Unhealthy

Over the next few months, Remy insisted to only eat in his room. He had gained a few pounds back from wasting away to almost nothing, and sat on his bed in just his sweats. Remy refused to have Hank tell him about his health after each treatment so, he instructed the blue furred scientist to write it down, place it in an envelope, and slide it under his door. One thing that had cheered him up was the secret that his hair was growing back. It had grown just enough to where he could brush it but, still preferred to keep it under a hat.

Today, he stared at four unopened envelopes that lay in a straight line on his bed, in front of him.

He sat cross-legged with his left elbow on his left knee and his hand on his chin, silently playing "eenie meenie miney moe" with the white envelopes. Which one to open first? His right hand shook when he reached for either of the four, and now a fifth was shoved under his door. One more card to tell him his fate. Lifting his head from his hand and looking over the side of the bed at the paper on the floor, Remy took a breath and turned back to the four in front of him.

The pain started again. It started in his stomach, and then his chest and arms. Cringing and curling up into a ball, he leaned over to lay on his right side and quiet the cries of pain that boiled up from inside him. He was given a small machine, the size of a remote controller for a television, that was strapped to him. It was supposed to help him feel better but, Remy was hardly believing it. As he cringed again and held his stomach, Remy sat up and hurriedly made his way to the side of the bed. Not making the full way to the bathroom, he lay there, on his stomach, and heaved the baby food and the juice from his insides onto the plastic covered floor.

Logan passed by at that moment and stopped to listen to Remy cough and fight back tears of pain and disgust. Turning his head, Logan walked up to his door and knocked three times. "Rem?" Pausing for a minute, he knocked again. "Remy? You okay?" He opened the door to find Remy lying on his back with his head hung over the side. "Hey- Remy! What happened?" Coming closer and focusing his eyes on the puddle on the floor, Logan kicked the last envelope out of the way as he picked Remy up and carried him back downstairs.

"Hank!" Logan screamed every 5 steps until he heard Beast and Charles and Jean making their way to him.

Jean was the first to get to Logan, as she had just left the med-lab. "What happened?"

Laying Remy down on a table, Logan took a breath and backed away from Remy, as he lay there unconscious. "I don't know. I was passin' by his room, and he just threw up. The next thing I know, I'm pickin' him up and rushin' down here."

"Has he told you anything about his progress?" Jean hovered around Remy for a moment before looking over to Logan, backing his way to the wall behind him. "Logan!" Snapping the man out of his dazed stare, she looked back to Remy and began stripping him of his clothing.

Logan took a ragged breath and blinked. "No." Shaking his head and biting his lip, his mind repeated the thought, "Don't let him die. Don't let him die." Sucking it up and taking one step forward as Hank and Charles entered the room, Logan swallowed his fear and watched helplessly as the three hooked Remy up to wires and tubes.

Hank looked over to Logan and then to Remy's discarded clothes. "Gambit hasn't told you about his progress reports?"

"What reports?"

Beast stepped away as Jean and Charles moved Remy to a more comfortable location, on a bed in the other room. He now stood in front of Logan and studied his nervous friend. "I have been giving him progress reports after every treatment. He has given me orders to seal them in an envelope and place them under his door. Perhaps, he has just put them off?"

Shaking his head, Logan moved to gather Remy's clothes and sigh. "No. He didn't forget, or put it off. He just didn't want me to hear it. He didn't want me to know." Walking towards the door, Logan turned back to Beast, "Envelopes, huh?" Logan sounded angry.

"Yes."

Logan made his way back up the stairs to Remy's room, where several of the children stood around and looked in. "Get lost! Get back to bed." Pushing through a few of the children, he stood in front of the door and waited until they all left before turning around and tossing the clothes onto the bed.

The plastic made a crunching and squeaking sound as he moved to the bed and scooped up the four envelopes. Logan turned around and flicked on the light before sitting down on the bed and opening them one by one. Each one made him pause before he opened them. A sigh of relief came from the first four as they all had said the word "Remission."

Breathing out what seemed a breath he had been holding for months, he lowered the last unfolded paper as his eyes caught another white envelope, the same one he had kicked to the side earlier. Logan wasn't sure he wanted to know what was in that envelope. Telling himself that it probably repeated what the others told him, he slid off of the bed and reached for the envelope. A shiver raced through him as he moved to sit back on the bed. This was today's progress report that he held in his hands.

Mouth open, Logan took a deep, long breath and held it. He stared at the packet that was thicker than all the others. Wiping a tear away and letting his breath out slowly, Logan ripped the side of the packet open and slid out the papers. As he unfolded them and turned them around to read them, his eyes grew wide. Was what he read really going to happen? Would Remy be ready?

*********

His room was clean and aired out. The window shades were open to let in the night sky. Remy's back was propped up against several pillows as he lay in the middle of his bed, tubes and wires still connected to him. The small bedside lamp was on the lowest setting, to his right, as he opened his eyes. His voice came in faint moans as he breathed out.

