The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Thirty Four (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch, Uberbeta and Honorable Moo: wereowls unite! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are wondermous for archiving/hosting! :) ProPhile is a sparkled smutmuse and Morgan gets extra glomps. :) Readers/Reviewers: *GLOMP * Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! :)


“You are the *stupidest * Cajun I ever met!” Belladonna snapped, shoving Remy as hard as she dared.
He simply stepped back, never losing his balance. “Hush. You gonna wake l’enfant!” He glanced at Solange, wrapped in a green blanket and sleeping in the middle of the hotel bed. “And whoever in de next room!”
The Creole woman narrowed her eyes and looked as if she would love nothing more in that moment than to hiss and spit at him. Instead, she drew herself up straight and tipped her chin angrily. “We wouldn’t have a baby to worry ‘bout if you’da kept your fool mouth shut!” she said in a low, tight voice. “We shoulda gone on to Boston,” she added after a moment.
“I done tol’ you,” he replied in great annoyance, “we can’t jus’ go leadin’ ‘em to mes amis. We distractin’ em!” He glanced around the motel room and sighed. “We leave in de mornin’ for Boston.”
Belladonna nodded, still frowning. “You realize that I’m gonna be skinned alive by de Guild, oui?” She looked at the sleeping infant and nearly sighed, folding her arms over her chest. “Dis is gonna be more trouble den it’s worth.”
“Since when you been a proponent of human trade?” he asked crisply. He pushed past her to sit on the bed and lift the now waking infant onto his lap. “She’s ain’t but a few month old.”
Belladonna rolled her eyes. “Je sais.” She moved to take the infant from him but he glared, sending her retreating a few steps. “She a foundling, you know? She was to be raised by the head of the Assassins.” Her posture becoming something like queenly, drawing herself up to her full height and peering down her nose at him, she added in a cool tone, “You were raised by de head of your guild, Remy. You did jus’ fine. You want to begrudge this child a chance at happiness like dat?”
Remy counted to ten in every language he knew, pacing the numbers slowly and breathing in equal measure, trying to stay calm. He succeeded, barely. “I was found by LeBeau. No one were sellin’ me off ta the highest bidder, Belle.” Solange began to squirm in his lap and he set her carefully back in the middle of the bed, where she could not easily roll off or otheotherwise injured. He stood, crowding Belle and towering over her. “You ain’t de femme I used ta know, Belladonna. What happen’?”
She glowered, marring her pretty face with a base scowl and snarled words. “You changed, Remy. Not I. Not the Guild, not the League. None of us have changed. You’ve lost sight of the things that are most important… self preservation above all else.”
“Self preservation,” he said quietly, dangerously, “ain’t the same as sellin’ yourself out.” He turned as tinny zydeco music began playing. His cell phone was ringing in his coat pocket, draped over the back of the desk chair. Keeping one eye on Solange, he crossed to the ringing phone in two strides and flipped it open. “Quoi?”
There was a long pause, then Jubilee’s voice, high and thin and stressed, came over the connection. “Uh, Remy? Where are you?”
He glanced at Belle and decided to err on the side of honesty. “I’m out wid Belle, takin’ care o’ some Guild prollems. Pour quoi?”
“Oh…. Okay…”
Remy raised his brows at her sigh. “Chere? What goin’ on dat makin’ you soun’ so sad?” He edged closer to the bed, even though Belladonna had not moved.
“Just the end of the world,” Jubilee responded promptly.
“Quoi?” There was a loud crash from the other end of the line and a muffle sound like someone cursing or hiding a scream, then the line went dead. “Merde,” he breathed, the only word that sprang to mind. Three seconds past with painful slowness until his body obeyed his brain’s command to start moving again. “Belladonna, go pay de desk clerk. We leavin’ now.”
“What?” she replied sharply. “Remy, what’s going on?”
“We’re going to Boston maintenant.” He grabbed the baby off the bed and looked around quickly for anything he might need. “Merde, we need diapers.”
“Remy, what’s going on?” Belladonna stood in place but turned to follow his flight around the room as he took another pack of cards from the hotel room’s desk and grabbed his coat. “Remy Etienne LeBeau, you start talkin’ or I swear to the saints and angels in Heaven I’m gonna scream!”
Remy stopped mid-pace and growled in frustration. “Ain’t got time, Belle! Vas y!”
She glared. “Non!”
“Fine, reste la!”1 He opened the door to the hotel room cautiously and peered out before straightening and striding out into the hallway as if nothing were concerning him, as if he were simply a young father out for an afternoon walk with his infant daughter.
Belle glared after him, her hands clenched in fists by her side. He vanished quickly, disappearing down the stairs marked “Exit”. The hotel phone rang after a moment and she relaxed, moving to answer it. “He’s gone,” she said without preamble.
“Good,” Jubilee’s voice responded, shifting even as she spoke into something darker and richer. “Is he coming to Boston or back to the Institute?”
“Boston. That’s where she told him she would be.”
Mystique nodded, still in the guise of Jubilee. Behind her, Magneto murmured urgently to Pietro and Blob was…Blob. “Good, good. You know what to do next.”
“Of course. I’m almost done with this one anyway. I’ll see you at the meeting place.” Incubus slipped from Belladonna then, her body crumpling to the floor in his wake. The ephemeral form disappeared into the ether, leaving not a trace.
1 Fine, stay here!