He's not surprised to spot that long auburn hair, because he has been scanning the crowd for this head exactly, for the last three minutes or so. He's not surprised that the other man looks like he was born into the *suit*, and not just into this room, like it was cell-fitted for him personally. Like he has no problem, inside this suffocating thing, inside that suffocating hall, to exert gracefulness, charm, skill at anything - dancing to sex to lock picking. Like he's fucking *comfortable*. Like that's not effort he's covering up.

He knows how this face looks in effort. He knows how it looks strained and ecstatic, how it looks arched back and almost howling until French loses all meaning and English does not rise to fill the empty place. He knows how this face looks without words, this body without a coherent thought, this pretty glittering sneaky mind when it gives itself away, even for a few seconds, even for its own ends.

He knows how this man looks in effort, open and nearly unguarded or carefully covered, and this is not it.

He's not surprised at that, either.

He's not surprised at the mental images he has to banish from his head at the mere sight of this profile, of those long-fingered hands, because the suit is far too clean-lined to conceal anything. He's not surprised at the stirring, the waking, the drowning in the pit of his stomach, somewhere in there where all conflicting instincts and sensations lie and lay. He's not surprised at anything, now. He's a seasoned soldier.

He's only just a tad bit startled when the other man turns his head this one degree more, lets his smile sharpen, darken, something only Pete can see. Supposedly. Remy has always liked dangerous.

His own unavoidable answering, almost invisible tilt of lip corners is not surprising, just irritating. The intensified stirring in his stomach is just nothing. Nothing.

How goddamned bloody hell *cute*.

But there's nothing cute and warm and fluffy about the way he's feeling now. This isn't a fresh young face grinning at him from across the room, honest and straight. Those aren't light freckles adorning delicate cheekbones. It's not a tall girl's long, lithe body, quick to fight as it is quick to hold, to caress, to express its will and give away its warmth. The mind behind those hellfire eyes, behind that smile, is nothing clean and innocent and... young.

No. Never again.

What he's feeling is far more tugging, far more immediate. Hotter and sharper and much more biting. Nothing cute or fluffy about it, just something moist and *needing*.

Even though he'd decided to never again get hooked on people. Even though he knew how dangerous that was, how prone he was to doing it. Even though each and every fucking good intention he had ever had, except maybe the one not to drink himself to death after -- Shadowcat.

Let's keep professional, here.

He'd allowed himself to get hooked, anyway. Again. Twice in as many years, for such distantly different reasons. He doesn't kid himself about Shadowcat's role in Remy's allure; or, rather, since the man had never needed any help in his allure, in Pete's initial inclination to give in to it.

Giving in. He doesn't kid himself, either, about the fact that his one small revenge at Remy for hooking him so completely and not giving enough in return, for wanting so much he is not willing to give, never demanding, always seducing it out and persuading his way inside... his one frail revenge is this piece of his soul that Remy can never, will never have - the one that belongs to her.

What a bloody magnificent irony.

He doesn't kid himself about just what part of Remy's allure had been the fact that the one thing Remy has always been willing to give, in limited supply and following his own rules and flowing by the lines of *his* defenses but still give it, was the wanting.

*Want*. Everything Pete had, anything inside of him that he used for having something to hang his name on. And in the moments that those defenses changed lines and melted, at those moments Remy forgot to put up and carefully line his limitations, he wanted every last secret part of Pete's soul, anything he could never ever have, every place full of shadows and every corner stained with light. Desperately.

And Pete - soaking up these moments before the well-honed shields came up again - basked in the feeling that someone would direct that unending want at him and loathed the way it wanted to take away his self from him, to keep in Remy's somewhere of the keeping of lost souls. Loved Remy, never use that word, for making him feel this way. Hated him for doing this to him.

And he could never help but answer all the wanting, give in, turn his _want_ and _desire_ and _longing_ to need in return. Couldn't help feeling stupidly, absurdly grateful, each and every time those dams broke.

The _wanting_ on Remy's part sometimes felt notably like need, but it was never quite Pete's brand of it, quite giving it out. Remy *wanted*, wanted with eyes that burned and smoked and made you feel like the empty black hole in them could be somehow filled by something you could do. Pete was never that kind of a fool.

But sometimes, just sometimes he couldn't help but trying.

No more than he could help feeling his body tense, react, at being here and doing something he loved in a city he could stand with someone who was right up there in the big leagues, just where Pete most loved to play. Even in a monkey suit, even not quite blending in, he knew his part and, in his own way, no one could perform it better.

The Cajun may not need to strain himself even a drop, but making an effort wasn't a crime. As long as nobody saw.

A body brushing by his own, when he looked down to the buffet table again, and he knew who it was not by the scent and not by the skin but by the way his body reacted to it. And the possession he felt himself in wasn't from a person staking a claim, or a man calling an old loyal dog, but -

Hooked.

Lips stretched at him in a completely genuine apologetic smile. Red on black eyes glinted and asked questions that would have made someone with less of a gutter inside his own mind blush, and LeBeau whispered, not moving his lips, "Fuck you in the bathroom?" followed by a passing glint of amusement, the tiniest quirk of an eyebrow, as though that was anything new, "Fuck *me* in the bathroom?"

It took effort to say no, and he knew that it showed.