Remy lay there, dressed in his red pajamas with pink dancing elephants on them. He blinked and stared out the window. "My room?"

"Yea kid, your room." Logan came out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a clean towel. "It was against doc's orders so, don't let me regret it." He was dressed in his usual blue jeans and white T-shirt, and his boots made the same squeaky noise as they crunched on the plastic on the floor. "How ya feelin, kid?" Logan kissed his forehead and sat down to Remy's right.

Remy shrugged and cleared his throat. "Okay, I guess. Why'm I here?"

"Well," Logan stood up walked back into the bathroom to retrieve a glass of water and Remy's pills before finishing. "I thought you needed to be someplace that cheers you up. The med-lab ain't exactly the place to get better." He smiled as he sat back down beside Remy. "Pill time. C'mon." Pouring several different pills into his hand from the PM container, Logan handed them one by one to Remy, each one followed by the glass of water. When they were gone, Logan placed the glass and the container on the table before looking back to Remy.

Glancing around the room, Remy's eyes fell on the five opened envelopes on his desk. "You opened dem. You read dem. Why?" His red eyes glistened with tiredness as he looked back to the older man beside him. "Why?"

Logan stared at him, thinking hard about what to say and how. "I had to know-"

"What?" Remy glared.

Logan breathed out. "I had to know what you weren't gonna tell me." Seeing the truth in Remy's expression as the Cajun lay there, and stared at him in anger, a shiver twitched in Logan's back. "Listen, Rem, you're not fightin' this alone. You've got all of your friends around you that love you, and cherish you, and are thankful that you're still alive."

Remy blinked and picked out the words that came to his ears like bee stings. "Friends? Love? Thankful? For de past 8 mont's, I've been pukin my guts out, and not holdin anybody's hand, an' now you sit dere and tell me dat I'm not alone in de middle of my friends?" His breaths came in short pants. "You have no idea what it means to be dis alone. You feel alone because of your damned skeleton an' who we are. Dat's alone? You've been misled. You don't have people starin at you- not because you're a mutant but because you have a disease dat's worse dan death. Like you know you're alive but you feel dead. And alone? I've never seen you sittin beside me when I was throwin up. Or, waitin' outside durin' my treatments. You don't wanna be around me when I'm sick but, you force yerself to be polite. It makes you sick when I ask you to spend de night wit' me. Don't tell me I'm not alone. I could be in a room full o' people and still be all alone. And friends? Dey don't have a clue what goes on wit' Remy. Dey ain't de ones dat spend de night pukin' deir guts out to a cold, porcelain bowl, every night. An' you tell me dey love me? Remy ain't nobody's friend. I don't have ta see it or hear it to know dat,- I feel it. Ya know what hurts de most? Holdin onto a pillow, 'stead of de person you love." The conviction in his eyes was like ice that froze Logan where he sat, in a nice warm room.

"Fair enough." Without another word, Logan stood up and walked around to close the shades before excusing himself from the room. "I'll be back to check on ya after a bit. Get some rest, huh?" Saying it quietly as he closed the door and stepped into his room.

Leaning his head back into the pillows, Remy turned his head away from the door and forced back the tears. Wiping at his eyes with the side of a heavy and shaking left hand, Remy choked on a bubble of sour air and rolled onto his left side.

*********

Jean came to check on his the next day, and bring him something to eat. She brought with her a deck of cards and a mind for conversation. "Remy, you know I'm not pointing my finger at you but, Logan mentioned, this morning, something you said last night. You don't think he is honestly avoiding you because you are ill, do you?" Placing the tray of half-eaten food on the floor, she began shuffeling cards and dealing them out as she asked.

Remy shrugged.

"Honey, he loves you so much. It tears him apart to see you like this, and he doesn't know how to tell you-" Placing the rest of the cards in the middle and picking up her hand, she looked up at him, thinking of how to finish in more comfortable words.

Holding his hand and rearranging his cards, Remy paused. "Tell me what? Dat he can't catch what I have by me breathin on him? Dat he can't even catch an allergy? Dere's no excuse for him not being right here, and he knows it. He don't have to worry about ever gettin sick. Or, dyin."

As the game of Rummy started and went on, Jean began to keep a close watch over Remy as he had become more tired than when they first started. "Do you want to rest, now?"

"Non." Remy smiled and took a deep breath.

The game went on and Jean noticed that the hand Remy used to hold the cards in, shook and he looked more and more pale by the minute. "Perhaps we should finish this tomorrow. It's getting late and you need your rest, and medication." She patted his hand and smiled sombrely as he gave a tired nod. Placing the game, as it was, on the desk she had cleared off, Jean glanced at Remy to note that he was half asleep. Gathering the tray from the floor, he reached out to her.

"Stay wit' me, chere. Jus' until Remy falls asleep....?"

