to ten beforindiinding out between clenched teeth. “Why don’t you ask her your own damned self?” She opened her eyes to find Scott staring at her in surprise for her mood swing. “That’s the problemh thh the two of you! You don’t fucking talk! You’re too damned proud to do anything but swish around like you’re sooooooo hurt and soooooooo put upon. Other people have problems too, you know!” She shouted the last, shoving past him to stride out into the hall, leaving a stunned Scott in her wake. She was so intent on making it to her room before she burst into tears that she did not see Storm before she ran into her. “Oh!”
Storm caught her breath and grabbed Jubilee’s arms, holding her still. “What is it, child? What’s wrong?” She studied the young woman’s face intently—the smeared makeup, the tears threatening to fall, the tense posture. “Remy,” she sighed.
“No,” Jubilee replied shakily, not even trying to move away. “It’s just… everything!” She lost it then, unable to stop herself from crying.
Storm blinked in surprise as Jubilee buried her face against her shoulder, sobbing into her shirt. Soothingly, she rubbed between the young woman’s shoulder blades. “I feel exactly the same way.”

Remy did not want to take off his coat but he knew it made him stand out. It was not that New Orleans did not get cool, it just was not as chilly as Bayville. With a resigned sigh, he shrugged out of the garment and bundled it under his arm before stepping out of Pirate’s Alley1 and merging with the small throng of tourists heading towards Café du Monde. He had been in the city six hours, counting the time he spent at the airport as Mister du Pont du Lac, wondering if anyone would get the reference.2 So far, he thought to himself, so good. He had not seen anyone familiar ,but that did not mean he had gone unnoticed. He could comfort himself with the idea that if he had been there for so long without incident, that meant he was under their radar, but he knew better. The Thieves did not kill except in self defense. The Assassins filled that purpose for the guild, acting as their killing hand while the Thieves were the cool intellect. It was a dangerous symbiotic relationship, Remy and Belladonna’s ill fated union having once been meant to make it stronger but now, after years of being a wedge between them, serving to make it more lethal. Anger ran rife on both sides and the one thing that they could both agree on was that Remy was a dead man walking if he ever set foot in New Orleans. Being called back for a task was not a guarantee of safety, he knew that. Especially because it was not the entire Guild or League which summoned him, but one person. He made his way quickly through the quarter, moving against the flow of late evening tourists and heading for trolley stop. It was fifteen minutes to the Garden District, he calculated, and then another five minute walk to the antebellum home he knew all too well. The sun was setting, casting the street in an orange glow as he waited anxiousl the the trolley stop. He did not want to be still for too long, but this could not be helped. Finally, he saw the trolley roll to a stop before him and he breathed a covert sigh of relief. He followed two giggling college girls with too many Hurricanes in their blood stream onto the conveyance and made his way to the back, the one empty seat available. He closed his eyes for a moment as they got under way, trying to still his roiling nerves. Someone shifted behind him and his eyes flew open, the breath against his ear scorching.
“Bon soir, mon fils.”3

1 A tiny alley behind the cathedral in Jackson’ Square, near Rue St Anne.
2 One of the vampires from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles is Louis du Pont du Lac.
3 Good evening, my son