Work Text:
It was an unwritten rule of everyone on the island that you never spoke about the things you were subjected to on the island. Which worked well in theory, but when you were trapped in a school with a dozen other people who had suffered like you and the well-meaning headteacher wanted you to work through it together, then you were stuck with the constant reminder of how you’d suffered.
Which is why at the first opportunity he had seen, Pietro Maximoff had sped away, searching for a long time for a way of forgetting until eventually he’d crossed paths with Remy LeBeau and had been drawn in.
For a while things had been simple, they had caused trouble wherever they went; Remy robbing men blind at cards whilst Pietro swiped things from pockets left, right and centre. It wasn’t honest by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a living and it kept a roof over their heads. It gave them a chance to live the life that they had been deprived of for so long, and maybe feel safe for the first time in a long time.
And then the nightmares had started.
Comfortable in each other’s presence, enough so to relax, they were no longer plagued by their suspicions of each other so instead they were haunted by the memories seared in their skulls. Night after night they awoke to each other screaming, howling and whimpering at the flashes of a reality they’d escaped.
For Remy it was the feeling of his skin charring and his body jolting with shock after shock as he tried to charge the bars that held him while the guards laughed at the stupid mutant who wouldn’t give up trying to escape. He remembered the tables, when equipment that he could charge and throw at people had always been so close, but never quite within his reach. And he remembered Victor, the burly mutant who had snatched him from the streets, his sanctuary, and thrown him in that hell-hole, tranquillising him so he had no recollection of the travel from points A to B.
As for Pietro, he dreamt of the moment Agent Zero’s bullet had pierced his leg, forcing him to stop running and collapse in the most unimaginable pain that would subsequently force him to avoid using his natural speed for months to come. He remembered screaming at his sister to go as far away as she could whilst he held them off, standing on his bad leg even as the agony tore through him just so that she could escape. And worst of all, he remembered the metal restraints that encased his wrists and legs and body, preventing him from running or creating a sonic boom, and instead forcing him to drag through every second of his incarceration in the most unimaginable torture. He’d screamed himself hoarse in the first week from the sheer frustration of it.
At first, they had carried on as normal, each as unwilling as the other to bring up the horrors that left them breathing heavily and drenched in the terror that they had once constantly lived in.
And then one night, Remy had been awoken by the sound of Pietro screaming in unimaginable agony, thrashing in the sheets. His own nightmare forgotten, he’d climbed out of bed and raced down the corridor to try and bring some calm to the younger mutant. He knew not to restrain him even with the most comforting of holds, having seen the contraption Pietro had been forced into, but instead stroked his hair and hummed a quiet tune he remembered from his childhood before the island until the speedster’s horror had eased. Only then, when Pietro’s breathing was calm and his sleep undisturbed once more, did he retreat to his own room.
The tables were reversed a few nights later, when Pietro who was having a night of avoiding sleep as he’d become accustom to doing now and again, was startled from his reading by the sound of Remy howling and whimpering in his mental agony. He’d dashed along to Remy’s room and taken in the sight of the Cajun curled into a ball in his blankets, small and unassuming. Without even stopping to think, he’d eased himself onto the bed next to the Cajun, stroking Remy’s hair until he latched onto Pietro like a limpit, drawing comfort from the presence of another. Seeing that Remy had drawn comfort from the encounter, Pietro had stayed all night, only easing himself out of Remy’s grip when the sun had risen and his body had begun to twitch in impatience with the pace of the world.
There was no order or finesse to their new nightly routine. Sometimes it was Remy who offered comfort, and sometimes Pietro was the one to do the comforting. Occasionally, they found themselves staying the night in each other’s rooms, which became more frequent as time went on as they found that having the other there meant that they weren’t as likely to be subjected to the worst of their experiences.
Of course being together was no assurance of preventing the dreams at all, and on one night the worst of them came. Where all the memories flooded them at once till Remy woke with a scream, tangled in the duvet till he ripped it off him and sat up. He felt the cold sweat he was accustom to on nights he was plagued drip down his body and his heart pound in his chest with a punishing ferocity. Pietro, on the other hand, woke with the quietest of whimpers, tears pouring over his face though he did not utter a single sob. He lay there on the mattress, still as anything, a sight that could never mean anything good for the speedster who was constantly in motion.
Only when his heart calmed to a beat he could not hear did Remy turn to his bed partner and offer a sympathetic tilt of his lips.
"Bad nigh’ fo’ you too, huh?" he whispered, his voice hoarse from the screaming he’d been doing in his sleep. Fortunately they were in his room, and he was able to reach for one of the bottles of water he kept on his nightstand just in case he had been screaming in his sleep.
Pietro was silent for a long time, not answering as his eyes stared on to a place Remy couldn’t fathom, unable to register what had been said to him. Eventually though, he brought his chin down in the smallest of nods, before slowly moving his body into a sitting position, curling his legs up to his chest and cradling his arms around them.
"I could see Stryker, an’ Victor, an’ all de guards who wan’ed Remy to suffer. I could feel de burning from de bars of de cage tha’ I tried to charge again and again only to ge’ shocked and ridiculed. It felt so real. Like Remy was back dere all over again an’ no one was comin’ fo’ him."
Remy didn’t know what had made him voice his nightmare to Pietro, but as the words left his mouth he felt the sense of a weight lifting; the sharing of his dream allowing him to acknowledge it as just that and calm from the horror it had brought. He didn’t expect Pietro to share, the other mutant was as closed off as they came, but eventually, in a tone that suggested his mind was still lingering on the nightmare, Pietro murmured,
"I felt the metal surrounding me as they cut into me. No pain killers, no relief. Just utter agony again and again and again. I felt the bullet that Zero put in my leg burn with a pain I have never experience since. And I felt that debilitating knowledge that no one would come and save me because I wasn’t that important or powerful or wanted in the grand scheme of things…"
Remy shuffled closer to Pietro and cautiously put an arm around his shoulders. At first, the speedster flinched, surprised by the contact, but he seemed to settle, and even went so far as to move into a more comfortable position, leaning against Remy. With their dreams shared they took the time to enjoy the silence, the calm that came after the fury and panic and terror simmered out. When the sun rose they’d go back to acting like nothing had happened, but for now, in the dark of night beside another who understood the pain they each held in their hearts, they were able to acknowledge the horrors they had been put through, the wrongs that had been done to them and share them with each other in a bond forged of understanding and suffering.