It was heartbreaking to hear him ask but she couldn't voice the word "no" to him. Jean nodded and set the tray back down before crawling up, onto the bed again and laying down beside him, facing him. "Close your eyes," she whispered as she reached a hand to place on his. "I'll be right here." Jean waited for him to close his eyes before she closed hers, listening to him weaze and breathe. She opened them again to see that he had fallen asleep and hadn't taken his medication.

Remy's brow furrowed in his sleep and he let out a moan as he turned his head away from Jean.

**********

Irivan folded her arms and placed them on the countre in front of Logan and sighed. "Pouting here won't help him, ya know." She had gotten tired of the silent treatment and decided to speak up. Blinking at him, Irivan tilt her head and watched him raise the bottle to his lips and swallow the last of his beer. Her black shirt glittered from a party that happened earlier, and she had given up trying to remove the sparkles. She looked like a young girl with her hair in fishbone braids that she was constantly tossing over her shoulder. It was down to the end of the night and just she and Logan were there.

Logan's eyes were closed and he took a long pause before opening them and staring flatly into hers. "Yea well, accordin to him, I'm not much help there, either."

"He doesn't know that you pace outside his room? Or, make yourself sick wit' worry?"

Logan shook his head.

"You don't have any intention of tellin him, do you?"

Another shake of his head.

Irivan sighed deeper and pushed off of the countre to get another beer for him and Shirley Temple for herself. "Well, Logan, does he at least know the conclusion of the story?"

Setting the empty bottle down and reaching into his right back pocket, he took out the last folded envelope and stared at it. "He doesn't even care to know the other four. Why should this one be any different?" Letting the envelope drop onto the countre, Logan watched her place the newest bottle in front of him and breathed out. "Doc says he could go either way. They almost caught it too late, and Remy ain't exactly one to admit how long he's known about things."

"True. But, sometimes we all need to hear it, just to be sure. Sometimes the people that push us away are really begging us not to go. Remy is human, too. He's had to come to terms with things he shouldn't be thinking of for a long time, and it's happening too quick. Maybe, he's already accepted his fate." Irivan placed a hand on his. "Can you?"

Logan ended up staring at her until she shook him out of it to tell him to finish his beer, it was time to close up. "I can save him. A transfusion." Blurting out his thoughts as he drained his beer down to half.

Irivan had started cleaning out front and placing chairs on the tables. "Are you sure that's what he wants?"

"Are you saying I shouldn't?" Logan turned to look at her.

Irivan stopped with her back to him. "I didn't say that. Just," Turning around and coming to sit on the stool beside him, she finished, "make sure it's accepted before you start playing God."

Finishing his beer, Logan kissed her cheek and informed her that he would see her later. "He's gonna be fine." Putting the envelope back into his pocket, Logan stood up to leave.

"I hope so, cher." She watched him leave and waited for the door to close before adding the rest of her thought, "For both your sakes."

************

Logan took the steps by twos. He had to look in on Remy, just to make sure he was still alright. Walking quietly down the hall, and up to his door, Logan paused a moment before turning the handle and nudging the door open. Peering in, Logan first saw Jean, still asleep and turned to face him, and then focused on Remy's back. Smiling and pushing the door open a little more, he stepped in and reached over to gently shake Jean's arm.

Kneeling in front of her, Logan shook her arm again but stopped as she opened her eyes to see him there. "Hey," he whispered. "Scott's lookin' for ya. Why don't you go to bed. I'll stay here and keep him company."

Jean sat up and glanced over her shoulder at Remy. When she turned back, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. "What time is it?"

"About two-thirty."

"Oh." Jean stood up and bent over to grab the tray. When she stood up again, she took a breath and blinked at the hall light being bright. "I'll check back on him in the morning. He just wanted someone to be with him. Good night, Logan."

"Good night, darlin." Logan closed the door behind her before making his way up, onto the bed as gently as possible. As he laid down, Remy rolled over and opened his eyes. "You okay?"

Remy blinked and nodded.

Logan reached a hand up to let his thumb stroke Remy's pale left cheek. "Go back to sleep, it's late."

Feeling a quiver inside him, Remy scooted closer and cautiously wrapped his arms around Logan. A crinkled pop of paper caught his attention as he sat up and slipped the envelope from Logan's pocket. Biting his lips together, he stared at it before Logan sat up and slipped it from his hands.

"Wanna know what it says?"

"Non."

Logan inched closer. "Why not?"

Remy's expression went blank. "Mebbe it's wrong."

Shaking his head, Logan leaned in and kissed his cheek. "It says 'Remission Improved'. That means you're gonna be just fine, doll." He smiled and moved to lay back down, motioning for Remy to join him.

Hesitating a moment, Remy laid back down, snuggling into Logan's left side. A kiss on his forehead and a light squeeze as he yawned. He closed his eyes and could hear Logan's even breathing. Remy smiled to himself as he felt everything would be alright. Pulling the covers up, over them, Remy fell asleep with dreams of fields of flowers and laughing and the warmth of the sun. He felt so warm and comfortable that exhaling one last time, he hadn't realised he spoke in his sleep, "Good night, cher."


End.